Avri (re:so you know what you think):

Outreach, activity, charter as well as candidacy [and hence NOPC] seem awfully interconnected. Just a few thoughts on this, naive as they may be, as i try to get up to speed with ICANN-GNSO-NCSG politics:

Re:status update on the charter

########
[snip]
 3. There is in principle agreement to a two stage process for Constituencies as we described in our charter. I.e.,  apply for candidacy as a constituency and then once activity/contribution is proven, approval as a full Constituency. Two issues fall out of this:

     i. We are still discussing the nature of proof of activity/contribution, but we all accept that a constituency needs to be functional and contributing before it is approved for full status.  The question now is how we define the conditions in a predominantly objective way.  I do not know what their ideas on this are yet, I have proposed things like:

               o  participation in at least two working groups with at least 50% participation for 6 months
               o  submission of at least 4 constituency statements on items under public review
               o  a vibrant culture of cooperative work as demonstrated by mailing lists traffic or other group work mechanisms.
               o contributions in the EC, PC and FC on which they will have observer status as candidate constituencies.

    ii.  There needs to be two ways in which a cConstituency can apply for candidate status:  either through the SOI process as we have defined in our charter or through the Staff administered NOIF process.  It would still be up to the NCSG-EC to review and approve, or not, the applications and the process once accepted as a candidate Constituency would be identical.  The predominant reason, as I understand it for the inclusion of the NOIF is because of outreach and an assumption that ICANN can reach a larger swath of possible applicants.  It also provides a mechanism by which Constituencies can be applied for in any SG using a similar method.
[snip]

Wouldn’t the most easy and consistently quantifiable way for NCSG-EC of doing this be the requirement that a certain threshold percentage of NCSG members be accounted for, either 

i) expressing their intentions to join the proposed constituency or, perhaps,
ii) agreeing with its formation?

This might as well be the most easily exportable and adaptable candidacy approval procedure. Indeed the percentages need not be absolutely equal across SGs for a sense of consistency to be achieved. I have no idea what would be acceptable to all, and I merely submit the idea. Perhaps a threshold half that of usual thresholds for recall petitions (which vary in the ranges of 25% to 40%) would have to be met? Depending on the actual rate of "recruitment" and the size of the [NC]SG, it could also be a fixed number of members. Or it could combine both: beyond a certain threshold number of members, the percentage criteria is abandoned for a fixed number criteria of either i) or ii) ? If the board would insist for last say on this, as it seems to be the case, it could have the option to impose a 2/3 ratio of the “candidacy approval threshold”, thereby facilitating somewhat the approval of a contested candidacy. The board could also perhaps mandate the test in cases when a candidacy emerges through the [NC]SG SOI process, with the [NC]SG-EC then allowed to ask for a 2/3 ratio, thereby facilitating somewhat the approval of a contested candidacy.

While this would be the [NC]SG-EC’s as well as the Board's “appeal methodology” in case of disagreement with the board, it would not be mandatory passage for candidate constituencies that have clearly passed whatever bundle of qualitative tests that we can agree with SIC/Board to set out in the charter. The SG-EC could just approve right away with the Board staying pat. This goes to fixing representational, funding, and other types of ICANN-style gerrymandering. BTW, congrats for linking seats with NCSG rather than constituencies, this is a must i believe.

Although I have not thought through all the implications “Re:Incentives and methods for outreach”, I thought I’d still lay this out here because it goes with the flow of what I gather to be a most unstoppable tendency: that of an ever growing political effort at outreach. It’s politically impossible to debate outreach, in my opinion (just like bottom-up gives the Board a hard time), even though a legitimate case can be made that under the actual terms of outreach engagement, most of it may be strategic and politically motivated. Politics *is* mobilization, after all. Again, apologies if this is naïve newbie proposals (i just recently joined and I guess I was just officially "outreached") and if it illuminates my own ignorance more than it does negotiations.

Rosemary : Canada has similar levies to facilitate [citizen] non-commercial participation in telecom regulatory politics.

[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

Hi all

This is a quick reply

the issue of concern to me is the asymmetry of resource in every sense between the market-place (and thus self-funded) participants in ICANN and consumers who are negatively effected by a range of behaviours related to domain names

we see this in Australia in the telco sector with residential consumers and even in my own organisation  for business users of telco services - interest is high, funding is low and therefore outcomes are weighted to industry interests.

I think it's a type of public good problem - everyone wants them, but not all can or will pay.

in the end Government funded  consumer group (which is mightily independent - but that's Australia) and we struggle on with direct business funding

In Australia we also have levies on telco sector to fund a range of activities which support more equal participation in telco regulatory activities (which reminds me to talk to ICANN about AuDA consultations!!!! so I have included Teresa in this reply)

as I see the existing outreach activities of ICANN in regard to supply-side market participants, I think this should be balanced by outreach and support for the consumers

cheers

Rosemary


-----Original Message-----
From: NCSG-NCUC on behalf of Milton L Mueller
Sent: Fri 11/12/2010 2:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fwd: [gnso-osc] Revised Global Outreach Recommendations - for OSC adoption by November 24

Avri:
This report makes me vaguely uneasy and even troubled. I know that "outreach" and "participation" are supposed to be unqualified Good Things in this crazy environment, but I find that to be extremely naïve, for reasons I will explain below.

In my mind, ICANN is a governance institution and therefore its task is to formulate policies and rules that bring a constructive order to a fairly narrow area of Internet activity (domain names). In order to do that, it has to put into place a representational and participatory structure that facilitates making good, effective, legitimate rules and policies. But the representational structure should be populated by an autonomous civil society, not by the governance institution. If ICANN's activities actually have an impact on people's lives, and it gives those impacted people meaningful forms of influence over what it does, THEY WILL PARTICIPATE. They will recruit themselves.

ICANN is not, or should not be, an evangelical Church with a missionary wing that views enlarging its membership as an inherently good thing. ICANN should stick to its narrow, technical policy mission.

The report proposes a standing "Outreach Task Force" (OTF) that is rather large, about 40-50 people. It holds up the IGF MAG as a (positive!) example, something that might surprise those of us who have dealt with the MAG and the intense representational politics that have swirled around it. Not to mention the factional divisions that have mostly paralyzed it.  This OTF is then going to spend a lot of money supporting the activities of a large group as they recruit people into the GNSO.

The report also uses the ITU's Youth outreach program as an example. But here again, if you know that program, it is basically a marketing/educational program, designed to bolster the ITU's future. True, it has legitimate educational purposes, as the young people who enter that program do have enhanced opportunities to learn about international policy making in telecommunications. But in ITU's case there is no confusion between who are the real members to whom the organizational is accountable (governments) and the "recruits" who receive this education. In ICANN the line is blurry.

To express my view in the simplest way, I don't think ICANN, Inc. should be doing, or should be actively managing, popular "outreach." I think the appropriate level of participation and recruiting should be driven by the external people who have a stake in what ICANN does. Human rights groups who want ICANN to pay more attention to freedom of expression or privacy should recruit supporters and bring them into ICANN. Business/trademark groups who want ICANN to pay more attention to their interests should do the same. What really matters here is:


a)  how fair and balanced ICANN's board and board selection process is,

b)  how fair and balanced the GNSO's representational structure is,

c)  how well ICANN translates participation into good policies,

d)  whether ICANN has the appropriate accountability mechanisms binding it to its stakeholders' will.


ICANN should concentrate on those things as a priority, not on some blind rush to "get more people involved."

At best, getting more people involved in a flawed structure is useless because the newcomers quickly learn that the process is dysfunctional or their efforts have no impact, and they leave. At worst, "getting more people involved" becomes a way for the Corporation staff to recruit malleable drones who can be used to undermine or bypass the real stakeholders.

Note that ICANN Inc. is currently paralyzing new constituency formation in NCSG because it won't approve a charter that was approved overwhelmingly by its noncommercial participants. Note how it uses the alleged lack of widespread participation in NCUC to manipulate our representation in GNSO, but ignores a far less diverse showing in the CSG. Those two things by themselves should make us deeply skeptical of any ICANN-driven "outreach" program. In the past two years, NCUC did more successful outreach - at no cost to ICANN - than any other group. And yet what did it get us? Is "outreach" really the goal here, or something else?

Note that this report proposes to use the South Summer School on Internet Governance (SSIG) as a "recruiting" tool. This bothers me. Currently, these wonderful summer schools conceived by Kleinwachter are autonomous institutions. They already educate and sometimes get people interested enough to get involved. If we make them tools or arms of the GNSO, via ICANN funding or pushing ICANN recruiting efforts, their independence is lost, and so is most of their value.

I repeat my main premise: insofar as ICANN's activities actually have an impact on people's lives, and it gives those impacted people meaningful forms of influence over what it does, THEY WILL PARTICIPATE, you will not need an "outreach" program. Investing major amounts of time and money in "outreach" instead of in fixing ICANN's representation and accountability is a big mistake, a diversion.

--MM

From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 12:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS] Fwd: [gnso-osc] Revised Global Outreach Recommendations - for OSC adoption by November 24

Comments welcome so i know what i think.

thanks

a.


Begin forwarded message:


From: "Philip Sheppard" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: 10 November 2010 03:36:14 EST
To: <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: [gnso-osc] Revised Global Outreach Recommendations - for OSC adoption by November 24


Fellow OSC members,
please find attached a recommendation on outreach from the CSG team, chaired by Olga Cavalli, in an effort led by Debbie Hughes.
It is revised based on  the most recent round of input earlier from the OSC and supersedes the version sent to the OSC on 19 October 2010.
It is a redline version.
Let me have your comments with a view to OSC adoption by  November 24 .

After which, assuming a positive reception, we will send it to the GNSO Council.

Philip
OSC Chair