Hi, I much support their inclusion on the agenda. Interest Groups offer NCSG community a very flexible, bottom-up driven, structuralism unconstrained avenue to address diverse Non-Commercial interests. Broader appealing issues gain traction, further details collected, collated, sifted through leading to their subsequent escalation up the food chain. Alex On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 1:58 PM, William Drake <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > It's great to see people expressing interest in doing some work on > substantive policy issues. Now that we are finally past all the charter & > election-related process stuff and have our teams in place, maybe we can > start making some headway in pushing a noncommercial public interest > agenda? A question then arises as to how best to organize our efforts. > One option is to do it ad hoc, i.e. when an issue comes up in Council we > form a team to draft inputs for consideration & possible adoption by the SG > or constituencies. Another option that may be more suitable for ongoing > issues is to establish interest groups (IGs). If people are motivated > enough to make them work, these could foster sustained dialogue, community > building, and institutional memory around the respective issues. Which > option makes the most sense will of course vary across cases. The ad hoc > approach is self evident, but for folks who weren't involved then or don't > remember, it might be worth taking a second to revisit the IG approach. > > We discussed the notion of IGs at some length @ two years ago in the > context of the NCSG charter debate (see the list archive for details). At > that point the driving question was whether it made sense to organize the > NC space into a bunch of issue-specific constituencies that would be board > recognized and have Council seats hard wired to each, or instead to > organize the SG into more flexible IGs that could be formed and dismantled > on a bottom-up basis as needed. The desire to avoid the SG degenerating > into a bunch of turf conscious silos competing for Council seats (which > wouldn't work anyway should we get to more than six) led many people to > think IGs were the way to go, but then in Seoul the board agreed > that Council seats would not be hard wired to constituencies and we could > elect Councilors on a SG-wide basis, so that part of the impetus > for IGs fell away. Thereafter the IG movement stalled as the Charter > progressed and we became a two constituency formation and…you know the rest. > > Anyway, now that our structure is set, we might want to consider whether > IGs could be a useful way for folks with particular specific interests to > work together, including on a cross-constitutency basis. Back when this > conversation happened, a number of NCUC members expressed interest in doing > IGs and we set up lists on the NCUC ning http://ncdnhc.org/groups. Some > signed up for "Interest Groups in Formation" on Development & Capacity > Building (9 members), libraries (2 members), Scientific/Technical > Academics/Experts (5 members), Freedom of Expression, Privacy, & Human > Rights (7 members), individuals (3 members…don't recall what this was > about), and consumer rights (6 members). People also signed up for a bunch > of other sub-groups related to particular Council initiatives, like the > GNSO Operations Team. Some of these groups had bits of dialogue for > awhile, others not so much, and in any event all sort of drifted thereafter. > > So my question is, would it be worth trying to reboot IGs on a SG-wide > basis and situate these on the Confluence page > https://community.icann.org/display/gnsononcomstake/Home? Returning to > Avri's list and Wendy's reply, > > > > On 10/31/2011 06:24 AM, Avri Doria wrote: > > I don't speak for NCUC, but in developing NCSG policy, I'd love to > > convene people online and/or in real-time voice/chat to discuss issue > > areas for focus in the next 6-12 months. > > > Among those I see on the table: > > > Registrar Accreditation and Law Enforcement requests > > registrants' rights > > best practices for domain name suspension (it's happening; > > at least it should happen with due process checks and controls) > > UDRP review, and other TM-rights-protection mechanisms (RPMs) > > Engagement with developing countries > > Engagement with the GAC > > New gTLD roll-out > > Technical security and stability > > > ...and I'm sure I'm missing several. > > > I'd love to see volunteers from among the membership take leadership of > > issue areas and commit to watching for developments, tracking > > opportunities for involvement and NCSG response, and drafting issue > > analyses and public comments. > > > —Wendy > > > Establishing IGs on some of these ongoing items would seem a good way to > do what Wendy's suggesting. > > I pushed the development IG > http://ncdnhc.org/group/interestgroupdevelopment and Rafik, Amr, Fouad, > Alex and Baudouin added comments…would those folks, and others who've > expressed interest now, like to give it another shot? We could try to > advance the broader strategic questions we've tried to ask the board about, > and that Katim's aborted initiative was supposed to take up, as well as be > a home for specific items like tracking and advocating for JAS/applicant > support. What about the folks interested in consumer rights, include the > RAA? And why not have IGs on trademarks, copyright etc. to keep track of > UDRP and related, a FOE/privacy/law enforcement IG, a security and > stability IG, and so on….? > > Should we maybe talk about this approach on the next policy call? > > Best, > > Bill > > >