+1

Thanks Bill:

"I am puzzled that the section starts out by saying, "we have noted that there is a widely shared perception of duplication, even of outright competition between At-Large and the GNSO’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) - and to a certain extent, with the Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC).”

"I don’t know among whom these are "widely shared" perceptions..., but in my 3 years as NCUC chair I never experienced any duplication or competition.  I can’t see how such vague assertions unconnected to anything real are helpful."


Norbert Klein

On 1.2.2017 11:37 PM, William Drake wrote:

Hi

On Feb 1, 2017, at 16:43, Ayden Férdeline <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

On the ICANN wiki, ICANN staff have uploaded a new draft of the report of the Review of the At-Large Community. You can read it in PDF format here: https://community.icann.org/display/ALRW/Review+of+the+ICANN+At-Large+Community+-+Draft+Report+for+Public+Comment

The report will open for public comment today, and I think it is important we respond (and also read it closely to see whether or not there are any lessons we can learn, ahead of the GNSO Review). To aid us in drafting our comments, I am going to compare the changes in this second draft against those from the initial report released in December — before members of the At-Large Review Working Party requested signifiant revisions — and I'll try to produce a redlined version, which I'll share on our list. The initial draft was an honest assessment of At-Large. A cursory glance at the revisions in this new draft suggests the inclusion of flowery language praising the current leadership of At-Large for their stewardship of the community over time; I hope the original recommendations have not been materially toned down, but I haven't read the report close enough just yet to assess whether or not this is the case. 

Thanks Ayden for the offer.  I hope that in any comment we submit we bring a little clarity to the section on "Mission overlap with NCUC & NPOC.”  I am puzzled that the section starts out by saying, "we have noted that there is a widely shared perception of duplication, even of outright competition between At-Large and the GNSO’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) - and to a certain extent, with the Not-for-Profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC).”  I don’t know among whom these are "widely shared" perceptions (feels a bit like the Westlake Report all over again), but in my 3 years as NCUC chair I never experienced any duplication or competition.  I can’t see how such vague assertions unconnected to anything real are helpful.  Moreover, the authors say the differences between NCSG and ALAC are simply that

• -  The role of the ALAC is to provide advice on policy and other issues being discussed within ICANN that have implications for end users. 
• -  The role of NCUC and NPOC, as constituencies of the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) within the GNSO, is to provide policy advice related to work of the policy- development function within the GNSO

One would think that the fact that At Large is a multistakeholder formation with a lot of folks from various commercial parts of the community merits mention.  Of course there are civil society folks there too and some of us have participated extensively in AL, but on the whole we are talking about very different beasts, and not simply because of the AC/SO roles.

Sigh…

Cheers

Bill

************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
  University of Zurich, Switzerland
[log in to unmask] (direct), [log in to unmask] (lists),
  www.williamdrake.org
************************************************