<html><head></head><body>Hi,<br class=""/><div><br class=""/><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jul 28, 2020, at 6:52 PM, Mueller, Milton L <<a href="mailto:milton@GATECH.EDU" class="">milton@GATECH.EDU</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"/><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class="">That’s right Arsene. Some of our most active members (e.g., Amr) refuse to join either constituency. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""></span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""/></div><div>That’s right. I see no practical purpose or sense in joining a constituency. I don’t believe the NCUC or NPOC (or any other potential future Constituency) serve any practical purpose to begin with. I say this having been a member of the NCUC in the past.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>The way I see it, Constituencies in the NCSG add redundant administrative overhead without adding any true additional value at all. They basically create useless constructs that result in competition over resources dedicated to non-commercial representation within the GNSO, and offer pretty much nothing in return.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Some examples:</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>When NPOC was first created, it wasn’t (as Sam suggests) because NGOs were concerned over fraudulent use of domain names, which may affect their online activity. The creation of NPOC was a blatant attempt by the IPC to dilute the influence of non-commercial representation, and for commercial interests (those of the IPC and BC) to infiltrate and take over the little influence the NCSG has. They effectively wanted to increase their Council representation at the NCSG’s expense; shifting the balance of power within the GNSO in their favor against those of the NCSG and Contracted Parties. A member of the IPC (who later became its president) actually held the domain name <a href="http://npoc.org" class="">npoc.org</a> for several years before handing it over to the Constituency.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>This attempted coup didn’t last very long, and a second generation of NPOC members worked hard to try to redefine NPOC’s role. As far as I can tell, this exercise has met with failure after failure over the years, and now Joan is offering hope that yet another generation of NPOC leadership (I think of it as the latest NPOC regime), more than a a decade after its formation, is finally going to succeed at realizing this seemingly elusive objective.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Another previous regime of NPOC (not the current one in place) also attempted to wrestle influence and perks (in the form of travel support) away from the NCSG by demanding a change in the way the NCSG is represented on the GNSO Council - making it so that 3 Councilors are elected by the NCUC and the 3 others by NPOC (completely disregarding NCSG members who are not part of either Constituency). Years of debate and disagreement (which got quite heated on many occasions) were wasted dealing with this instead of focusing on the NCSG’s primary mission, which I will get to a little later.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>More recently (in preparation for the ICANN meeting in Kobe in March of last year), one of the NCSG’s Councilors was unable to make it to the meeting, and the NCSG Executive Committee was seeking a temporary replacement to be appointed, and receive the travel slot to participate at the meeting in Kobe. Having had experience on Council (I still follow the work of the GNSO Council very closely), on many GNSO WGs and Committees over the years as well as a brief period I spent on ICANN’s policy support team, I applied. I admit that I was also seeking travel support to the Kobe meeting to participate in the face-to-face meetings the EPDP Team was holding, which I am a member representing the NCSG on. The thing is, the Councilor I was replacing was a member of NPOC, and an NPOC EC member at the time argued to choose Tapani to attend that meeting over of me. I can’t speak to the motivation behind this, but assume it was out of some sense of loyalty to one’s own Constituency.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Tapani, to his credit, withdrew his own application to attend the meeting when he discovered this debate was taking place, and recommended that the NCSG EC select me as the replacement Councilor. He seemed to believe that my presence would fulfill the requirement of adequate Council representation, and that my in-person participation in EPDP meetings was important. I’m still quite grateful to Tapani for doing this, and believe it to be an example of putting the interests of the Stakeholder Group over any personal interests he might have had (I don’t believe his objective in applying was self-serving, but I hope you get my meaning).</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>These are just a few examples of how the two Constituencies have uselessly competed over non-commercial resources over the years, and to be very honest, I still fail to understand what value either of them actually add to non-commercial representation in the GNSO. Instead of having one coordinated effort to that effect, coordination between the two constituencies and the NCSG requires a great deal of work/effort, as well as the good will of the leadership teams of the 3 structures, which simply isn’t always there. IMO, this isn’t just pointless…, it’s total madness.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>As Milton suggests, since leaving ICANN staff, and returning to the NCSG, I’ve refused to rejoin the NCUC. I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to do so, when I held a principle that its very existence is counter-productive.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Having said that let me get to policy development in the GNSO. This is the primary purpose of the NCSG I was referring to above. The NCSG exists to advocate for the interests of registrants who register domain names for non-commercial purposes. It doesn’t matter whether they are individuals or orgs, the NCSG is meant to represent the interests of both types of registrants in GNSO policy development equally. Raoul would have you believe that this would be more effective if NPOC focuses on the interests of NGOs, while the NCUC focuses on those of individuals. He doesn’t explain why, but I’m sure he has his reasons. Anyway…, instead of actually doing either, let’s spend time debating over this strange division (again)!! Others are arguing that if we do away with Constituencies altogether, the job will be done better on both fronts, because we can eliminate the administrative overhead holding us back, and focus on our mission.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Both arguments, imo, are dead wrong. Abolishing Constituencies (or the more PC expression of that now; merging them into the NCSG) will achieve nothing in terms of the NCSG’s capacity to participate in policy development. Sure…, it might help focus administrative work to support those who do participate, but will not change anything in terms of our overall capacity.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Increasing our participation in policy development can’t be fixed with some silver bullet. Decreasing administrative overhead won’t do it, neither will any other effort like mentorship or capacity building. We’re a Stakeholder Group of volunteers, and the only thing we actually need are members who able and willing to dedicate the time and effort to policy development. This might seem simple enough, but it really isn’t. The commitment is daunting, and takes over a significant amount of one’s personal and professional life.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>The admin work involved in running the NCSG, NCUC and NPOC is nowhere near as demanding and grueling as the work involved in policy development. Every now and then, we get an NCSG Chair that does more than just admin duties, and takes it upon herself/himself to put a great deal of effort into coordinated long-term strategies to enhance the influence of the NCSG with other groups, with the ICANN Board and with ICANN Org. We’ve had some remarkable Chairs in the past, but that isn’t always the case. For Chairs like them, they take it upon themselves to go the extra mile, and do the work needed, and are rarely able to delegate any of the effort to others, if they want it to get actually done.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>The bottom line is, you can’t expect to pluck an NCUC EC member out of the NCUC EC, and drop her/him into a GNSO WG, and believe everything will be fine. It’s all about individual contributions, and frankly, anyone who is willing and able to participate in Policy Development Process WGs, but is choosing to do NCUC executive work instead is wasting valuable volunteer capacity.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>I suggest that our members elect to abolish Constituencies simply because it’s the sensible thing to do. If you want to do anything about increasing our capacity to develop policy, then please join a WG, and don’t just sit there silently. Actually engage and participate. Attend calls, read the emails sent, and participate actively with zeal as required.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Also…, would be great if our leadership actually went out and recruited new members capable and willing to participate in policy development.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Apologies for the long rant, but I hope it is even slightly helpful.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Thanks.</div><div><br class=""/></div><div>Amr</div><br class=""/><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class="">From:</span></b><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>NCSG-Discuss <<a href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU" class="">NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU</a>><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">On Behalf Of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Arsène Tungali<br class=""/><b class="">Sent:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Tuesday, July 28, 2020 12:01 PM<br class=""/><b class="">To:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU" class="">NCSG-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU</a><br class=""/><b class="">Subject:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: Follow Up and Further Reflections on Consolidating NCSG, NCUC and NPOC<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">We also have here folks who are only members of the NCSG, Dorothy!<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">On Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 3:44 PM dorothy g <<a href="mailto:dgdorothydg@gmail.com" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">dgdorothydg@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><blockquote style="border-style: none none none solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0in 0in 0in 6pt; margin-left: 4.8pt; margin-right: 0in;" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">So the idea is to just have NCSG, no more NPOC and NCUC. So if the group persists in going in the consolidation direction the participation in the group to engage with ICANN should be 2 from NPOC and 2 from NCUC. I do not get the point of any participation from the umbrella group as everyone there is from either NPOC or NCUC. If we have definitional problems all we need to do is to provide a clear standard definition. Your argument seems to tend to the dissolution of NPOC as you explain the logic for setting it up no longer exists. NPOC members may have a different view. I just wish we could focus on getting people to participate more effectively. Merging will not in my view solve that fundamental problem.<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">best<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 2:02 AM Sam Lanfranco <<a href="mailto:lanfran@yorku.ca" target="_blank" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" class="">lanfran@yorku.ca</a>> wrote:<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><blockquote style="border-style: none none none solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0in 0in 0in 6pt; margin-left: 4.8pt; margin-right: 0in;" class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">I would like to express my appreciation for the thoughtful comments, both pro and con, made with regard to my proposal that we review the existing structures within NCSG, and explore if there are efficiency and effectiveness gains from a possible redesign under one administrative structure.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">I would like to add some observations. First, NCSG/NCUC/NPOC is unique among the ICANN constituencies. Individual engagement in the other constituencies is usually part of a job and one is accountable to one’s employer. When we represent an organization, as I do, we rarely receive material support (income, travel, accommodations. We may be only loosely accountable for the positions we take in policy development and other ICANN business, expected to work on behalf of the public interest.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">We occupy a special position in ICANN’s multistakeholder model. Virtually all the other stakeholder groups (including GAC) have a strong material self-interest in ICANN’s policies and practices, tempered with a social enterprise commitment to the public good. For the troika, the priorities tend to be reversed. We work on behalf of the public good, while remaining aware of the self-interests of our organizations, or our individual self-interest.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">Not only are we different, our presence is essential to ICANN’s commitment to a multistakeholder model. On the three/four legged ICANN multistakeholder stool there is the contracted-parties leg, the non-contracted-parties leg, the troika as a fragile third leg, and GAC, in its special position, as a possible fourth leg. As ICANN seeks to strengthen its multistakeholder model (MSM) we should have a dialogue with them around ways we and they can strengthen the troika’s leg, strengthen our role in ICANNs affairs, and improve the effectiveness of ICANN’s material support for us. We should go beyond general MSM policy development and draft document comments.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">In terms of our volunteer resources and ICANN’s material support it is worth again remembering why NPOC was spun off from NCUC, with NCSG being formed as the umbrella group. About a decade ago large global NGOs were afraid of unauthorized and possibly fraudulent uses of their names in the DNS space, and NPOC was created to give them a venue for their concerns within ICANN. However, from the very start those large global NGOs decided to lobby ICANN more directly and leave NPOC, NCSG, and NCUC only as commentators in the process.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">Trying to explain the differences between NCGS, NCUC and NPOC to prospective members, and to those outside ICANN who are engaged in DNS issues, is not easy. It does not help in recruiting members nor does it expand volunteer resources. Staffing three effectively similar administrative structures with volunteers in not easy. Equally difficult is to answer the question “What is lost if the troika consolidates into one administrative structure?”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">The troika has a core of dedicated and hard-working volunteers who reflect the rule that no matter the size of the organization, about 20% of the members do 80% of the work. Here those who do most of the work are overworked. With more members on board and engaged in policy development we could do more, more equitably share the work, and make a bigger contribution to ICANN’s mission and vision, while serving the public interest.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">There are several directions in which this discussion can be taken. I suggest that one would be to have a three person group (NCSG, NCUC, NPOC) engage in a conversation with ICANN that explores the levels of ICANN support, the modes of ICANN support, and areas where those resources could be used more effectively in the troika’s role in ICANN’s work. It would of course make no decisions but would inform us of the concerns and ideas exchanged. At the same time we should not just list, but also carefully weigh the benefits and costs an administrative consolidation.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;" class="">Sam Lanfranco, NPOC<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><br clear="all" class=""/><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">--<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">stay well, kind regards<o:p class=""></o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;" class="">Dorothy Gordon</div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""/></body></html>