comments on the ICANN budget

[Nadira Alaraj]

Thanks Ayden and all responded to my suggestion for themed subteams.
These responses are rich in knowledge and informative, they add another
layer to my understanding and I expected it did for the others.

I appreciate Aydens' tremendous hard work he puts to come up with the
initial draft comments in his simple but not easy content writing style and
enjoyable to read.  Through them I've learned many things. The comments and
the discussions of senior members by itself is another school.

Earlier of this year Renata on behalf of the new elected NCUC EC circulated
a survey to solicit the members feedback on what outreach activities to do.
I suggested to have inreach activities to the members and I failed to reply
when I was approached to elaborate, thinking it is irrelevant to the
purpose of the survey.

On the same wave, from what I remember reading through the NCUC and NCSG
mailing lists a suggestion to have onhand workshop to NCUC members on
policy writings. I'm not sure if such plan proposed in the NCUC budget.

Depending on individual members to react, engage and comment without any
experience or know how would take longer time and even individual will
loose momentum in providing such input on the long run as we can see among
the silent majority of the 400+ individual member.

But working within the community and empowering them will bring more to be
an active knowledgeble member ready to research for information on the
policy paper under discussion and provide their valuable comments.


On May 3, 2017 1:49 AM, "Ayden Férdeline" <icann at ferdeline.com> wrote:

> Thanks, Milton. I agree with everything that you wrote. I think our
> ‘process’ at the moment involves more persuading people to accept the
> comment that has been written, rather than a fully participatory process
> whereby we meaningfully invite reflection and scrutiny. I hope we can do
> better in the months ahead; there are 9 comments closing over the next
> three weeks, so we have a number of opportunities to do so...
>
> Ayden
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: comments on the ICANN budget
> Local Time: 2 May 2017 11:21 PM
> UTC Time: 2 May 2017 22:21
> From: milton at GATECH.EDU
> To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>
>
> These are great comments, Ayden.
>
>
>
> I don’ t mean to downplay the difficulty of making public comments. I have
> shepherded a number of comments through the NCSG and NCUC on many occasions
> over the years, often it is a thankless task. I agree totally that NCSG is
> not responding often enough and well enough to public comments. I also have
> no illusions: informing and engaging the membership will not magically
> solve this problem. Often, it really does require expertise that only one
> or two of us will have.
>
>
>
> Engaging the membership will, however, increase the chances that someone
> in the membership who knows something or has a relevant point of view will
> be identified and involved, and increases the likelihood that the comments
> that are filed actually reflect the views of the membership. (Who knows,
> help with that comment on Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone Label
> Generation Rules may just be around the corner ;-)
>
>
>
> Creating subteams of the PC worsens the problem – greater fragmentation of
> the discourse. In crowdsourcing, smaller numbers means less chance of
> success, and fundamentally we are crowdsourcing our comments. We just need
> a more organized and systematic process by which the membership is informed
> of impending comment deadlines and people are identified to execute them.
> Things get done when individuals step up and “own” a comment. (One would
> expect the chair of the finance committee to take the lead on generating
> comments about the budget, for example?) The “owner” doesn’t have to be a
> PC member. The owner of the comment just has to take responsibility for
> seeing it through (which is what you have done in a couple of cases, Ayden)
> warn us of impending deadlines, urge us to read it, etc.
>
>
>
> --MM
>
>
>
> *From:* Ayden Férdeline [mailto:icann at ferdeline.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 2, 2017 5:45 PM
> *To:* Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu>
> *Cc:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: comments on the ICANN budget
>
>
>
> Lest anyone have the impression that the Policy Committee (PC) has
> successfully siloed itself away from the broader NCSG membership, I can
> say, as a member of the Policy Committee, that I often feel out of the loop
> as well. And it is not just a feeling; some NCSG decisions *are* being
> made off-list.
>
>
>
> When it comes to public comments, I agree that we need to do a better job
> at collecting input from our wider membership and feeding these back into
> our public comments. But we also need to do a much better job at responding
> to public comments. The amount we do not respond to is greater than the
> number we do respond to. And that's a real failure which we need to address.
>
>
>
> I think it is easy to say that we should delegate things better, or that
> we need to engage the membership better, and please don't misunderstand me
> here, because I agree on both counts. But neither are easy nor always
> enjoyable. I have written a few comments which have been submitted on
> behalf of the NCSG, and while I like the process of reviewing consultation
> materials, analysing documents, reviewing the activities of the Working
> Groups through their mailing lists and relevant transcripts, and writing a
> first draft, this all takes time.
>
>
>
> What I find particularly exhausting is having to then herd cats to get any
> feedback. Feedback is not just a +1, though they are nice -- for it to be
> useful there needs to be a bit of meat on the bones. And there are real
> challenges involved in facilitating this feedback, because we are asking
> people to comment on an issue that I (or someone else) has spent a great
> deal of time studying in order to prepare the first draft of a comment.
> There are probably only a dozen members that we have who possess the
> subject knowledge to be able to evaluate a comment without first reviewing
> a great deal of documents. I am not saying we shouldn't engage our
> membership better - we must! - I am only saying it is not easy to do in
> practice, and takes away the time of the writer of the first draft from
> working on preparing additional comments.
>
>
>
> Writing comments is not only the responsibility of the PC; anyone can and
> is welcome to do so. I have previously written to this list asking if we
> have anyone who speaks Ge'ez, and offering to work with them to draft a
> response to the Proposal for Ethiopic Script Root Zone Label Generation
> Rules. I did not hear back, but that offer still stands. I am reluctant to
> support the idea of PC sub-teams only because that sounds like each one
> will need a coordinator to take charge, but informally, if we can work
> together on something, reach out to me. I'd really like to help where I can.
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Ayden Férdeline
>
> linkedin.com/in/ferdeline <http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline>
>
>
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
>
> Subject: Re: comments on the ICANN budget
>
> Local Time: 2 May 2017 9:57 PM
>
> UTC Time: 2 May 2017 20:57
>
> From: milton at GATECH.EDU
>
> To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
>
> > Before Ed came up with his comment, there had already been a comment
>
> > drafted on the PC list (only), he posted there as a reaction to it, and
> while he
>
> > could at that point have Cc'd ncsg-discuss, anybody else in PC list
> could have
>
> > done it at any point just as well (or anyone not on the list but
> interested
>
>
>
> That's exactly what I have been trying to say: the PC - not out of ill
> intent, but out of habit and perhaps a bit of laziness - is increasingly
> siloing itself and excluding the SG as a whole from important discussions.
> I understand fully how easy it is to slip into this habit, I understand
> that it takes an extra bit of effort to include the rest of the membership.
> For that to change it has to be challenged.
>
>
>
> > enough to follow it, after all it is publicly archived).
>
>
>
> An enormous amount of information is "publicly archived." One could spend
> the rest of one's life digging it out.
>
> This is not the way to go. Archives are there as a record.
>
> In real time, it is the _obligation_ of PC members and especially chairs
> of important committees to _push_ the information out to the membership.
>
>
>
> > It's just too natural to follow up discussions wherever they are
> happening
>
> > without thinking, and it does take an extra mental effort to stop and
> think
>
> > with every time should I change the distribution now.
>
>
>
> I am asking everyone on the PC, and especially chairs and Councilors, to
> make that extra mental effort.
>
> Always.
>
>
>
> --MM
>
>
>
>
>
>
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