Charter revision procedures

[Raoul Plommer]

Well said Amr. Thanks for taking the time to articulate this.

-Raoul

On Mon, 10 Jun 2019, 18.38 Amr Elsadr, <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I understand Stephanie’s decision to refrain from engaging on a topic on
> which an investigation, which the Ombudsman is involved in, is ongoing.
> However, I am not party to this investigation, and don’t believe it is
> inappropriate for me to share some thoughts.
>
> Remmy, a few members of the NCSG (including myself) have attempted to
> engage with you on your request to review and amend the Charter in good
> faith. Personally, I find your style of engagement with Stephanie on this
> and the other email thread relevant to this topic very distasteful.
>
> I generally find these sorts of discussions on our members’ mailing list
> to be a good thing; an opportunity for us to hold open discussions where we
> can voice our concerns, and agree or disagree on outcomes. Holding them
> openly is how I believe it should be done, and I hope that for those who
> don’t engage in them, everybody who reads the emails being circulated
> becomes aware of either the policy or administrative issues at stake, or at
> a minimum, learn something new about the work being done within or by the
> NCSG. The tone of your emails is not helpful to any of these effects, and
> as James Gannon has already pointed out, they violate ICANN’s Expected
> Standards of Behavior
> <https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/expected-standards-2016-06-28-en>, which
> we are all subject to when interacting with each other.
>
> Stephanie has already explained her view on how the process to review the
> NCSG Charter should be conducted, and is doing her duty as NCSG Chair in
> seeing it through. She’s invited you take the necessary steps to properly
> initiate this process. Instead of doing this, you’ve insisted on continuing
> to pointlessly argue, and send derogatory remarks to a mailing list on
> which several hundred members of the NCSG are subscribed.
>
> You’ve accused the NCSG Chair of prejudicial consideration of your request
> and of being involved in a “ringmarolling exercise” in an attempt to
> apparently dismiss your concerns. You’ve accused her of hiding under the
> elections currently underway, and accused others of being dishonest,
> pretentious, working to keep the status quo motivated by
> self-aggrandizement, and the allegations go on and on and on. What you’ve
> failed to do is engage constructively with colleagues in a process that you
> yourself would like to see initiated.
>
> The NCSG exists for one sole purpose; to enable the representation of
> non-commercial interests in gTLD policy development in the GNSO. Any
> structures (such as the Financial Committee, the Policy Committee and the
> Executive Committee) that exist within the NCSG are only there to further
> this purpose. Since joining the NCSG, Stephanie has been a true and
> tireless champion in advocating for non-commercial interests. The amount of
> time and effort she's put in to the NCSG, the different working groups
> she’s participated in as well as the GNSO Council over the years, and the
> admirable character she’s displayed doing all this has earned her the
> respect, not only of NCSG colleagues who are also engaged and witness to
> all this, but also community members from other GNSO Stakeholder Groups and
> Constituencies, as well as other ICANN Supporting Organizations and
> Advisory Committees. What the majority of others (including yourself) have
> done on behalf of the NCSG truly pales in comparison to Stephanie’s
> contributions. She deserves significantly more than the disrespectful and
> aggressive behavior you’ve displayed.
>
> I try to be very selective of my contributions to this mailing list (to
> only share thoughts that I believe are relevant to substantive issues), and
> rarely ever engage in this kind of troubling issue. However, your incessant
> interventions over the past week, or so, are very much out of line. Please
> stop, and limit your interventions to issues of substance that we all need
> to consider regarding a potential review of the Charter, which at your
> request, we may need to vote on some day. I am not in any way asking you to
> censor yourself, but please express yourself respectfully to others who are
> undoubtedly deserving of this respect. There’s nothing wrong with
> disagreeing on an issue, but ad hominem attacks are not constructive, and
> should not be tolerated.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Jun 10, 2019, at 4:51 PM, Stephanie Perrin <
> stephanie.perrin at MAIL.UTORONTO.CA> wrote:
>
> As I mentioned, given there is an investigation going on and you continue
> to allege that I am acting with prejudice, I will not deal with these
> matters on the list.
>
> You are very welcome to your own interpretation of the Charter.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Stephanie
> On 2019-06-10 04:17, Remmy Nweke wrote:
>
> Good morning chair
> I will answer you in line if don't mind. See below.
>
> On Sat, Jun 8, 2019, 21:40 Stephanie Perrin <
> stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
>> The NCSG Charter can be found here:
>>
>>
>> https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/filefield_25801/ncsg-charter-05may11-en.pdf
>>
>> The section dealing with Charter revision appears below.
>>
>>
>> 5.0 Amendments to the NCSG Charter.Proposals to amend this charter may
>> be submitted by five (5) percent of the then-­‐current members eligible
>> to vote, based on the weighted voting as defined in section 4.0.
>> Proposals may also be put forward by the NCSG-­‐EC or the ICANN Board of
>> Directors or one of the Board's committees.
>> p.23Amendments proposed by the NCSG members or the NCSG-­‐EC will only
>> take effect after there has been a membership review, approval by 60%
>> vote of NCSG members using the weighted voting defined in section 4.0
>> and final review/approval by the ICANN Board of Directors. Amendments
>> proposed and approved by the ICANN Board of Directors or one of its
>> Committees will only take effect after membership review and approval by
>> 60% vote of the NCSG members using the weighted voting defined in
>> section 4.0. The ICANN Board may require proposed amendments to be posted
>> for public comment prior to taking its decision on the proposal.
>>
>> My interpretation of this language is as follows:
>>
>> 1.  Individuals wishing to amend the Charter need to submit proposals for
>> revision (i.e.text of the proposed new articles) supported by 5% of the
>> members eligible to vote.
>>
> By mere fact that the proposal needs 5% of the members eligible to vote
> means ordinarily ithe proposal should be put to vote in first instance.
>
>>
>> 2.  The NCSG EC may also submit proposals, and the ICANN Board of
>> Directors or one of the Board's committees may also submit proposals.
>>
> The proposal was for your EC to take up not a throwback or ringmarolling
> exercise.
>
>> 3. Amendments proposed by the NCSG, either a group of 5% of the members,
>> or the NCSG -EC, will go to a vote of the membership.  As such, they would
>> need to be precisely drafted and explained well to the membership.
>>
> What do you mean by precisely drafted? You may never get that until it has
> taken the cause of public comment and inputs from members to be even near
> properly drafted as its subject to tweaking by ICANN board etc.
>
>> 4.  If 60% of the membership support the amendments, then the proposed
>> amendments to the the ICANN Board for approval, and potentially for public
>> comment.
>>
> That is after the initial voting and exercises must have been concluded ma.
>
>> If those who were active in the drafting of the Charter believe I have
>> misinterpreted this matter, do please jump in and let me know.  As the
>> Chair of the NCSG-EC, I am of course happy to receive requests for drafted
>> amendments to be put to the vote, if supported by the 5% required in the
>> case of Indivual member requests.
>>
> Interpretation of individual to seek the 5% will lead to balkanisation of
> the process which is not even good for the EC or good governance of NCSG.
>
> Above all the least madam chair should do is to take it to EC, schedule a
> date for review. I had requested simply that you put this in your next
> tenure agenda if really you want to help NCSG to kick start the process but
> was rebuffed.
>
> I am not unaware of the process having done charter review previously
> including that of ISOC rebirth in Nigeria and NPOC and Nigeria internet
> Registration Association among others.
>
> If we continue looking for excuses the problem will persist beyond many
> years to come.
> May be revisiting my initial proposal without any prejudice whatsoever
> will help us move to the next level.
>
> Nice day
> Remmy Nweke
>
> Kind regards
>>
>> Stephanie Perrin
>>
>> NCSG Chair
>>
>>
>>
>
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