Private Calls for NCSG Leadership Committees

[Olivier Kouami]

+2 @Amr. Thanks for sharing your experiences. It's good to know. And this
is still weird, for me.
Kind regards.
Olévié

Le ven. 31 juil. 2020 à 10:38, Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja> a
écrit :

> Hi,
>
> You couldn’t be more wrong on all counts, Raoul.
>
> This wasn’t an NCSG EC/Board meeting…, and in all my years with the NCSG,
> I’ve never heard of any such meeting take place. There are regular open
> NCSG/Board Meetings at ICANN public meetings, which anybody (you don’t even
> need to be an NCSG member) may attend. This wasn’t one of those, though.
> This was another kind of meeting we also used to regularly have, which is a
> small informal meeting between NCSG members and Board members from the GNSO
> (CPH and NCPH appointees). These also used to take place at ICANN public
> meetings, traditionally over breakfast, and were never limited to NCSG
> leadership participation only. We even had Fellows and Next-Gen
> participants attend those in the past. Basically…, anybody who was willing
> to get up a little early and go to that breakfast. I don’t know where you
> got the *“This has been going on for many years already and business as
> usual”* from, but that’s a factually incorrect statement. Like I said,
> these have always been informal meetings, and never recorded or anything…,
> but still very important.
>
> Also, when you frame my concern as one of “transparency”, and claim it’s
> overblown, it makes me think you either stopped reading my email halfway
> through, or you just completely missed the point I was making. I never
> claimed that there is a transparency (or lack thereof) issue. Never even
> mentioned the word in my email, so please don’t make this about something
> it’s not.
>
> My concern is with how the NCSG’s leadership is organizing these meetings
> in ways that are counter-productive to the work being done by our members.
> I gave the EPDP and ATRT as examples of where we have members actively
> working on issues, where interaction with the Board is vital to how we make
> strategic plans about the actual work we are doing moving forward.
>
> This isn’t about virtual handshakes and photo ops (or screenshots). This
> is about engaging with the Board members we appoint on critical issues like
> how they’re going to deal with a final report that the NCSG really needs to
> see adopted, when we have “divergence” on 2 of the recommendations in that
> report by the EPDP Team. It’s about engaging with them on their plans to
> work these issues out with the ACs (ALAC, GAC and SSAC) that are doing
> everything they can to sink all the work done over the past 2 years on that
> EPDP, so that they can work these issues out in closed rooms with the Board
> and staff, and exclude the NCSG from these discussions altogether. Y’know…,
> real NCSG work stuff, Raoul?
>
> When Matthew Shears was up for reappointment by the NCPH, I specifically
> asked him to make sure to hold these meetings with the NCSG in order to
> have an opportunity to discuss these very issues, and he complied. It’s our
> own Executive Committee that failed to announce the meeting to the general
> membership. That doesn’t mean there was lack of transparency. The call was
> announced on the EC mailing list, which is publicly archived.
>
> You also seem to have selectively ignored the second call we were not
> invited to, which was a call with a candidate from the ISPCP Constituency
> running for GNSO Chair. I hope I don’t need to explain the relevance of
> attending a call concerning that election to you. If you feel I do, I’d be
> happy to. Now that Maryam has circulated the recording and attendance of
> that call, it’s clear that the majority of our Councilors did not attend
> it, including the incoming Councilors who will be voting for and working
> with the new GNSO Chair. I always have a checklist of promises I ask
> candidates for GNSO Chair to make, such as a commitment to guard the GNSO’s
> right to develop gTLD policy recommendations, which is a right always under
> attack by ICANN ACs. If a candidate is not willing to publicly make this
> commitment (as an example), I normally advise our Councilors to not back
> him/her as a candidate.
>
> So, Raoul…, are you getting a picture of what the big deal is?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Jul 31, 2020, at 11:32 AM, Raoul Plommer <plommer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> I think this demand for transparency is somewhat overblown here, Amr. The
> board has gotten together with NCSG EC and its chairs like with all the
> other SGs. What's the big deal? This has been going on for many years
> already and business as usual as far as I can see.
>
> -Raoul
>
> On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 at 06:58, Olivier Kouami <olivierkouami at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> +1 @Amr.
>>
>> Warm regards
>> Olévié
>>
>> Le jeu. 30 juil. 2020 à 12:40, Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja> a
>> écrit :
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> From looking at the NCSG EC Archive (
>>> https://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-ec/2020-July/date.html), I see
>>> that there are a couple of calls that are taking place without any notice
>>> or invitation being sent to our general membership. I, for one, would have
>>> liked to attend both calls, and don’t understand why they’ve been kept from
>>> us regular members by the NCSG EC.
>>>
>>> The first call, held yesterday (29 July) was apparently with Matthew
>>> Shears, and possibly other ICANN Board members too. I recall holding a call
>>> with Matthew when he was up for reelection by the NCPH (we were invited to
>>> that call, thankfully), and recall specifically asking him to hold periodic
>>> calls with our members as a means to keep in touch, and facilitate
>>> communication with the NCSG. Matthew seems to be doing his part, but we’ve
>>> been excluded form participation by our own SG’s leadership (a presumption
>>> on my part, so please correct me if I’m mistaken).
>>>
>>> Right now would have been a really good time to engage with our Board
>>> members, especially considering the EPDP finalizing its Phase 2 final
>>> report, and the Board having a seemingly strong opinion on one of the
>>> recommendations, which conflicts with our own. There may be other topics of
>>> importance to our members, like the recent ATRT recommendations, and what
>>> the Board’s consideration of those will mean to the ICANN MSM.
>>>
>>> Earlier today, it seems like a second call was also held (or was at
>>> least scheduled to be) with colleagues in the CSG regarding the election of
>>> a new GNSO Chair. Again…, this is an issue of great importance to NCSG
>>> members, particularly those who are engaged in policy development in the
>>> GNSO. Why were we not invited to attend this call as well? I hope that the
>>> NCSG’s new incoming Council representatives were at least invited to this
>>> second call, since they will be expected to work with the new GNSO Chair,
>>> and will also be expected to vote in this election.
>>>
>>> I find this kind of disregard to our members’ participation to be
>>> incredibly counter-productive to the work we do, and don’t really care for
>>> explanations or excuses. I’d just really like to see it stop.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> Amr
>>>
>>
>
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