[Ncsg-discuss] SSC update

[Johan Helsingius]

Dear NCSG members,

The GNSO Standing Selection Committee (SSC) has been unusually
busy. It held a meeting on 28 January to select a candidate
for GNSO Appointed Mentor for the ICANN Fellowship Program 2026
to recommend.

In this case, there was a bit of a dilemma as one of the applicants
had submitted their application after the deadline. I, as SSC chair,
made the decision to allow the application but with a remark about
the missed deadline. In the future, late applications will most
likely not be accepted. At that point I did not know who the
candidate was, and what constituency the candidate came from. I
was slightly embarrassed to find out that the candidate was from NCSG.

It was reasonably easy to reach a consensus on the candidate to
recommend (SSC selections are based on unanimous consensus), but a
significant amount of time was then taken by discussion about what
the "don't know" answer to the evaluation question "In your opinion,
is the candidate qualified for the position". While the "don't know"
answer has traditionally been seen as "I don't know if the candidate
is qualified", a new-for-2026 SSC member pointed out that it could
also be understood as "I don't know the candidate". We agreed to
clarify that going forward.

Not long after that, 13 February, the SSC met again, this time to
select a candidate to chair the DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP1 WG. This
was a bit unusual, as the working group chairs are usually appointed
by either the WG or by the Council/Council leadership, but in this
case the Council leadership decided to use the SSC.

The transcripts and recordings of SSC meetings, as well as the mailing
list archives are normally public, but as in this case, the call for
expression of interest had not taken the possibility of using SSC
into account, the candidates had not been asked for permission to
publish their details. Thus the SSC was instructed to keep discussions
confidential (closed email list, no recording of call etc.). After
a debate involving some SSC members (especially Jeffery Neuman from
the RySG strongly calling for openness and transparency, something I
strongly supported), the SSC leadership and council leadership, staff
managed to get permission from all candidates to use the normal open
procedure after all.

There were three candidates, all with lots of strengths, but as the
role description the SSC was given strongly emphasized prior experience
leading WGs, the discussion mostly boiled down to two main candidates,
with more SSC members expressing support for one of them, so after
the discussion consensus for that candidate was called.

I do have to point out that the NCSG is slightly handicapped in that
I, as a chair, have to take a neutral position seeking consensus, and 
can't advocate for a specific candidate. Besides me the other NCSG
representatives are Pedro Lana and Frank Anati, but this time Pedro
was unfortunately unable to attend. Fortunately we also have Benjamin
Akinmoyeje as an assigned alternate, and he was able to stand in
for Pedro.

The recommendation is now in the hands of the GNSO Council that has
to approve (or not) the candidate - the SSC selection is only a
recommendation.

For now there isn't anything on the SSC radar, so for now there
is no next SSC meeting in the agenda.


	Julf