Re: [council] Re: NCtelecon - the straw poll and learning points

["Roberto Gaetano" <roberto.gaetano@voila.fr>]

Philip,

You make very good points, but let me explain where I disagree with some
 of your conclusions, and what are the dangers I see.

You wrote:
>The minutes make rather too much of the vote. Further the questions 
were (as
>you point out) ambiguous.
>

The problem I see is not the "vote" in itself, or how it was proposed or
 conducted, but the fact that the report from WG-C has not endorsed "in 
full".

>I certainly interpreted the question as "is there global 
agreement"....and
>this explains the way I voted in the straw poll. I believe most 
everyone
>wants new names (albeit some with a subject to certain rules) and I 
know of
>much disagreement to the idea that a 6-10 mix of charters and open 
domains
>is a good idea. Many parties recognise that you cannot have a 
meaningful
>charter concept with a limit on numbers.
>

I fully agree that not everybody in the Internet Community will be happy
 with the 6-10, but this has been considered (by WG-C), personal 
opinions aside, the best compromise.
Not to accept this, and not forward this to ICANN, means one of the two:

- either the NC believes that another number will reflect better than 6-
10 the consensus of the Internet Community (and in this case I would 
like to know which is the number, how we arrived to establish this 
number, and why the WG-C lost time and resources in trying to get to a 
consensus if the "correct" number was already known by the NC);
- or the NC believes that no number can be suggested to the ICANN BoD 
(and therefore implicitely admitting the DNSO's inability to exerce its 
function of counsel in DNS matters to ICANN).

As for the question itself, and the personal approach of all the 
individuals that form the Name Council, I think that it is simply "not 
in order".
It is not in order because the NC reps are not individuals that have 
been selected to provide opinions about the "general feelings of the 
Internet Community At-Large", but individuals that have been elected by 
their respective Constituencies to make the interests of their 
respective constituencies.
And therefore, the NC can only express the political will of the 
Constituencies it represents, not try to guess the will of the rest of 
the world.

>However, given that the NC was constructed to represent the various
>stakeholders would it have been a better straw poll to vote on what 
each
>constituency believes?  Perhaps - but that would mean consulting with
>constituencies in advance and then having a formal vote.
>

Exactly.
But my little finger tells me that a formal vote about "what the 
constituencies believe" will give no different results.


>Learning point 1 - a straw poll in a public meeting is a dangerous 
thing.
>Learning point  2 - the NC should be given a chance to read and approve
 the
>summary before it goes public to assist with any ambiguity in its first

>draft.
>


Learning point 3 - don't start a WG if you are not ready to endorse its 
consensus points

But anyway, this is the past, let's look at the future.
What is the idea, not to give any recommendation to ICANN as far as 
number of gTLDs, or to provide a different number? And in the latter 
case, how is this number going to be determined?

Regards
Roberto