[council] Procedural concerns with gtld-com.
Council,
allow me to address the concern raised by Thomas Roessler,
Council liaison from the At-Large Advisory Committee, and try to separate out
the substantive from the procedural which seem to be getting rather
mixed-up.
.
Substantive
The three-page draft report reflects the discussions of the
gTLDs committee over the last few months. Those pages were written as a
whole to answer the Board's request. The report is not a menu, from which
to pick and choose the bits one likes. It is not appropriate to take out a few
lines that support one point of view and propose that as the report. That would
be misleading and do a disservice to member's contributions.
.
It should be noted that the report explicitly says additional
work will be necessary to implement the report's recommendations.
.
In a posting to the gTLDs committee, the ALAC representative,
has expressed her concern about some of the report's recommendations. These
concerns typically speculate on possible implementation strategies of the
report's recommendations. It was not the job of this
committee to discuss the implementation strategies. That is future
work.
.
Procedural
The main concern expressed by Thomas I understand is
that opportunities for public comment have been lacking because there was no
policy development process (PDP). Let me remind Council that the committee
has done exactly what it said it would do (see list posting of 3 February 2003).
Did the Board choose to initiate a PDP itself? No. Did Council recommend a PDP
at this early stage? No.
.
Should Council determine at its May 22 meeting that a public
comment period should NOW start, that is Council's right.
.
Should Council determine that a PDP should start on some or
all of the recommendations within the report, that is Council's
right.
.
I believe that such a way forward would be more productive
that taking a hatchet to one of the most concise reports ever to emerge from the
DNSO/GNSO.
.
Philip Sheppard
Chairman gTLDs Committee
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