[ga] Task Forces and Working Groups

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

Since there have been some discussions recently on starting a 
Working Group on the deleted domains issue, a word on how we are 
planning to handle such requests may seem in order.

Basically, two situations can occur:

 1. Some topic is being discussed all over the DNSO, and 
    constituencies want to achieve some consensus.  The current 
    method of approaching this is that the Names Council starts a 
    Task Force.  If constituencies agree on this, there's not much 
    the GA can do about it - in particular, we can't draw the 
    constituencies to some open working group against their own will.

    In such Task Forces, the GA will be represented, and - as we said 
    in our "thank you" posting - we'll ask the GA representative to 
    the Task Force to regularly report on the happenings in that TF 
    to the main GA list.  If someone feels a need to provide further 
    input on the topic of the particular TF (or to discuss it), the 
    GA list wil be a good place for such discussions, and the GA rep 
    to the TF should transport the arguments and results from such 
    discussions to the Task Force.

    If required by the traffic generated, the GA could easily set up 
    a "separate mirror WG" on that topic, which accompanies the Names 
    Council task force.
   
 2. Some topic may be intensively debated on the GA list itself. 
    There's nothing wrong about this, and we'd generally like to ask 
    those who discuss it to just keep their discussions on the GA
    list.  After all, that's what the list was made for.

    If too much traffic is generated, such discussions can and should 
    be moved off the main GA list, and we'd certainly like to help 
    you to create such a list.  Whether you call it a special 
    interest mailing list or a "DNSO GA WG" is up to you. ;-)

Of course, all this says nothing about what position we take in the 
general Working-Group-vs-Task-Force controversy.

Frankly, we don't know which method is more efficient.  Both have 
their up- and downsides.  Maybe there's another model which is 
better than both.


For this reason, we'll try to organize some discussion on this for 
the GA's Accra physical meeting.  However, this is still in the most 
early planning and drafting stage, so we don't promise anything 
special yet - except that we are aware of the issue, and will try to 
get some clarification on it.


Finally, how does this apply to the domain deletions issue?  For the 
moment, we'd ask that the discussion remains on the main GA list, 
and that discussions on whether to form a working group or not are 
suspended.  If extensive discussions on deletions continue, and if 
they become a problem for other discussions, we can still move them 
elsewhere.  As they say on Usenet: Show traffic, get group.


Kind regards,

Thomas & Alexander
-- 
Thomas Roessler                        http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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