Thanks Steve, this is quite a good prospectus and is similar to where my own thinking has been going.
I have one concern and a suggestion to mitigate it.
If I was a decision-maker on this proposal - either the ICANN Board, NTIA or indeed the Congress itself, or even an ICANN SO or AC - I would be very uncomfortable at anything which suggested "we will reevaluate the model after the transition, because we aren't sure this is a durable accountability settlement".
The signal of uncertainty and of future work that this sends is problematic.
If membership is the straw that breaks the camel's back, my preference would instead be the bones of a settlement like this:
- the community powers are put into the bylaws (Steve's list below 1-5) - and for me, I am happy with modifying the Budget powers in a range of ways to be agreed to further reduce the already minimal disruption the CCWG's approach would create (the Board's proposal is helpful in doing this).
- the IRP approach largely as the CCWG has set out (Steve's list below 6)
- a Designator foundation that renders the board removal powers completely enforceable
- probably the Sole Designator model, operating by SO/AC consensus for NomCom director removal and the rest of the powers, and appointing SOs and ACs for their appointed Directors
Taking this approach mitigates the "future governance change" concern which I think is a real one, and ensures that a key instrument of redress is enforceable.
It is clearly not as powerful a set of tools as the membership model, which on an objective basis remains my preference.
That said: I take the concerns about "changing the engine in flight" seriously. I think that the comments about the scale of the change created by membership are wrong and misleading, but some of the participants in this process hold them sincerely and seem unlikely to accept analysis that contradicts their entrenched views.
So in terms of our requirements, which are meant to be guiding our work, I personally am prepared to step back to indirect enforceability of some of the powers by means of membership, back to designator. The additional enforceability of membership on the budget power, if it is going to prevent consensus, should not be something to die in a ditch over.
We can get almost all the way there. CMSM and MEM would both be redundant and off the table. Multistakeholder consensus building at work....?
A last thought: I have never placed much importance on the "other statutory powers" a membership would allow. I know others have. Certainly on transparency and disclosure, it's clear to me just by watching and participating in our CCWG process that there are hidden depths that need badly to be exposed to sunlight - and that's a piece of work that needs to be pushed along promptly next year. I know others have a different view though, eloquently expressed by Ed among others. So this needs more discussion.
I don't present my thinking above as a definitive compromise, but I hope that it helps to demonstrate that like others, I have been listening to discussion, and recognise a need for me and all of us to get out of the competitive "my way or the highway" tone that has emerged in the past few weeks.
So long as others show the same willingness to move, we should be able to get into a more collaborative work method, which is what the community deserves from all of us.
all best,
Jordan