Dear ALAC members, Due to our attention being focussed elsewhere, the comment period for the GNSO Working Group Guidelines, closed on 8 February 2011 without the ALAC filing a comment. However, the ALAC is also able to submit comments directly to the GNSO council. This needs to be done by 16 February 2011, as all documents for consideration need to be submitted 8 days in advance of the Council Meeting on February 24th. Several At-Large members contributed to the drafting of these guidelines, so there has already been much input from At-Large, but those members of At-Large who were involved in the working group drafting the guidelines did not comment for obvious reasons. Evan Leibovitch and I drafted some suggested text for the ALAC statement on GNSO WG Guidelines and shared it with the ALAC Executive Committee a few hours ago. This short statement follows, for your immediate review: --- cut here --- The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the GNSO Working Group Guidelines, as approved by the Policy Process Steering Committee (PPSC). The ALAC supports the recommendations included in this document, especially those for a Working Group Model, since this Model has the potential to enhance the policy development process by making it more inclusive and representative. We believe that thanks to this new model, the whole policy development process will be more effective and efficient. Specifically, we recommend that the GNSO involves active representation from other constituencies -- and in particular ICANN's standing Advisory Committees -- in policy development Working Groups, from the beginning. Such early involvement ensures widespread community investment in the policy process, especially from stakeholder representative groups that are strategically mandated by ICANN bylaws to be involved in policy. Early community participation in policy issues avoids the need to resort to corrective measures that are never as effective as "doing it right the first time". Such corrective measures, a number of which have proliferated to address deficiencies in the existing policy process, exact a significant cost in time delay, human resources, and monetary expense by both ICANN and third parties. --- cut here --- Please send any comments that you may have to the ALAC working list, by 16 Feb at 23:39 UTC. Warmest regards, Olivier -- Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html