Hello everyone, At its last meeting in Cartagena, the ICANN Board acknowledged that a number of sticking points remain in the new gTLD approval/application process, though most of the it is essentially settled. What remains are issues that ICANN stakeholders have been trying to resolve with varying levels of success. There have been some remarkable areas of consensus, notably on the "Rec6" Cross-community Working Group. However, much remains that has either been unable to obtain full consensus by these groups or (in the eyes of many) subject to significant misinterpretation by ICANN staff that has so far been charged with the wording of the Applicant Guidebook. At its meeting yesterday, the ALAC endorsed an initiative to create a small working team focused on providing specific wording for the Guidebook on specific areas that remain at an impasse, from an end-user centric point of view. The intent is to deliver a direct and reasonably complete alternative text that addresses the concerns that have been expressed through ALAC and other stakeholders (including the GAC). We are looking for help with this, but we need a group that is committed to helping to both assess our intended direction and to help create specific AG-ready working based on that. The general framework of the Applicant Guidebook Alternate Text (AGAT) effort can be found at https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/ALAC+Applicant+Guidebook+Alterna... We have a significant amount of work and not much time in which to do it, so any offers of assistance are greatly appreciated. -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada Em: evan at telly dot org Sk: evanleibovitch Tw: el56