Nick, Rob Thanks for the response, but it doesn't directly answer the question asked on the EA RALO call. I read the caution and disclaimer in the staff summary, I expect Bill did too. But the particular quote from Cheryl's comment uses the words "we" and "our", hence, I think, the confusion. The relevant part of the summary again:

"Finally, although the majority of comments were strongly in support of returning to the original NCUC Charter version, ALAC favored the SIC's NCSG Charter that, ³best meets the aims of the new GNSO Model and the Boards criteria, which we support, and believe is (with the additional version changes as at July 19th ) being essentially met.² Continuing in this vein, ALAC noted, ³Maturity and development of the new design GNSO and specifically the parity and viability of the User House will benefit greatly with the “fresh start°o this Charter in our opinion provides and it should be noted that in it we can see that the opinions and views brought forward in our processes, activities and meetings on the matter have been recognised, heard and considered.² "

and as I said, I understood Bill's question as: is this an official ALAC position? Yes or no. What is the answer? From your reply it seems to be no. Correct? And if the answer is no I hope we can simply say so on the public forum and to the Board who received the summary. And yes, using "ALAC "to identify Cheryl's comments is of course confusing, ALAC has meaning as we all well know. (Sending this to the ALAC list where I sent my email rather than ALAC internal and including my original message so context is still understood.) Thanks, Adam At 7:48 PM +0200 8/7/09, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

Dear All:

As a couple of queries have come in from Bill and Adam with respect to the staff summary of the NCSG public comment period, Rob has sent along the below.

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Clarifications Regarding Staff Summary-Analysis of Stakeholder Group Charter Public Forum Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 08:50:47 -0700 From: Robert Hoggarth <mailto:robert.hoggarth@icann.org><robert.hoggarth@icann.org> To: Nick Ashton-Hart <mailto:Nick.Ashton-Hart@icann.org><Nick.Ashton-Hart@icann.org>

Clarifications Regarding Staff Summary-Analysis of Stakeholder Group Charter Public Forum Dear Nick:

I understand that there have been some recent discussion within the At-Large community regarding the Staff Summary/Analysis (S/A) of the submissions in the GNSO Stakeholder Group Charter Forum that closed on 24 July.- <http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#stakeholder>http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#stakeholder - and particularly the reference the S/A document makes to the comments submitted by ALAC Chair Cheryl Langdon-Orr.

As the staff person responsible for that document, I wanted to make sure that I cleared up any potential confusion in the attribution assigned to Cheryl¹s submission in the S/A.  At the beginning of every S/A document we clearly include the caution to the reader that:

³This document is intended to broadly and comprehensively summarize the comments of the various contributors to this forum but not to address every specific argument or position stated by any or all contributors.  The Staff recommends that readers interested in specific aspects of any of the summarized comments or the full statements of others refer directly to the originally posted contributions.²  

Further, with respect to the specific comments submitted by Cheryl, I reproduced verbatim the disclaimer that she provided at the top of her submission.  Footnote one at the beginning of the S/A document reads:

³[1] The Submission by Cheryl Langdon-Orr specifically noted the following disclaimer, ŒThis comment is intended to ensure that the Board Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) is aware of and takes into account in this current public comment period the previous activities, views and opinions, including Advice to the Board, and ratified Statements of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and the At-Large Community with specific reference to the development of the new structure of the GNSO, its Council and the Stakeholder Group model. This is not a formal or ratified statement or comment per se but rather a synopsis of those previously provided in various fora to date.¹ For identification purposes this document uses the ŒALAC¹ initials to refer to the submission.²

If for any reason, Cheryl would like to clarify her comments or if she thinks the initials I used to identify her comments were inappropriate, please have her send me an email at <>robert.hoggarth@icann.org and I will work with the web-admin and tech-support teams to re-open the Forum record to insert any clarifications she might want to make to her submission.

Besr,

Rob Hoggarth

--

--

Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart

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At 7:00 PM +0900 8/8/09, Adam Peake wrote:

...

Hi,

Just read the transcript of the August 4th call. Seems to have been a bit of confusion over a question raised during the EU-RALO call a few hours before.

Sébastien mentioned that Bill Drake asked for clarification about text attributed to ALAC in staff's summary of charter public comments on the GNSO stakeholder charters.

The staff summary says:

...

"Finally, although the majority of comments were strongly in support of returning to the original NCUC Charter version, ALAC favored the SIC's NCSG Charter that, ³best meets the aims of the new GNSO Model and the Boards criteria, which we support, and believe is (with the additional version changes as at July 19th ) being essentially met.² Continuing in this vein, ALAC noted, ³Maturity and development of the new design GNSO and specifically the parity and viability of the User House will benefit greatly with the “fresh start°o this Charter in our opinion provides and it should be noted that in it we can see that the opinions and views brought forward in our processes, activities and meetings on the matter have been recognised, heard and considered.² "

(staff summary available here <http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-stakeholder-charters/msg00074.html>)

Bill's question was: is this an official ALAC position? Yes or no.

My view is if the answer's no we should ask staff to correct the summary. And inform the board as the summary was apparently the main information board members had before them when they voted on the stakeholder charters. Can we please be clear, yes or no.

Cheryl, the transcript quotes you as saying:

"And that would be where people such as Bill and Adam -- who would go back and read minutes -- would see a variance between what was recorded and what actually happened. That's why the minutes of the 28th of April 2009 need to be amended."

I don't really understand the context of your remark, but you'll perhaps recall that in our May 26th call I commented on what I thought was the poor quality of the April 28th minutes. Once minutes are agreed we need to be careful about amending them without the committee being informed.

I am beginning to think that summary minutes are still necessary. The transcripts (and recordings) are very useful, but they do not constitute a clear record of what action was taken, etc.

Thanks,

Adam

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