For comments directly related to WG where we have participants, it is not a problem, They ARE the resource we use to determine if a comment is needed and at times to bring others up to speed. It is for all of the other comments that can be more problematic. ALan At 02/09/2017 05:37 PM, Seun Ojedeji wrote:

Hello Alan,

Thanks for your response. I think one of the challenges (which by the way I am also guilty of) is the lack of significant active At-Large folks in those WGs.

My question then was whether those active in it can help flag the issues while staff develop documents that provides background explanation which then helps those who are not quite active to have the opportunity to contribute which may then serve as sufficient information to improve participation in the WGs.

Regards

Sent from my mobile Kindly excuse brevity and typos

On Sep 2, 2017 8:09 PM, "Alan Greenberg" <<mailto:alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote: Seun, I will note that there is a page of upcoming public comments - <https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/upcoming-2012-02-25-en>https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/upcoming-2012-02-25-en. Perhaps we have people who would be willing to review that regularly and identify issues that we want staff to brief us on.

And of course, it would be good if we had active WGs on topics that we know are going to be in out view.

Alan

At 02/09/2017 01:24 PM, Seun Ojedeji wrote:

...

Hello Evan,

Thanks for this and for raising a point about what you think we should be focusing our resources upon. May I suggest you kindly provide references to the discussion you refer so that people like myself can also follow-up.

I think we should consider a issue triggering approach to help focus our discussion and spur up interest. What I mean by this is that folks participating in certain working group discussion that find something they believe ALAC should weigh in on can flag/raise it and that can form discussion topics during ALAC calls and on the list. I think that approach worked well during the transition.

That said, I wonder whether once someone raises an issue of importance, staff can be in a position to provide brief documentation that helps others have some background understanding of the issue in other to better contribute to the discussion. Overall we should not be waiting for PC before ALAC puts in position statements to WG and/or advice to the Board

Regards

Sent from my mobile Kindly excuse brevity and typos

On Sep 2, 2017 5:20 PM, "Evan Leibovitch" <<mailto:evan@telly.org>evan@telly.org> wrote: On 2 September 2017 at 09:05, <<mailto:h.raiche@internode.on.net> h.raiche@internode.on.net> wrote:

I've had a look at all three, and am not sure they are of real importance to ALAC

â€â€¹Holly is exactly right. At-Large has a scarcity of volunteer resources ­-- notably in those who have the time, skills and background necessary to analyze such matters and write cogent, relevant responses.â€â€¹

While it is wholly appropriate of staff to ensure that we don't accidentally miss anything, it is also incumbent upon At-Large (and especially its leadership) to show the discipline necessary to ignore that minutiae and concentrate on the larger picture of how ICANN actions impact end-users globally. We have not always succeeded in this discipline. In fact, yesterday a software developer friend of mine introduced me to a term I hadn't heard before, that IMO well describes ALAC's historic tendency to get caught up in the flurry of responding to ICANN's trivia and losing sight of the real bylaw-mandated purpose we are here to serve: <http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Bikeshedding>bikeshedding . Right now I am involved in a GNSO working group in which domain industry representatives are insisting to pore over every word of the Geneva Convention to determine whether the Red Cross has the right to ask that its names not be in the pool of domains for sale in gTLDs. At least from an end-user standpoint this is absolutely absurd; we don't need this kind of time wastage for At-Large to tell the Board and community of ICANN that enabling commercial (ab)use of Red Cross/Crescent/Diamond/etc domain names is morally repugnant. Many other examples exist in At-Large. It most reliably emerges any time the phrase "public interest" is invoked in our midst. Industry advocates paid to divert stakeholders from the big picture have created an ICANN process designed to distract and waste resources from those of us without the financial incentive or means to keep up. This is bikeshedding by design. Resist. Cheers, Evan

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