Bruce and All, Thank you. I appreciate the decision from you and everyone else's support. In fact, since I joined ICANN, I have *never seen a Council that was more united on this issue than any other*. Afterall, I believe, the whole the membership issue started none other than, a result of the people I was trying to bring to the GNSO Council and then the IDN WG, as the people as already mentioned in their direct email to you. Unfortunately, only 2 weeks are left for us to provide a useful debate, however, I guarantee you that there would not be any disruption or misbehaviour with these group I have known for a while. On the contrary, *we will all benefit from the transfer of knowledge and ICANN in its membership goals.*
So I encourage working groups to move forward on the following basis
with respect to allowing "observers", who are not GNSO constituency members
By this email, I presume it would be ok to forge forward and notify 'my outreach' who are interested to join IDN WG. I shall forward your email as instruction to them on the modalities to be followed. Thanks everyone for your strong support!!! Sophia On 02/03/07, Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au> wrote:
Hello All,
I have had no objections to the notice posted on the Council list at: http://www.gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg03251.html
There have been some suggested refinements on the Council mailing list to deal with potential problems. At the next Council meeting I will ask the Council to formally endorse a policy on observers in working groups. As the working groups are on a tight time-line, I don't want to hold up the spirit of the support I have received from many of the GNSO Council members for allowing more participation in working groups.
So I encourage working groups to move forward on the following basis with respect to allowing "observers", who are not GNSO constituency members.
"Observers: Observers shall not be members of or entitled to vote on the working group, but otherwise shall be entitled to participate on equal footing with members of the working group. In particular observers will be able to join the mailing list, and attend teleconferences or physical meetings."
To guard against some of the behaviour that can occur with unregulated mailing lists, observers must provide their real name, organisation (if associated with an organisation) and contact details to the GNSO secretariat, and the GNSO secretariat will verify at least their email address and phone contact information. Observers will also be requested to provide a public statement of interest, as for working group members.
Where a person joins an already established working group, this will be on the basis that it is their responsibility to read the existing documents, listen to teleconference recordings, and read the mailing list discussions before commenting on topics that have already been dealt with by the working group.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin