This is a very helpful discussion. Consistent with the concerns and suggestions made so far, it seems to me that we on the Council can take actions to improve this in the future. For example, in our role as manager of the policy development process, we can encourage WGs, DTs, etc. to minimize finalizing documents for GNSO review and/or action less than 4 weeks before an ICANN international public meeting unless it is critical that the documents be a part of the applicable in-person meetings. I am not suggesting that this was an issue for this meeting that we could have handled any differently but suggesting this might be something we could do going forward. Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Stéphane Van Gelder Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 7:26 AM To: Alan Greenberg; Council GNSO Cc: Cheryl Langdon-Orr Subject: Re: [council] ICANN Comment periods due soon after Seoul
Alan,
You make a very good point. In fact, it could be taken further with a request for ICANN to attempt to spread the release of documents and reports that are produced so that they don't all come out 2 weeks before each ICANN meeting.
I know this point has been addressed before, and I know that ICANN staff are operating under very difficult conditions with a huge amount of documents and reports to process. But it is becoming increasingly difficult for the community to be able to take the load. So when a large number of reports are published in the run-up to a meeting, it just becomes impossible for people to process and give them the attention they deserve.
If the 3 months in between each meeting could be used to spread the load a little, I'm sure that would help.
Anyway, just to say that the registrars support your request re the comment periods.
Stéphane
Le 07/10/09 06:03, « Alan Greenberg » <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> a écrit :
In reviewing open ICANN comment periods with the ALAC
officers today,
we were somewhat taken aback by the number and importance of ICANN comment periods that had just opened in the last several days and are scheduled to end soon after the Seoul meeting.
Posted 01 Oct, Due 01 Nov, Expedited Registry Security Request (ERSR) Posted 02 Oct, Due 06 Nov, Domain Names Registered Using a Privacy or Proxy Service Posted 05 Oct, Due 04 Nov, NomCom Review Draft Working Group Report Posted 05 Oct, Due 04 Nov, SSAC Review Draft Working Group Report Posted 05 Oct, Due 04 Nov, Board Review Draft Final Working Group Report
Although we seemed to recall that a commitment had been made to not "count" the time during an ICANN meeting against one month comment periods, that is clearly not being done here. For the Seoul meeting, many of us will spend 7-8 business days in transit or at the meeting, significantly cutting into the time available to comment.
And we noted that although all of these topics are quite important, only the ERSR one could really be viewed as very time-sensitive.
The ALAC will likely request a 2 week extension on all five comment periods. The GNSO Council may wish to consider a similar move.
Alan