Hello All, At its meeting on 20 Nov, the GNSO Council decided: "That for the purpose of the WHOIS task forces, constituencies be allowed to appoint more than one person to listen in on teleconferences and to participate in the mailing list, but in any single teleconference or physical meeting, there is only one person from the constituency to represent the constituency's views." Following initial meetings of the WHOIS task forces, clarification was sought on when it would be appropriate for constituency representatives, attending a teleconference or physical meeting as alternates to the primary constituency representative, to speak. Brian Darville, chair of WHOIS task force 3, offered the following approach: "We do allow alternates to speak on issues of general informational interest. The scope of the Task Force's work encompasses gathering and analyzing information. Many of the alternates, some of whom have significant ICANN experience and historical knowledge, can contribute significantly in furthering the Task Force's work by simply providing historical information or indicating the availability of other information germane to the issues the Task Force is addressing. Of course, under no circumstances will any alternate be allowed to represent the views of the constituency or provide the vote of any constituency (unless the designated representative is absent on the call)." The GNSO Council discussed this issue during its meeting on 18 Dec 2003. It was recognised that alternates play a valuable role in task force work in using their own network of contacts and resources to collect data together for the task force. Normally alternates would provide their work through the primary constituency representative on the task force. It was noted however that during a particular call or physical meeting an alternate may have some useful "factual" information to provide that is relevant to the discussion. Note that ICANN staff members and the GAC liaison have typically operated in that mode during GNSO council calls. It was noted that a balance needs to be struck between alternates offering information that might be strongly related to a particular constituency viewpoint (e.g isolated events, anecdotal information, or a reference to a Web blog or an academic paper expressing a particular opinion) as opposed to factual information (e.g a reference to an existing ICANN policy, or a reference to a previous statistical survey, or ICANN workshop). The Council recommended that the chair of each task force be given the discretion to take advantage of the availability of alternate members for the purposes of providing factual information, whilst ensuring that each constituency expresses their particular opinion/viewpoint on the policy issue under consideration through a single representative during any single call or physical meeting. If a particular constituency believes that the intent of the motion of 20 Nov (which ensures fair participation by all constituencies regardless of their size and resources) is not being met, this should be raised with the chair of the task force, through their representative on the task force. If a consituency is unable to resolve the issue with the task force chair, then the constituency can request guidance from the GNSO Council, through their representatives on the GNSO Council. Regards, Bruce Tonkin Chair, GNSO Council