Thanks Stephane. We could add a 5th principle: "where some participants have to suffer unpleasant hours, we restrict meeting times to no more than one hour." Chuck

-----Original Message----- From: Stéphane Van Gelder [mailto:stephane.vangelder@indom.com] Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 3:25 AM To: Gomes, Chuck; council@gnso.icann.org Subject: Re: [council] FW: Doodle IDNG call

I think all of us can understand where Adrian is coming from here. Being in Australia, he suffers some insane meeting times and this undoubtedly reduces his ability to participate in the GNSO processes as much as he would like. Being based in Europe, I also have late evening (but thankfully not early morning) meeting times.

So I agree with the initial suggestion that call times are not solely arranged according to majority doodle votes, are these are necessarily geographically weighed and if you have 10 participants and 8 of them are from the US, the other 2 will not have much say.

I think Chuck makes some very good initial suggestions and I agree that we need to consider this question of meeting organisation at Council level as they impact all our working groups and drafting teams.

I would like to suggest that, for those meetings where some participants have to suffer unpleasant hours, we restrict meeting times to no more than one hour. I know that it's sometimes difficult to keep things concise, but when you're on a call early in the morning or late at night, it seems unreasonable to also require of you to sit through a couple of hours of discussion and still provide valuable input.

I do feel that it's not just the times at which these meetings are held which is a problem, but also the sheer number of these calls that are required and their length.

Stéphane

Le 03/05/09 16:40, « Gomes, Chuck » <cgomes@verisign.com> a écrit :

...

Here are some suggestions regarding scheduling teleconference calls that I recently sent in response to a very valid concern

expressed by

...

Adrian. I suggest that we consider these or any modifications to them in the GNSO as a whole.

Chuck

-----Original Message----- From: owner-ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org [mailto:owner-ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org] On Behalf Of Gomes, Chuck Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 10:21 AM To: Adrian Kinderis; Glen de Saint Géry; ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org Subject: RE: Doodle IDNG call

Adrian makes some good points that we need to take into consideration. I would suggest that we do our best to follow all of following principles when we cannot find a time that everyone can make:

1. Select a time that maximizes participation.

2. Avoid any time that is ridiculous for any key participant

3. Make sure call leaders are able to participate

4. In cases where ridiculous times are unavoidable some, attempt to rotate the use of such times so that certain participants are not always impacted (as suggested by Adrian).

'Key participants' and 'Ridiculous' times may vary by meeting but here are some possible general guidelines:

- Key participants should include anyone whose live input is needed; put another way, if the effectiveness of a meeting will be reduced if someone has to participate after the meeting, then that person should be considered a key participant. A simple example of this would be a case where a vote is planned and absentee voting is not allowed; all eligible voters in this case would be key participants. But the definition should not just include voting situations.

- Any meeting time that requires even partial participation for a key participant between midnight and 5 am should be excluded unless the impacted participant(s) specifically agree(s) to the exception. (For example, Edmon tends to prefer times that most of the rest of us consider ridiculous.)

I am sure improvements can be made to my ideas so I welcome them.

Chuck

...

-----Original Message----- From: owner-ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org [mailto:owner-ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Kinderis Sent: Saturday, May 02, 2009 7:03 PM To: Glen de Saint Géry; ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org Subject: RE: Doodle IDNG call

These suggested call times are crazy!

Just once I'd like a call time about 4pm after I've had my afternoon coffee. I understand it is about balance but why can't we share it around a little.

I won't be able to make these times (I'll take Bruce's advice and just sit out these meetings when they are set for inconvenient times).

Remind me to raise my concerns about Doodles too. Just because a time is most popular it is chosen. When you have such a participant loading to North America nothing ever gets shared around and the meeting times stay the same.

Glen - this rant is not aimed at you. I understand you have a job to do.

Thanks.

Adrian Kinderis

-----Original Message----- From: owner-ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org [mailto:owner-ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org] On Behalf Of Glen de Saint Géry Sent: Sunday, 3 May 2009 3:29 AM To: ntfy-gnso-idng@icann.org Subject: Doodle IDNG call

Dear All,

Please indicate the day and time that would work for you to discuss the draft charter for an IDNG WG.

The time is originally noted in UTC but can be changed for your time zones.

http://www.doodle.com/47qaf4zk4387aptr

Thank you. Kind regards,

Glen

Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org

On 4 May 2009, at 09:54, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

We could add a 5th principle: "where some participants have to suffer unpleasant hours, we restrict meeting times to no more than one hour."

Sometimes easier said then done. E.g. I would very much like to have council meeting be an hour long, and if we could more the schedule out to once a month, even better. But there is much to discuss, and people do not tend to carry on discussions on the mailing list or any other medium. Also we often have to approach topics more then once, because it takes a while to get all the constituency input. So while I would like to schedule meetings with fewer topics or fewer status updates, it has proven difficult. (BTW I have thought of asking for all status to be written beforehand, but we would still need time for questions, and besides I have often felt that the amount of required reading also has limited tolerance.) One thing that I hope will help in time is if fewer council members need to be involved in the WG, and when have finished all of restructuring/"improvement" work. But to shorten meetings, i firmly believe we need to resolve more issues on line. Also defining Ridiculous/unpleasant times may be more difficult then one may think. Some council participants, e.g. have questioned holding meeting during the evening hours when it is time for dinner and family, while for others those are the perfect hours. And given the world spread, how may times do you count that meet the 12-5am barrier - i only see two. a. a.

Both of you make good points. I understand the limitations of wishful thinking and the difficulties involved in keeping meetings manageable in the real world, however I also think that it's only by putting these issues on the table in the hope of finding solutions to them that we will be able to move forwards. I think we have to split our meetings into two categories (no, not open and community-based ;-) ). The Council meetings are in my mind in a class of their own. They are by necessity longer and have to be organised at set hours. These hours are generally only convenient for US-based councillors, but councillors from other regions may consider that their responsibility as GNSO council members are to attend these meetings even if they aren't always convenient (that's certainly the way I look at it). I think the discussions we are having here start with the other meetings that we are involved in, be they WG or DT meetings or others. I'm not sure these meetings need to run over an hour systematically and need to be scheduled at 5am or midnight. And we may find that the solutions we work on to make these meetings more manageable will then also be applicable to major meetings like the Council meetings. So at this stage it may simply be a case of getting council members' thoughts on this through our mailing list. Several suggestions have already been made, but I'm sure there are many other ideas we could look at. Perhaps we could start a WG on this topic, first meetings scheduled for 3 to 7am next Wednesday everyone (a joke of course). Stéphane Le 04/05/09 21:02, « Gomes, Chuck » <cgomes@verisign.com> a écrit :

Good points Avri. Please see my comments below.

Chuck

...

-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 2:41 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: Re: [council] FW: Doodle IDNG call

On 4 May 2009, at 09:54, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

...

We could add a 5th principle: "where some participants have to suffer unpleasant hours, we restrict meeting times to no more than one hour."

Sometimes easier said then done.

Chuck: In fact, it is easier said than done most of the time, but the principles at least give us some goals. Sometimes we can achieve all the goals and sometimes we won't but some of the priniples are designed to deal with cases where we cannot meet all the goals (e.g., alternating meeting times so that the same people are not always negatively impacted).

...

E.g. I would very much like to have council meeting be an hour long, and if we could more the schedule out to once a month, even better.

Chuck: I don't think we are at a point where resticting Council meetings to an hour would work but meetings for other GNSO groups can often do this.

...

But there is much to discuss, and people do not tend to carry on discussions on the mailing list or any other medium. Also we often have to approach topics more then once, because it takes a while to get all the constituency input. So while I would like to schedule meetings with fewer topics or fewer status updates, it has proven difficult. (BTW I have thought of asking for all status to be written beforehand, but we would still need time for questions, and besides I have often felt that the amount of required reading also has limited tolerance.)

One thing that I hope will help in time is if fewer council members need to be involved in the WG, and when have finished all of restructuring/"improvement" work. But to shorten meetings, i firmly believe we need to resolve more issues on line.

Also defining Ridiculous/unpleasant times may be more difficult then one may think. Some council participants, e.g. have questioned holding meeting during the evening hours when it is time for dinner and family, while for others those are the perfect hours. And given the world spread, how may times do you count that meet the 12-5am barrier - i only see two.

Chuck: You are correct if we are talking about Council meetings for which we have the five time zones represented in your attached World Meeting Planner Results. In fact, I think there are none if we are talking about a 2-hour meeting. But not all groups involve all five time zones, so some may have more options.

...

a.

Sounds like a good OSC GNSO Ops team topic to me. I will forward this exchange to Ray Fassett, the chair of that WT. Chuck

-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 8:15 AM To: Council GNSO Subject: Re: [council] FW: Doodle IDNG call

On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 10:44 +0200, Stéphane Van Gelder wrote:

...

Perhaps we could start a WG on this topic, first meetings scheduled for 3 to 7am next Wednesday everyone (a joke of course).

a joke yes, but it made me wonder whether there is an appropriate OSC Work Team that is including this challenge among it other organizational challenges.

Personally I have alwasy been in favor of rotating meetings, but I by and largely willing to deal with meetings in the middle of the night - my personal difficult zone being 0400 - 0600. but I know that not all people can rotate their schedules that way.

a.

I forwarded this exchange to Ray Fassett, chair of the GNSO Ops WT in case they decide to include this topic in their work. Chuck

-----Original Message----- From: Stéphane Van Gelder [mailto:stephane.vangelder@indom.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 4:44 AM To: Gomes, Chuck; Avri Doria; Council GNSO Subject: Re: [council] FW: Doodle IDNG call

Both of you make good points.

I understand the limitations of wishful thinking and the difficulties involved in keeping meetings manageable in the real world, however I also think that it's only by putting these issues on the table in the hope of finding solutions to them that we will be able to move forwards.

I think we have to split our meetings into two categories (no, not open and community-based ;-) ). The Council meetings are in my mind in a class of their own. They are by necessity longer and have to be organised at set hours. These hours are generally only convenient for US-based councillors, but councillors from other regions may consider that their responsibility as GNSO council members are to attend these meetings even if they aren't always convenient (that's certainly the way I look at it).

I think the discussions we are having here start with the other meetings that we are involved in, be they WG or DT meetings or others. I'm not sure these meetings need to run over an hour systematically and need to be scheduled at 5am or midnight. And we may find that the solutions we work on to make these meetings more manageable will then also be applicable to major meetings like the Council meetings.

So at this stage it may simply be a case of getting council members' thoughts on this through our mailing list. Several suggestions have already been made, but I'm sure there are many other ideas we could look at.

Perhaps we could start a WG on this topic, first meetings scheduled for 3 to 7am next Wednesday everyone (a joke of course).

Stéphane

Le 04/05/09 21:02, « Gomes, Chuck » <cgomes@verisign.com> a écrit :

...

Good points Avri. Please see my comments below.

Chuck

...

-----Original Message----- From: owner-council@gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council@gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 2:41 PM To: Council GNSO Subject: Re: [council] FW: Doodle IDNG call

On 4 May 2009, at 09:54, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

...

We could add a 5th principle: "where some participants have to suffer unpleasant hours, we restrict meeting times to no more than one hour."

Sometimes easier said then done.

Chuck: In fact, it is easier said than done most of the

time, but the

...

principles at least give us some goals. Sometimes we can achieve all the goals and sometimes we won't but some of the priniples are designed to deal with cases where we cannot meet all the goals (e.g., alternating meeting times so that the same people are not always negatively impacted).

...

E.g. I would very much like to have council meeting be an

hour long,

...

and if we could more the schedule out to once a month, even better.

Chuck: I don't think we are at a point where resticting Council meetings to an hour would work but meetings for other GNSO groups can often do this.

...

But there is much to discuss, and people do not tend to carry on discussions on the mailing list or any other medium. Also

we often

...

have to approach topics more then once, because it takes a while to get all the constituency input. So while I would like to schedule meetings with fewer topics or fewer status updates, it has proven difficult. (BTW I have thought of asking for all status to be written beforehand, but we would still need time for questions, and besides I have often felt that the amount of required reading also has limited tolerance.)

One thing that I hope will help in time is if fewer council members need to be involved in the WG, and when have finished all of restructuring/"improvement" work. But to shorten meetings, i firmly believe we need to resolve more issues on line.

Also defining Ridiculous/unpleasant times may be more difficult then one may think. Some council participants, e.g. have questioned holding meeting during the evening hours when it is time for dinner and family, while for others those are the perfect hours. And given the world spread, how may times do you count that meet the 12-5am barrier - i only see two.

Chuck: You are correct if we are talking about Council meetings for which we have the five time zones represented in your attached World Meeting Planner Results. In fact, I think there are none if we are talking about a 2-hour meeting. But not all groups involve all five time zones, so some may have more options.

...

a.