Hi folks, I've not received any response to the Section 3.7 appeal I filed yesterday, https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-June/001254.html but I'd like to add to it, to reinforce it. According to the GNSO Operating Procedures v3.3 (30 January 2018) -- first document at: https://gnso.icann.org/en/council/procedures https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/op-procedu... "The Chair, with support of ICANN Staff, if required, is expected to circulate the draft agenda to the WG ideally at least 24 hours in advance. At the start of a meeting, the Chair should review the agenda and any proposed changes to that agenda." (page 54) It is now less than 22 hours before the next scheduled meeting, and no agenda (nor any documents that are not replete with errors) has been circulated: FYI, here is what an "agenda" looks like: https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2017-November/000900.html (an example from the IGO PDP in the past --- had to go way back to find one that was "proper") https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-rpm-wg/2018-May/003109.html (an example from the RPM PDP) https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/2018-May/021320.html (an example from the GNSO Council) INTA put it well, when these Working Group Guidelines were being developed: http://forum.icann.org/lists/working-group-guidelines/pdfN3FHBo2u9y.pdf "the Committee applauds advance circulation of WG meeting agendas, but circulating the agendas 24 hours before meetings provides insufficient lead time for WG members to review the agendas in light of the other professional and personal obligations of WG members. " While the 24 hours wasn't increased, that demonstrates why it's important to give people time to prepare and to be able to respond thoughtfully, and why sending it in late hurts members. It seems to me that the Chair/Staff are again lackadaisical in taking all the time in the world for themselves, but not giving members commensurate time. That's fundamentally unfair, and reinforces the need to provide the necessary time required to complete our work. It would take a superhuman effort to complete our work in what is now 6 days, given we've still not received various draft documents, and there's still much to do to finish off a final report properly (3 or 4 weeks seems feasible, if and only if people continue to drive the work forward). Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/ On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 4:19 PM, George Kirikos <icann@leap.com> wrote:
Hi folks,
As promised, as per section 3.7 of the GNSO Working Group Guidelines:
https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/annex-1-gn...
I hereby invoke the appeal mechanism, as the Chair, Liaison (Susan) and Staff are "not performing their role according to the criteria in Section 2.2." and furthermore are working to sabotage the final report of this working group through the unilateral imposition of unrealistically short deadlines for the report which would negatively affect its quality. Furthermore, they are not following the correct procedures for a Consensus Call, although they falsely claim to have already completed one.
On May 25, 2018, they opened up what they called a "Consensus Call",
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-May/001213.html
even though a real consensus call requires that the opening of a consensus call include (1) a nearly complete final report and (2) an initial designation level of consensus for each recommendation. I pointed this out in a call before that May 25, 2018 email but was ignored. I further pointed it out in email on June 6, 2018:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-June/001219.html
with examples of 2 other PDPs.
Furthermore, to understand appropriate deadlines for editing documents (which we've not even received to date) it is educational to look at the response times of the Chair Petter Rindforth (and prior co-chair Phil Corwin, when applicable), Heather Forrest (GNSO Council Chair) and Susan Kawaguchi (Liaison). If their response times were superhumanly fast, then they might have a case for expecting everyone else to respond very fast to draft final reports, edits, and so on. However, their response times are slow, at best. For example:
i) Phil/Petter -- weeks to schedule calls for the first Section 3.7 appeal (initiated in December 2017). 5 days sought to respond to my first written document (which is obviously much shorter than the final report). Obviously a single response from a small group (2 people) whose interests are aligned will take much less time than editing a document where there are more group members and obvious divisions, where it will take multiple edits and an iterative process to come to agreement on final text.
ii) Heather -- her typical turnaround time to respond to emails has been on the order of 1 *week*. And that's when she even bothers to respond at all.
iii) Susan -- even longer gaps in response times. e.g. March 14 2018 "office hours":
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-March/001095.html
with no summary report until a month later.
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-April/001111.html
And that was a *3 page* document. I made comments on it, was forced to write an "Everything wrong with the summary report" email on April 26:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-April/001139.html
(attachment at bottom of that page) and pointed out 2 weeks later that obvious issues I'd raised earlier had still not been addressed:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-May/001140.html
iv) Petter: today's email regarding obvious issues in yesterday's document (falsely claiming to be "Results of a consensus call", but which is in fact just an initial designation level, a flawed one at that) is telling:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-June/001252.html
Rather than go back and fix the multiple obvious errors, and reissue the document immediately with a sense of urgency and in a timely manner, he takes a lackadaisical approach, procrastinating and forcing others to ultimately have to redo his work. He's happy to take all the time he wants to create his documents, but then others are expected to make substantial comments on a yet to be issued nearly final draft of a final report in an impossibly fast manner.
That's inconsistent and asymmetric, holding others to a standard that he himself doesn't uphold for his own substandard work.
On April 26, 2018, Susan stated:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-April/001138.html
"It is the role of the WG, not the liaison or the Council, to drive the effort to a final document for presentation to Council."
But, on May 10, 2018, she claimed:
https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/transcript...
"This was a decision made by GNSO Council leadership and we’re going to move forward with the current agenda. " (page 4)
and
" Paul Keating: Okay, Susan, can you commit that you're not going to release a report for filing – or for consideration by the Council prior to us completing our consensus process? I’m asking you point blank, yes or no.
Susan Kawaguchi: Yes, point blank, yes."
But, as I pointed out above, we've not had a proper consensus call yet (i.e. we've not seen the nearly final draft report, nor had the initial designations which accompany it, and the usual 2 weeks to make changes, and usually a week or so to tidy up the final document.
Furthermore, the May 24, 2018 GNSO Council meeting transcript demonstrates that there was no resolution passed compelling a June deadline for this PDP, see:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/2018-May/021353.html https://gnso.icann.org/en/meetings/transcript-council-24may18-en.pdf [pages 22-26] https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/2018-May/021364.html
It was a "decision" that didn't come from the working group members, but was imposed on us.
Page 25 of that transcript even acknowledges that the Chair of the GNSO Council doesn't *have* that kind of decision-making authority in the first place.
"That 3.7 is really an interesting beast in a sense of what it asks of the GNSO Chair who for all intents and purposes everywhere else in our documents doesn’t have any sort of a decision making role and ****nor does 3.7 give the chair the authority to make any decisions****, if you like, it’s really just a reference for the discussion; if the discussion is unsuccessful with the cochairs or the chairs of the PDP then the matter gets discussed with the chair." (emphasis added)
Thus, any claimed "decision" made by "GNSO Council leadership" is illegitimate. The proper procedure (if we could not resolve things ourselves) would have involved allowing me to make my case to GNSO Council, so *they* could make a decisio, via a resolution/vote. This never happened.
ICANN staff continually inject their own policy ideas into this PDP. That is inconsistent with their clerical role as per section 2.2.6 of the Working Group Guidelines. Furthermore, as "secretary" (section 2.2.3), they're not adequately recording the working group's activities. (we've yet to even see the nearly final version of the Final Report, that we must then edit, etc.).
In conclusion, I ask that these issues be corrected, and that we be given sufficient time to complete the final report (perhaps for the July 2018 GNSO Council meeting, if sufficient effort is agreed to be made to keep the work moving forward, with ongoing weekly calls and timely edits, etc. to keep us on track).
[There had been a suggestion in May of a "Placeholder document", see:
https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2018-May/001164.html
but I'm not confident we'd be able to finish that in a timely manner, with the expectation of a final document for the upcoming June council meeting]
Note that I do not wish for the upcoming call (Tuesday) to be cancelled, nor for our work to stop. This Section 3.7 appeal is simply intended to fix the various issues I've raised, and give us sufficient time to produce a polished final report.
I will make myself readily available for the required phone calls with the Chair of this PDP and/or the GNSO Council chair. [feel free to simply pick up the phone and call me!]
Sincerely,
George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/