Dear Work Track members, Please find below the action items and discussion notes from the call on 14 November. These high-level notes are designed to help Work Track members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the chat transcript or the recording. The documents referenced on the call are attached and excerpts from the chat room are included below. Kind regards, Emily -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Action Items and Discussion Notes: 14 November 2017 1. Updates to SOI: None. 2. Plenary Update: -- Had a meeting on 13 November -- first since ICANN60. -- Work Track 5 will kick off on 15 November at 20:00 UTC.  Opening for volunteers runs to 20 November. -- Reviewed the very aggressive time line working back from the Final Report. 3. Proposed Work Plan for WT3 Through March 2018 -- Still in deliberations. -- Coalese opinions (Dec-Feb) -- Call for objections (Jan-Feb) -- Refine report (Mar) -- Present to plenary (Mar) Discussion: -- Question: How to bring in people from the community who might not be participating now so that their opinions can be heard now, rather than later? -- Reach out to the community applicant who had dropped out of the process, or who were not successful, to understand what their challenges were.  Did get some feedback from some, but not much.

From the chat:

Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): perhaps reaching out to the wider community Jeff Neuman: @Kristina - I resemble that remark Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): offer briefing and webinars watch., Krishna Seeburn - Kris: +1 jamie and alan Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): yes Jamie Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): important to try that again Krishna Seeburn - Kris: i guess the word is outreach Jeff Neuman: We have been trying, but it would help if you all know of people that are no longer participating that you can direct us to Karen Day: @Jamie we tried to socialize CC@ questions to Community applicants but as Robin notes many are reluctant to speak until the review is complete Karen Day: sorry CC2 questions Jamie Baxter | dotgay: i think that the CPE website lists all those who went through the process and their contact info should still be listed on the Applicant website. Jeff Neuman: @Jamie - True, but we are reluctant to use that website to reach out to those in an unsolicited manner.  Thus, if anyone knows them and can facilitate the communication, the better Jamie Baxter | dotgay: I'm happy to reach out to those I may have met along the way. Who should I ask them to reach back to? 4. Continued Discussion of “Community” Applications -- Categories of Communities: -- There are people with strong feelings and somehow we need to investigate them. -- Maybe we should put out a strawperson document with suggested categories. -- Concern if the category just relates to the nature of the applicant.  More to the purpose of the TLD. -- Based on the AGB when communities applied it seemed more welcoming to all types of communities, but then it seemed to get skewed with how do we deal with an industry approach on communities.  Should explore this a little more. -- Ask the purpose of the TLD and decide if that is enough to be placed in a category. -- Who gets to decide who is a member of a community? -- What Thomas/GAC is getting at when the GAC was discussing the concept of communities they were discussing it in terms of cultural communities, but in the last round we seemed to have more industry-based communities.  Perhaps certain requirements should be more stringent for those that are seeking a community that is socio-economic, cultural, geographic.  We should discuss if more stringent requirements would produce a desirable result. -- Don't think we can treat all communities the same way. -- Example: solar energy -- could seek a solar energy industry TLD as a community application -- seems that it has to be a case-by-case basis, but how to do that without getting into content-based analysis. -- We are not trying to make it difficult for communities to apply.  We want to encourage communities -- but it doesn't mean that they could apply for a generic string and then get favorable treatment.  What happened in the last round communities came together and applied for the most generic strings. -- Maybe the way to fix it is to discourage community applicants from over-reaching and applying for such a large piece of real estate that they would fence it off for other legitimate uses. -- This is not dissimilar to the discussion on applicant support -- distinguishing between the haves and the have nots.  The applicants that don't have the resources to compete in an auction situation we must find a way to support them in the criteria for applicant support. -- May want to have a recommendation that underprivileged applications should have applicant support if they meet the criteria. -- It is not only about helping those that may not have the resources it is also about ensuring that parties that the public believe should have a TLD should get that resource. -- We should try to swing the pendulum back to the original principle that there should be a preference for communities. -- The policy is that communities should be interpreted broadly -- cultural, economic, or linguistic -- would we change that? -- Could define it more clearly? -- We may well end up changing the exact words in the policy.  What do we mean by "community"?  Could also be used like "family".  If that is what we are talking about then we need to craft words that allow them to succeed. -- If is an international group representing interests wouldn't that get priority over an individual applicant?  That is the understanding. -- Could look at the definition of communities in the Council of Europe report given the GAC's support of that report. -- The GAC hasn't support the report, but has acknowledged it and discussed it.  Asked the GAC if they could let us know which recommendations they support and which they don't.  There were some radical proposals. -- Mark Carvell is working on a draft GAC paper on community applications. -- It may be more appropriate for ICANN to look at if you have a good purpose in relation to applicant support, as distinguish from evaluating for community TLDs.  So, no content judgment on community applications. -- We cannot put on the same level a community of business as linguistic, cultural, etc.

From the chat:

Jeff Neuman: If we were to have categories of communities, would we have different criteria? Krishna Seeburn - Kris: perhaps we can get a list of previous people and talk to them Gg Levine (NABP): How would the privileges differ by category? Robin Gross: Gg, that would be for us to decide. Donna Austin, Neustar: What's the distinction between a community category and other categories? Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair): yet to be determined I guess Donna Kurt Pritz 2: I think Anne's comments demonstrates the unworkability of this group trying to determine a priori how to accommodate the purposes of yet-to-be borne TLDs. Rather than create categories before the round, it’d be better to create a process for forgiving contractual conditions depending on the purpose of the application (and not the identity of the applicant). Donna Austin, Neustar: agree with Kurt's comment Jeff Neuman: @Kurt - I dont believe we are talking about contractual forgiveness, but rather forgiveness of rigid criteria in the application process Jeff Neuman: and for that, we cannot adopt a wait and see approach Jeff Neuman: But perhaps there needs to be a closer association between the string and the community Kurt Pritz 2: @ Jeff: As an example, Aren't brands forgiven from the Code of Conduct contractual condition? Haven't we spoken about reduced registry fees for brands or not-for-profits? Jeff Neuman: I think Jon Nevett made a good comment during one of the sessions which stuck with me Jeff Neuman: Its not that we are trying to make it difficult for communities....but perhaps the string should be closer related to the community Kurt Pritz 2: The American Bowlers Association might object to the American Bar Association getting .ABA - it is very difficult to fix Jeff Neuman: Kurt, we can always think of those examples, but both could apply for those TLDs as communities and then work through contention Jamie Baxter | dotgay: @Jeff ... it sounds good in theory, but in practice it got completely twisted in practice. When the world knows and refers to the "gay community" in every aspect of reality as the "gay community", but that community cannot secure .GAY in CPE then serious questions are raised. Donna Austin, Neustar: Isn't that what CPE was designed for? Jon Nevett: I think that the registries recommended that a community that meets a certain level of criteria, it gets some benefit (e.g. some multiplier at auction) and if they meet a higher  level, they get the TLD outright. Jon Nevett: this way Navajo nation gets .navajo outright, but ABA doesn't necessarily get .law, but maybe gets some benefit Jeff Neuman: We have that option Jeff Neuman: Can someone get the 2008 Final report which was passed by the GNSO Steve Chan: @Jeff, here: https://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/new-gtlds/pdp-dec05-fr-parta-08aug07.htm Jeff Neuman: Right....the GNSO did not define which communities it was targeting Donna Austin, Neustar: Only in terms of going through CPE Jamie Baxter | dotgay: that is correct Robyn ken stubbs: definitions are still vague here. especiall if you have groups of "groups" Kristina Rosette (Amazon Registry): We (GNSO Council at the time) intentionally interpreted community broadly. Kristina Rosette (Amazon Registry): IG P:  "community should be interpreted broadly and will include, for example, an economic sector, a cultural community, or a linguistic community. It may be a closely related community which believes it is impacted." Jeff Neuman: The GNSO defined a community only for purposes of filing objections Jeff Neuman: but not in terms of what would qualify as a community for purposes of priority Kristina Rosette (Amazon Registry): Time to dust off the AGB redlines. Jeff Neuman: To clarify, the GAC did not support the recommendations of the report.  In fact, I think I asked them to be specific identify which recommendations of the report they supported and which they did not Tom Dale: Jeff, that is correct. What GAC agreed was that the recommendations should go to the PDP as an input/resource. Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): Council of Europe refers to this definition:  "Any groups of individuals or any legal entities brought together in order to collectively act, express, promote, pursue or defend a filed of common interests". Cheryl Langdon-Orr (CLO - PDP Co-Chair) 2: Co-Chair hat off I prefer the variable approach over the "one size fits all"  one.... ken stubbs: key here is the definition of what constitutes a "community" under the terms of the guidebook  (incredibly political here) Donna Austin, Neustar: a variable approach gets tricky when you have two applicants from different community sectors applying for the same string ken stubbs: +1 donna ken stubbs: example = INTA   a.https://inta.gob.ar/    b. inta.org Anne Aikman-Scalese (IPC): Problems with evaluators could be why we have problems.  In other words, it may be the panel process, not the definition of Community. Jon Nevett: I agree with Robin -- we need to have a clear definition Jeff Neuman: Rather than thinking of it as a "variable approach" could we think of it as a sliding scale Donna Austin, Neustar: i think the implementation of CPE and some of the difficult to understand decisions was what created the problems.