ICANN and the ALAC should investigate the use of simple tools and methods to facilitate participation in public comments, and the use of crowdsourcing.
Social Media WG and Technology Taskforce to continue their investigation of better tools
RALO leaders to use the policy section on the new website and provide feedback on how it could help ALSes to participate in the policy advice development process
Technology Taskforce to discuss Rec 31 during its next teleconference
Technology Taskforce will provide a summary of their investigation so far and what does and what does to be published on a wiki
(secretariat meeting)
Potential public comment period needs to be made aware to RALOs, as public comment period may be brief and RALO members cannot engage in time; ALAC members need to closely collaborate with RALO members with regard to this process; capacity building of public comment proceedings is also needed
ALS Criteria and Expectations Taskforce has been working on figuring out a suitable way that ALAC and Staff to feed ALSes information of policy. RALOs need to take the initiative to confirm interests in obtaining such information.
It may be useful for subject matter experts to provide an overview of public comment, instead of just stating the procedure related matters, during RALO calls.
LACRALO has worked with GSE and ALAC members and invited speakers to educate ALSes about certain public comment topics during teleconferences.
(secretariat meeting - ICANN55)
Siranush Vardanyan: The Document Development Program may encourage ALSes to participate in policy development and to participate in public comment process and comment on those policy developments we need. Whenever there is a policy up for comment, we would need some one-page, simple language, non-technical, just explanation – what is this policy, how it can influence to end users – to be sent to us and to share with our ALSs and encourage them to come and comment.
Glenn McKnight: TTF has been testing different tools, such as SLACK and Buffer. Besides these, TTF is addressing accessibility issues concerning people who are using Linux or people who have problems using Flash; Judith Hellerstein: TTF also works to make sure which tools meet the standards of W3C on web accessibility.
Ariel Liang: the new At-Large website includes beginner-friendly information about public comment and ALAC advice development process; this may be helpful for the ALS to participate in the policy activities
ramon.soto: Short public comment period is a challenge. Longer public comment period, such as the one on the Final Report Recommendations of the Geographic Regions Review Working Group, allows RALOs to identify penholders and draft response, as well as to invite subject matter expert to provide further information on the topic.
The challenge for social media is that can we have a conversation on policy via social media? Current policy conversation is taking place on Skype, mailing list, and calls/meetings.
It would be useful to monitor different social networks to see what has been said about certain policy topics/reports.
ICANN should task certain staff members in following social media conversations about policy topics.
This recommendation is also related to Outreach & Engagement Subcommittee. It talks how to get people engaged in public comment periods, etc.
Social Media Working Group can ask question to get people involved in public comment.
Break down the questions and encourage people to answer questions in small bits.
Use particular hashtag to group the conversations around certain policy topic.
Task an At-Large Working Group to experiment with this method and ask/answer questions about policy topics.