Meeting Summary 11 December 2007
- Laura Kolker
ALAC Monthly Teleconference
11 December 2007
Summary Minutes
ALAC Present: C Langdon-Orr (Chair), V Scartezini, I Aizu, R Guerra, A Greenberg, F Seye Sylla, J O Salgueiro, H Diakite, C Aguirre, S Bachollet (joined 13:55), M El Bashir (joined 14:03), A Muehlberg.
ALAC Apologies: V Cretu, N Thu Hue
Liaisons Present: R Sherwood, H Xue, J Morris
Liaisons Apologies:
Absent: W Seltzer
Minutes Taken By: ICANN Staff (N Ashton-Hart)
The Chair announced a Quorum was present at 13:42 UTC and opened the meeting.
Adoption of the Agenda
The Chair announced the adoption of the Agenda by unanimous consent.
Adoption of the Minutes
The Chair moved adoption of the October 9th Meeting, and of the 20 November meeting, which was passed by unanimous consent.
I Aizu moved that the steps taken to resolve the technical issues be minuted in this meeting; these are duly produced below (text in quotes composed by the ICANN Staff):
By email to the Committee on 25th November 2007, the staff noted as follows:
I can provide a bit more news about this issue for you all.
_I have had discussions with Denise, also with Roman Pelikh, it being clear that Verizon is simply not going to come up to scratch and we cannot continue on as we are with a service provider unable to provide basic services. Note that Verizon emailed me after the call (the head of EMEA for the company was actually helping with the call) apologising and letting me know that they had identified an equipment fault during the call which they believed was the cause of the trouble. _
I did remind him that we'd have more than a year of calls and the best of the lot could only be called 'acceptable', and the worst 'catastrophic', with a majority of calls being 'poor' and that in our view having more than a year to provide a reliable service was a hell of a long opportunity to get things right, which they had not managed to do.
I have spoken at length to Glen de St. Gery, who deals with the GNSO teleconferences (which are also with Verizon, though at the moment they are having rather good luck with them). I can confirm the following are the only two differences between our calls and the GNSO calls:
1) They use different numbers because they are using the mode of service where you do not key in a code and go straight into the conference, but rather wait for an operator to come online and manually patch you into the bridge.
2) They do not ever have people changing their numbers for being dialled out on at the last minute like we do (this definitely does cause problems).
As many of you will remember, we stopped using the option (1) above because it was resulting in those who dialled in being on hold for up to 20 minutes. Glen does not seem to have this problem, but then, they also do not have the bulk of their attendees residing in non-OECD countries, either.
After talking with Roman, he's tipped me off to a new teleconference vendor. I believe Cheryl intends to have a coordination meeting with the vice-chairs in the next several days which will allow us to test the new service with something easy, and if that goes well, then we can try a larger conference call, and see how that goes. I am to speak to the service provider on the Monday (their offices are located in the US, so they've just had a 4-day weekend).
Review of Action Items
Action Item 1: A Greenberg noted that the ALAC Statement on Domain Tasting had been conveyed. The Chair noted the thanks of the ALAC for his work on this statement.
Action Item 2: Further news on this item could not be conveyed as S Bachollet was not present.
Action Item 3: The Staff were asked if it had anything to report with respect to the use of Marratech and reported that no further news from S Bachollet had been received on this point, due probably to his holiday and the news on the list that a new vendor was being tested in place of Verizon.
Action Item 4: As B Brender was absent a report on this point would not be available.
Action Item 5: Due to the start of the new GTLDs working group this statement had not been prepared; A Greenberg would contact N Thu Hue in order find out if this summary was still required.
Regional Activities
NARALO:
R Guerra noted the recent NARALO teleconference at which there is interest in an outreach event in March alongside another meeting (non-ICANN), as well as previously announced comments on list about what lists are used for policy discussions.
APRALO:
I Aizu noted that APRALO was deciding upon what date to hold their General Assembly at New Delhi and noted the clash with Chinese New Year that was creating issues for many who might wish to participate. H Xue noted that Saturday 9th would not be possible for that reason.
The Chair noted that the timing of the ICANN meeting was of such importance due to the cultural insensitivy and lack of foresight displayed by the timing chosen and proposed that W Seltzer be asked to bring up ALAC’s concern and desire that such a mistake not be repeated.
There was no objection to this proposal.
S Bachollet joined and was asked by the Chair if he had any comments with respect to Action Item 3 of the previous meeting. He noted that Marratech was very good on the last several ISOC calls.
Africa:
F Seye Sylla noted that she wished to engage in more outreach and wondered if any procedures existed within AFRALO to do this. M El Bashir noted that all the information was available at www.afralo.org about joining. There might be an issue with how widely-known the website actually is. More outreach is needed though and help in spreading the word.
Outside of Agenda Comments by Members at this point in the meeting:
V Scartezini provided some additional information on a meeting related to the fellowship programme in Los Angeles that might extend the fellowship programme’s scope. A Greenberg noted that there were requests in the GNSO for ICANN to provide travel support for them for ICANN meetings.
The Chair noted that perhaps a report on matters related to the Fellowship programme could be added to the liaison reports going forward. There was no objection.
Liaison Reports
SSAC
R Guerra noted there was a discussion about a report being prepared on DNSSec that might at some point be forthcoming.
Staff Report
The Chair noted the report of the Staff and noted as particularly welcome the positive movement on the staffing of At-Large and of the recruiting efforts related to Consumer organisations. There was no dissent expressed for this statement.
H Xue asked about staffing for ICANN in Asia. The Staff noted that there was a second open position in Global Partnerships to add to the presence there. For the At-Large staff, if it was needed for one of the At-Large staff persons to be aligned workday-wise for period with Asia we could certainly ensure that was done.
IDNs
H Xue noted that the work in the IDN area was very busy and noted that in some respects now At-Large is commenting in a more timely fashion than the GNSO and in fact the GNSO has acted to establish an IDN working group after At-Large had done so. A Greenberg noted that he could additionally say in this respect that the GNSO IDN group was in response to a request to comment on the Fast Track process. The thinking on this topic was becoming more complex due to some countries in the GAC wishing to have large numbers of IDN TLDs potentially. X Hue noted that some questions had been raised on the mailing list about the process by which some of the ALAC IDN statements had been produced and that this was viewed as highly objectionable to those who had contributed to these statements since they had been developed entirely on the wiki in public over a course of months with multiple public calls for comments.
The Chair noted that she completely understood the hard feelings that exist and wanted those who had contributed to the drafting to know they had the support of the Committee.
R Guerra asked if the wiki approach had been useful in developing positions vis a vis using mailing list postings. H Xue noted she was a big fan of wikis and it was a particularly workable solution for drafting especially when small groups were collaborating; for large groups it might be less ideal.
ccNSO
The IDNC working group was in the process of being convened as Members knew. There was nothing else at present to report.
Policy Matters
New GTLDs
S Bachollet noted with respect to new GTLDs it might be interesting to hear more about some of the possible African GTLD proposals. S Bachollet was asked by the Chair if he could post some more information on these proposals on the working group pages. A Muehlberg suggested that this was an issue which required more study and in particular with respect to new Geo-TLDs.
RAA
No comments were made on this subject
WHOIS Services
J Salgueiro was asked to note the current state of WHOIS discussions. There is a good deal of work to do in updating the website and noted he had discussions with Liz Gasster in order to bring himself up to date on where the issue was at. F Seye Sylla asked if he could share what he learns. The Staff suggested that perhaps the briefing for J Salgueiro could be broadened into a briefing for WHOIS WG members. This suggestion was welcomed.
IPv4 to IPv6 Migration
I Aizu noted the workshop in Rio on the topic and noted he received compliments on the workshop. Other communities, Business and Intellectual Property, had said in Rio that collaborative work on this issue could be done. A number of governments attending noted that having such workshops was very helpful as there was still a lot of educating to do on this subject.
The Chair noted the recent meetings in Canberra, Australia on this topic were successful and the materials related to this meeting could also be linked to the wiki page for users to see. She noted in particular that V Cerf’s presentation was superb and would shortly be available on YouTube.
The Chair noted the chart produced by the staff at Commitments of ALAC Members and that all ALAC Members should have commitments listed in both columns as it was difficult to see the point of being a member of ALAC if you had not committed to work on policy and administrative work tracks.
Other Matters from Previous Meetings
Motion of A Greenberg
It was suggested by A Greenberg that the Motion should be amended to make clear there should be a list where ALAC’s deliberations are visible, but read-only to non-ALAC members, separate from the existing alac list. The internal list be preserved for confidential or non-substantive discussions such as where to eat dinner during meetings. R Guerra noted his support for A Greenberg’s proposal. I Aizu noted his support for this proposal as well. A Greenberg noted that the posting rights would be for the same membership as the current alac-internal list.
The Staff noted that the current verbal wording was much too long. A Greenberg said the wording could be done offline to save time. The Chair proposed that this matter could be put to an electronic vote.
S Bachollet noted that this procedure favoured English speakers over non-English speakers in his view. After various views were expressed R Guerra proposed a short discussion period online. The Chair suggested that this could lead to a delay in deciding the matter. F Seye Sylla noted that having an archived place where the whole discussion was visible would be helpful.
The Staff noted the development of the email list translation interface that was welcomed.
The Chair noted that the call had now been proceeding for an hour from when a quorum was reached and called for a 10-minute extension. A Greenberg noted that was agreeable provided travel arrangements were among the topics spoken of.
ICANN Los Angeles Summary
The Staff noted that it had done considerable work on this though the initial paragraphs before ‘Policy Development Work’ were untouched from the statement as delivered by Jacqueline Morris to the public meeting in Los Angeles.
J Morris noted that it seemed quite comprehensive and could be fine with just a bit of a cleanup.
A Muehlberg noted that she thought it would be helpful to establish who is taking the minutes for each meeting at the meeting so the minutes could be posted directly afterwards.
Officer and Liaison Election Appointments
The Chair took note of previous comments on this subject and there being no other comments closed debate on the item.
New Business / Any Other Business
The Chair noted that with respect to 3
and 3(ii), there didn’t appear to be strong interest in any action at this point.
R Guerra noted that he thought some substantial outreach in New Delhi could be very effective and a subcommittee could be formed to organise something.
A Greenberg noted the importance of making clear the level of RALO input into policy statements issued by the ALAC going forward. R Guerra noted that it would be easy to ask RALOs to discuss an item on their next RALO teleconference. Also, where only one region comments, perhaps that indicates more outreach needs to be done.
Planning for New Delhi
A Greenberg suggested that all Members should look into visa requirements urgently as they could vary widely. It was asked for an update on the travel situation. The Staff noted that the only person to speak to regarding travel was Stacy Hoffberg and Members were encouraged to write to her and were assured that she would be imminently launching the ticketing process with an objective of getting it done before Christmas for ALAC and the Secretariats.
The Chair noted that Australians required to have booked travel before a visa could be applied for and Members should contact their local consulates or embassies to see if this restriction applied to their nationals.
The Chair suggested that W Seltzer should be asked to bring up to the Board the lateness with which ICANN staff dealt with meeting travel and that Paris travel should be booked now, rather than waiting until after New Delhi. A Greenberg noted that since the meeting page didn’t yet even have a host hotel listed or any other hotel associated with the meeting was extremely worrying.
The Chair noted that the Meetings subcommittee should be convened to deal with New Delhi. This would be composed of V Cretu, R Guerra, and a member of the local ALS, and APRALO.
Items 4.2 and Item 5 would be moved to an online discussion.
The meeting was adjourned by the Chair at 15:40.
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thank you very for the detail update on the Dec 11 teleconference meeting. Regarding the new gTLDs, may i ask the view from the ALAC working group that If we need to submit the Summary of the comments instead of a collection (capuchino) of coments of different individuals as it used to be? and about timing of it? how much time we have left? has the "Capuchino" been passed on to anyone ealier (the board, the GNSO or who'sever?). I have not done any summary yet but i am pretty clear about how to make it happen properly. Just to make sure we do it as it is really needed and make sence. We are very busy. Thu Hue
contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2007-12-18 08:16:39 GMT