Welcome to the NCSG Commons!

This is the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group Commons WIKI. Welcome!

This workspace was set up at the request of ALAC Chair Cheryl Langdon-Orr to be a place where all present and potential participants in the GNSO's Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group ("NCSG") could share information and collaborate.

The workspace is setup as requiring an account to edit pages, but it allows any member of the public to leave a comment at the bottom of a page. If you are participating in NCSG formation efforts, or would like to, you can send a note to staff@atlarge.icann.org and we'll add an account on the workspace for you.

Note: When you see a name followed by "->" that indicates a new page has been created and reserved for that topic.

Announcements:

ICANN ANNOUNCEMENT - 19 March 2009 'Community Comment Forum Period Extended to APRIL 15th, 2009 for New GNSO Stakeholder Group Petitions and Charters' (see http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-19mar09-en.htm). From this page we duplicated the following information for ease of review...

"Background and Explanation:
As part of the comprehensive GNSO Improvements effort, last August the ICANN Board approved the formation of four new Stakeholder Groups. These SG structures represent a new concept for the GNSO that was envisioned by the Board Governance Committee GNSO Review Working Group On GNSO Improvements (BGC WG). In endorsing the recommendations of the BGC WG's GNSO Improvements Report, the Board approved the creation of SGs to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of GNSO Council operations. Specifically:

"To help the Council reach its full potential, ICANN should ensure that this body is inclusive and representative of the broad interests found among the GNSO constituencies and other stakeholders, while limiting its size to enhance its effectiveness and promote efficiency. Balancing all of these factors, and cognizant of the limitations of the current structure pointed out by the (London School of Economics) report, we recommend a reorganized Council that has the potential to be more representative, agile and collegial. Our recommendation is to structure the Council on the basis of four broad stakeholder groups to represent better the wide variety of groups and individuals that compose the ICANN community." (GNSO Improvements Report at page 31).

The Report continued,

"We want to emphasize that a new non-commercial Stakeholders Group must go far beyond the membership of the current Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC). We must consider educational, research, and philanthropic organizations, foundations, think tanks, members of academia, individual registrant groups and other noncommercial organizations, as well as individual registrants, as part of a non-commercial registrants Stakeholders Group. We also want to point out that the effort to have a balance within ICANN between commercial and non-commercial registrants reflects only a sense of equity. We welcome ongoing efforts to forge a stronger partnership between the international business community and ICANN, and would be surprised if Council restructuring were to be viewed as an impediment. On the contrary, we believe that an improved Council will yield concrete benefits for business and other stakeholders. In addition, all stakeholder groups and the constituencies that form them will be expected to conduct greater outreach and seek to recruit a broader, more diverse membership." (GNSO Improvements Report at page 32).

The BGC WG did not specify a particular formal structure or hierarchy, but it specifically noted that,

"The stakeholder groups may function only as a 'caucus,' bringing together like-minded stakeholders to elect representatives to the Council who can represent them. This structure would be fluid enough to accommodate new constituencies or the formation of new interest groups. It will be important for the implementation team to consider how to implement this flexibility within the overall stakeholder structure set forth in these recommendations. Our goal is definitely not to create a new layer of bureaucracy, as we heard concerns about at the San Juan Meeting. Alternatively, if the GNSO believes it is desirable, the four stakeholder groups could take on additional functions, such as trying to coordinate and document positions on policy development questions." GNSO Improvements Report at page 33.

The BGC envisioned that Stakeholder Groups would facilitate the creation of new constituencies as well as growth and expansion of GNSO participants. It noted that,

"One advantage of this new model for organizing stakeholder participation is to remove concern that the addition of new constituencies or interest groups could create an internal imbalance in the current composition of the Council. By creating four broad stakeholder groups, the number of constituencies is less important and can increase (or decrease) with time. Indeed, it would be inconsistent with ICANN's processes to try to limit arbitrarily the number of constituencies that people could self-form. Making it easier to form a new constituency can also address any obstacles people perceive in joining existing constituencies. Overall, this approach can encourage the participation of more people in the GNSO. Many details, of course, remain to be worked out concerning the new stakeholder structure for the Council, including the role of constituencies and/or interest groups within them. As noted earlier, we welcome the GNSO working with Staff to develop the appropriate Implementation Plan." (GNSO Improvements Report at page 33).

A diagram of the restructured GNSO Council structure, showing the context of the four (4) new Stakeholder Groups, can be found at: http://gnso.icann.org/en/improvements/structure-en.htm.

Relevant Board Resolution, Bylaws and Constituency Submissions:

GNSO Improvements Information Web Page
BGC WG GNSO Improvements Report (3 February 2008)
Minutes of 28 August 2008 Board Meeting
Minutes of 1 October 2008 ICANN Board Meeting
Copies of the Five New Stakeholder Group Submissions
ICANN Public Comment Forum Regarding Stakeholder Group Petitions/Charters

News & Events:

News from the 34th ICANN Meeting in Mexico City...

The ALAC: NCUC bilateral Meeting was held on Monday 2nd March.

Meetings were held this week concerning the two proposals for an NCSG Charter (NCUC and proposed CyberSafety). See the section below "NCSG Structure" for more information.

At the User's House meeting (3 March), the Commercial SG (CSG) "Transitional" Charter and Non-Commercial SG (NCSG) Charter (NCUC Version) proposals were outlined and discussed. CyberSafety, a new constituency petitioner, was invited by the chair to address the audience and, during that discussion period, it was also noted that it has proposed an alternative NCSG Charter model to the Board. Note: all of formal SG Charter documents that have been received as of 4 March 2009 are posted here.

New Constituencies Section:

There is a section (new page) for each newly proposed constituency targeted for inclusion within the NCSG. If you are a part of any of the below-listed communities, or would like to be, these areas are for you. Please click on the appropriate link below.

CyberSafety Constituency (Proposed)-_

Consumers Constituency (Proposed)->

NCSG Structure-_

There are various views on how to structure the NCSG. This separate page (hyperlinked) is available to post charter alternatives, organizational design options, and comments on ideas suggested.

Recently posted to this page:

NCUC Charter Proposal (v6) submitted 16 March 2009 by Robin Gross on behalf of NCUC
CyberSafety Proposed NCSG Charter by Cheryl Preston
Tentative Proposal for organizing the NCSG into 6 constituencies by Cheryl Preston

NOTE: To read and post comments related to the NCSG Structure alternatives, please click on this LINK

Meeting Notes:

Information on past and upcoming teleconferences will be posted here.

Reference Material:

This section will be links to documents and reference material not otherwise contained in other sections.

Stakeholder Group Process-> (BGC Background, Board Resolutions, & SG Template Draft #2)

Participants:

Put your name below and turn it into a link ( http:base/images/wikiwyg_icons/link.gif )

Cheryl Preston

Comments:

Note: Discussion, including CSC comment re: NCSG Charter submission relocated to NCSG_Structure by Ken Bour 3/16/09 10:00 pm EST.

Cheryl Langdon-Orr:
Please note that the NCSG charter proposed by the NCUC has the consensus support of all noncommercial organizations with the exception of those associated with the CP80 Foundation. CP80 is the Mormon-backed group that wants to use ICANN to censor the Internet. The current NCUC is not perfect and (like all ICANN bodies, including the At Large) could be larger and more representative than it is. But even in its current state the NCUC is far, far broader than the small group of US-based religious anti-pornography advocates who have backed the alternative charter. There is not a single person commenting in favor of the CP80 NCSG charter from outside the U.S.; indeed, most of them are in the state of Utah. The NCUC has members in Brazil, Singapore, South Korea, Africa, Malaysia as well as the US, Europe and Canada; it includes large civil society organizations such as RITS in Brazil, Educause in the US, Association for Progressive Communications in South Africa. The NCSG charter that these groups developed together was developed jointly over a period of 9 months, and the approach was discussed and vetted in public meetings in Paris, Cairo and Mexico City. For that reason, it is a bit disingenuous for this site to discuss these two proposals as if they were of equal status. It is clear that the NCUC proposal is one that most noncommercial stakeholders support, and the one proposed and developed unilaterally by the backers of the CP80 Foundation represents the view of a small, active, vocal ideological group that wants to ensure itself of several seats on the GNSO Council. We in NCUC believe that the Board will understand this contrast very clearly, and that it will also understand that a NCSG charter that encourages and rewards factionalism is inconsistent with the Board Governance Committee's desire to make the GNSO more productive, collegial and consensual. --Milton Mueller

contributed by guest@socialtext.net on 2009-03-21 17:53:42 GMT

""prestonc@lawgate.byu.edu