Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are. This is the ALAC ExCom Executive Committee Conference Call on the 14th of April, 2011. The time is 1311, so 11 minutes past 1300 UTC and we’ll start with a quick roll call. Seth, I gather you have the details or is it Heidi?
Seth Greene: I’m happy to do it. On the call right now is Olivier, Cheryl and not Evan, yet, not Carlton, Tijani, Alan and from staff Heidi, Gisella, and myself. Have I missed anyone? Okay, thanks very much.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you very much, Seth, and with regards to Carlton I seem to have seen an apology from him for not being able to make it. Do we have a record of this, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, he is in Haiti with not very strong internet connection so we do have apologies. We will note that officially.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you very much, Heidi. I gather Evan will join us a bit later. The first suggestion I have, because we only have Alan for a short while and Alan Greenberg is here to help us discuss---or take part in the discussion on the JAS Joint Applicant Support Working Group, that we ask whether it would be okay or if anybody has any objections to leave the standing agenda items, action items, out of the way and start first with the item for discussion Joint SO/AC Working Group. Are there any objections to that?
Seeing as no one is saying anything to that then let’s start with this. The update I guess is one that we’re all quite aware of. The question that has arisen this week is there appears to have been a request from the Board and then another request from the Board that the Board needs any input for their next meeting by the end of this week.
The situation is a little bit unclear as to whether we need to give a report or whether we wish to provide a status report. Anyway, working on these, if we need or wish to give a status report we need to have this done ASAP. But then we might not be required to provide one. I open the floor now for discussion and I see that Alan is putting his hand up. So, Alan, please.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, I don’t think we have any credibility to do anything other than to allow the Working Group to submit a status update--that is where they are in the process--not a substantive one of content since any content that’s going to go into this report that is other than what we submitted three months ago or whatever it is, is still subject to great debate.
The Working Group is not united on some of the issues and there are some people that are insistent that some of these issues go in even if not everyone agrees. A report that includes that kind of stuff cannot be sent. We cannot give the Working Group blanket permission ahead of time to submit that tomorrow not knowing what it’s going to say. I can see giving the group permission ahead of time to submit a status report of some bullets saying we are working on this, this and this.
Something that would be well under a half a page of updating where the group is, not the status part. Anything else, I think we lose any credibility we ever had since we too did put into the charter that the Working Group needed our permission to do things. In terms of the final report, I don’t remember if the Board is demanding it by middle May or that was our target--to meet the end of May target--for documents to be discussed at the meeting.
We do have an ALAC meeting scheduled on the 24th, I believe, so if the work group comes out with a report roundabout the 15th or 16th there is sufficient time for the ALAC to look at it and decide at its meeting whether to pass it on to the Board or not. I would suggest that’s the proper way to handle the final report, if there is a report; in the middle of May or somewhere around then. In terms of responding to the Board---and let’s face it, this is not the Board’s request, this is Peter’s request.
Peter clearly wants to have gTLDs released under his watch and that means it has to be by June. I personally think that whatever changes are going to be made because of the GAC are going to require another posting commentary but that’s my personal opinion. We will not make that. Yeah?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Let me ask you a question, Alan. How do you know that it’s Peter’s request?
Alan Greenberg: Because one of the documents, one of the things Karla said, is Peter and Kurt.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, no. She said she was going to tell Peter and Kurt.
Alan Greenberg: Oh, well okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean---
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: It didn’t mean it was a question from them. This is where I’m a bit confused---not confused, just baffled.
Alan Greenberg: Sorry, I was assuming the question came---the Board hasn’t met since, formally met, so I suppose in e-mail they can decide to ask for an update. I assumed, because she said she was going to give the report to Peter and Kurt, that’s where the request came from. I have no inside information on that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, my feeling, they should have e-mailed the Chairs. Cheryl, you’re next.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, well I’m following on your words. I think what the ExCom should be doing is suggesting that at least from our part our (inaudible) chartering organizations is that the Chair write directly to the Chairman of the Board and copy to whatever staff is to be relevant in this discussion, and suggest that we appreciate the hearsay inquiry.
We don’t appreciate going direct to a work group and that we insert the right number of words, which we can do a simple word count, currently under discussion by the work group. We are tracking and we see no delay. We look forward as an ALAC and also as a GNSO passing it on in good time as (inaudible) promised. I don’t think we should be giving them any details at all.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So no details of the actual work or no details of status?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No details--status. Tell them it’s working, they continue to work, there is 747 words or whatever it-in fact, I think it’s a lot more, I’ll try and count them out during this meeting--and I think it needs to come from you. And possible you may have time to have it done by the Chair of GNSO.
I think we need to say to the Board and whatever staff, senior or otherwise, is involved with this direct contact with a work group that they should get back in their box, they need their wrists slapped, and in future for inquiries contact the chartering organization.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you, Cheryl. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you, Olivier. I agree with Alan that we cannot submit a substantial report. We can submit if you want an advance report but it can be only to say that our work is split over several work teams and on this, this, this and this other item, we are working on now. That’s all. Not too much details but at least send them that we are working on those items.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually no detail other than we are working. This is the topic, you know.
Alan Greenberg: We’re reporting on process not substance. Which is what the group spends all their time talking about. No, I’m being sarcastic, sorry. Olivier, you still there?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Of course. I was muted and I’ve just been talking to everyone by myself. I was saying I think we have consensus. Obviously if I’m muted we don’t have consensus.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We don’t know if we have consensus if you’re muted because we don’t know your opinion. I can forward the current status of the JAS workspace Google Docs recognizing that this is inclusive of the milestone report in total but at the moment inclusive of the milestone report it comes to 13,261 words. Even cutting that in half we could say Dear Board et al, 6,000 words have been prepared, we’ll get back to you shortly.
Alan Greenberg: Yeah, I don’t even think we need a word count, actually.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I know, I’m being petty.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You’re being extremely sarcastic today, Cheryl.
Alan Greenberg: There’s one other issue that you probably don’t know about that you should, if I may have the floor?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Please, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, the jig report went to the founding organizations, basically to the GNSO and the ccNSO a little while ago. This is on single character domain names. The GNSO, after a significant discussion at the last meeting ended up basically saying that they are approving it to the extent that it is relevant to the GNSO to gTLDs and as much of it focuses on ccTLDs.
There was a lot of reluctance to actually saying we pass it onto the Board because the ccNSO had not passed judgment on it. They ended up approving it with a statement saying “and we will inform the ccNSO’’. The ccNSO--Leslie--came back and said we are not approving it right now because the SSAC has expressed some concern over some items. We need to resolve those before we pass that on to the Board.
That brought up the issue which other people have said before but it is revisited, of reports created by Working Groups that are chartered by multiple organizations should not go to the Board until all of the organizations had passed judgment on them. That doesn’t say one group can’t send it ultimately but they should at least hear the wisdom of the other group before passing judgment.
There is now talk in the GNSO that future work groups need everybody’s approval--at least everyone’s discussion--prior to going to the Board. That complicates things even more. Right now we’re viewing it that each of us can say from our point of view, we’re okay.
Seth Greene: Alan, that’s nice of them to ask, it doesn’t mean that we have writing on that.
Alan Greenberg: And it doesn’t apply retroactively. I’m just telling you what some of the current discussion is going on and there is some merit if you look at the particular case of the JIG. The SSAC did not share its concerns with the GNSO therefore the GNSO approved something which may, in fact, have a flaw in it.
I don’t know to what extent the substance is relevant. I’m just giving you these ongoing discussions that it’s going in circles in GNSO, increasing the buy-in from those who say we have real concerns over how we’re managing this process.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I gather that this explains some of the work that Jeff is trying to do at the moment and trying to show that cross-constituency Working Groups do not work.
Alan Greenberg: You know, I don’t think it’s that. He personally may like them or may not like them. I think he has less problem with it than Tim does. He’s very process-oriented and all of this comes down to process, process, process. I’m just pointing out that assuming that even the minor status update that you’re going to get the GNSO to issue the statement in parallel---I wouldn’t assume anything like that at all.
At this point, however, our charters say the Working Group can forward something to the Board only with the permission of the chartering organization. Obviously the chartering organization can move forward as it wishes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: We have two charters for this specific Working Group.
Alan Greenberg: Right. All I’m saying right now is those are the charters we are working on but we must make sure we’re going to follow it scrupulously otherwise we lose any credibility we had. That’s the point of it. The problem with the JIG and the ccNSO not approving these yet, even though the GNSO has, is illustrative of the kind of problems one can have with joint Working Groups and forwarding something to the Board without the full discussion of all the chartering groups.
It just highlights a potential problem, reinforcing to those in the GNSO that don’t like this process, why they don’t like it. It’s a heads up, it’s not relevant to this discussion but it’s important to understand.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond Just for the record, discussions I’ve had in private e-mails with several members of the GNSO Council, their point of view is that the GNSO Council cannot agree to anything unless they actually have a meeting about it which will take place in a few weeks’ time and etc. They’re very process-oriented, as we know.
Alan Greenberg: That’s absolutely correct. The GNSO cannot take action without a formal decision which requires, typically, a sedition time for all of its constituencies and stakeholders groups for it to have passed judgment.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Does even a one page status saying that the Working Group is still working, the one as described by Cheryl a little bit earlier, even a status thing like this would not be passed unless it would go for approval?
Alan Greenberg: Absolutely not. There’s no way to do that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: Even if they wanted to they couldn’t at this point and I don’t think there’s any will. The current charters allow us to send a report in to the Board on our Working Group from our Working Group’s perspective. They even allow us to tell the Working Group it can do that, although I don’t think that’s advisable in this case.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Correct, that’s right. I mean you’ve seen my e-mails in to the Working Group and being quite tough on this.
Alan Greenberg: Yeah.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m just speaking from my (inaudible) and saying I can see absolutely no justification for telling the Working Group they should contact or in any way, shape or form, authorize staff to get some sort of feedback from the process of the Working Group for the Board. I think that there is known tenements as to the binary committee because we are not a support organization and we are not inhibited in the same ways GNSO is, but the Chair of the Advisory Committee can say “Dear Peter and Kurt, thank you for the ongoing curiosity on the work thereof and it’s going well and we are on track and we look forward to the SOs and ACs and charter groups sending you something in due course after their processes.”
Basically tell them to get back into their box and I think we really have a process issue that---I’m most concerned about what was basically a hi-jacking in a way that’s wasted a huge amount of time and a great deal of angst in the work group at the last meeting because of this coming out of left field. Correct me if I’m wrong, Olivier, but you even haven’t had a response to your formal question as to who asked and why yet.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: No,
Alan Greenberg: That is correct. I’ve got to go. The last thing is, Olivier, I think you or the ExCom needs to inform the Working Group that if the Working Group wants our report, the Working Group report, adopted by the ALAC at the meeting of the 24th of May it needs to produce it by the 15th or whatever date you want to set. And understand that if that target is not met the ALAC will not consider it. Again, for credibility issues. You know the ALAC has to have time. This can’t be one of those we haven’t seen it but we’re approving it anyway.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely.
Alan Greenberg: So, okay, have fun folks. Bye bye.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you very much, Alan, for joining us. One person I haven’t heard from yet with regards to consensus--because I think we’re all in agreement here--but I haven’t heard Evan, if you have a few words to say.
Evan Leibovitch: What would you like to hear? I’m absolutely fed up with all of this?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: It’s the line that was suggested or the action that was suggested by Cheryl, which is just to have a very thank you very much for your inquiry, the Working Group is working well and that’s it.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, okay. There’s so much that is wrong with what has happened here I don’t know where to start. The request came from supposedly Peter to supposedly Karla who passed it on to Avri which after that all hell broke less. Who gives the response because who was asked for it? We find out yesterday that the two co-Chairs didn’t find out about this until yesterday.
Is this message coming back to Peter from the co-Chairs? Is it coming from Karla? I’ve been on my little mini-rant forever about staff running interference between the needs of the community and the people that need to hear what we’re saying and here we have an explicit example of---I can’t think of a worse example of subversion of the process. If Peter wanted to get a progress report, Peter should have gone to the co-Chairs of the Working Group or to the Chairs of ALAC and GNSO is the supporting force.
There is so much that is wrong with this and so much that just smells wrong about it. in terms of how do we respond to it and how do we go back to it, Cheryl, what you’re saying about a progress report of here are the issues we’re working on but you’re not going to get anything in this document that tells you where we’re at, because you gave us less than a week to do it and you didn’t even do it through the right channels.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: If I may say, and I think you were on and off the call at the time, when Cheryl described suggesting to write to the actual members of the Board--well, write to Peter, I guess--and saying that we don’t appreciate the inquiry to go directly to the Working Group. Is that correct Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely, and that’s why I put my hand back up. There is absolutely no reason for this inquiry to have gone to any member of the work group and certainly should not have even gone to the co-chairs of the work group. The people that the Board deal with are the chartering organizations, and the communication dealing with that is by the Chair thereof.
This is simply a hearsay inquiry. We are simply going to have enough time to say we believe someone may have asked, if in fact they have, Chairman of the Board, then here’s the status. Thank you very much, bugger off.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I think it is demeaning to be into the we believe someone has asked thing. It’s just not following proper procedure and I’ve never heard of a company being ran like this.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, I am at absolute 100% total agreement with what you’re saying, Cheryl. In fact. I would add to that a litte comment saying this Working Group has had---its time is precious and now a lot of it has been spent even dealing with the nature of the request as opposed to what it has to deal with. They also ought to know that even doing it this way has been a very, very unwelcome disruption.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan, if I may, that’s something that you deliver face-to-face while you’re smiling sweetly, shaking hands firmly and saying thank you for basically wasting 19 minutes of this work group’s time by this inappropriate action, Mr. Chairman. You don’t do that in writing.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Don’t even give them the courtesy of that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Then, of course, you kick them. Sorry, so I think we’ve got an action item here if everyone agrees, and the action item is to write to the Chair of the Board and to the Board Secretary and to say that there is a---
Evan Leibovitch: It has come to our attention…
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That there might be a question about these things, we don’t appreciate the fact that it was sent directly to the group, and that the suggestion is that the Chair would write to the members of the---sorry, that the Board would write to the Chairs of the chartering organizations in order to find status in the future. In the meantime, the Working Group is working well, thank you very much.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just make sure that we don’t inadvertently sacrifice the people under---I’m concerned, for example, that you’re particularly disappointed that this might be interference from Karla.
Evan Leibovitch: Cheryl, don’t get me wrong. Karla has her heart in this probably more than anyone else I can think of. I’ve been on the phone with her directly. She wants this to happen, I’m not trying to throw her under the bus as the---this is not just conventional staff interference; this is Karla in her desire to desperately get something done, having done the very wrong thing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, also we must be very aware that there are senior staff -insert the name Kurt here--who she has to report to and react to. If she’s getting pressure it’s not her fault that she’s asked someone or said something. So with those words that you were proposing for the text, I wouldn’t even go so far as to say it’s been directed to the work group. It hasn’t, you know? It was mentioned tangentially at the last work group meeting.
Evan Leibovitch: Actually, in a private chat Avri had told her that her conversation with Karla happened in an airport lounge.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, not even, we shouldn’t even give credence to that as a formal inquiry. So let’s do the we believe you might be interested in, if that’s the case here’s a little update. Bugger off.
Evan Leibovitch: I’m fine with that, Cheryl, it was not my intention to throw Karla under the bus and frankly, right now Kurt is probably looking for reasons to undermine her further.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Any volunteers to take the pen on this? Looks like it’s going to be me, then, since obviously it’s the Chair that needs to write.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We’ve sort of captured a few words here. Can you sort of throw a very rough draft into the Skype chat and we can dot the I’s, cross the T’s and that way Carlton can also be involved and Tijani will be able to make sure that we’re not saying things that could be misinterpreted. I think we need to be very careful, very clear, very concise, very brief and very cutting in the reply.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Consider it done.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It should also be copied to the Chair of GNSO and their usual staff because it does affect the co-chartering organization.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, absolutely. The GNSO needs to know that we share their disquiet about the nature of how this has gone down.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Its one of those I would say every executive committee meeting of the ALAC held at on, considerable discussion on what this is, I have been instructed to, and therefore we believe that…blah, blah, blah.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I think that Seth is taking notes on this?
Seth Greene: Yes, I am, Olivier.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you very much, Seth. I think we should move on then from this item for discussion. Evan, I gather you are working in a Google spreadsheet with details of a longer report. I gather that probably will go into the final report?
Evan Leibovitch: Well, that’s going to be up to the Chairs and up to the rest of the group. Essentially, what has happened is that a previous JAS meeting, three of us--that is myself, Andrew, Mac and Cintra--were actually given the go-ahead to go and actually try to create something. I don’t even know if everyone was absolutely sure what it was doing.
The impetus had to do with this informal request but it was a very good reason for the three of us to sort of go off in a corner and try and gel things down. This actually, to me, has a double purpose; on the surface it was intended as a response to the implicit Board request but I’m really hoping that what we’re going to try and do is lay things out in a simplified manner so that the future JAS meetings can get back to discussing substance by supplying a very specific list of questions that need to be answered before we can come up with a sufficiently complete report.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And does this report include any of Avri’s work, as well?
Evan Leibovitch: Yes, it does but not front and center. Essentially what I’ve tried to break it down is into why, what, how and when, and to try and simplify it. Everyone on the executive committee has either read or read-right access to the Google document. Heidi and Seth looked at it this morning when I woke up so you’re all welcome to have a look at it.
I noticed Tijani has already been looking at it, Olivier, I think you’ve been looking at it. So the intention right now is you can see there’s text and the text is in multiple colors coming from different people. That, essentially, has been Andrew, myself, and Cintra trying put together something that simplifies what it is that we’re trying to tackle.
Even if we’re talking May we’re not talking an extremely long amount of time. We’ve got some very fundamental questions that we need to answer in that time frame and we’re not going to do it if the group continues to be distracted by process.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, thank you. The problem was that the compilation wasn’t done before, that’s why we weren’t advancing at any level. There was some proposal, some text proposal but we decided after all, in San Francisco, that Avri will hold the pen to propose the compilation that we will discuss as we did at the first days of our work.
It wasn’t done and now Evan is doing with Cintra and Andrew. It’s very good but I have a small remark. I think that you are trying to prepare for a global report which is not our mission now. Our mission---we have a charter so we have points to address and I am seeing as I am seeing the Google docs I think that you are going in the things that we have already done in the milestone report. I don’t think that we have to raise, again, what was approved in the milestone report.
Evan Leibovitch: Tijani, my answer to that is that I’m in absolute, violent agreement. Obviously I’m not the person that has been writing everything in this document. The way things started was Andrew suggested a framework to work in, I modified the framework. That’s what you see in the black text in the Google document. What other things have been put in is people trying to cut and paste parts of other documents and also try to answer some of the questions on their own.
I can guarantee you I’m going back to the milestone report and it is not the intention at all to open up anything that the group has already achieved consensus on. All I can tell you right now is that the document is not finished and one of the things I can assure you I will do is apply the milestone consensus points to make sure that we’re not spending time re-opening things that have already been discussed and closed.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Gentlemen, I’d like to move on from the JAS, I think we’re spending too much time on this and I wish that you would have this conversation during the JAS calls so as to have all of the work group members work on this. Cheryl, you had your hand up?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: My only question was when will the rest of the JAS work group have access to this text? I assume when the sub-group is comfortable to get it out there because if it just appears in an Adobe room at the meeting we’re going to end up with the same waste of time.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, Cheryl, the answer to that was there was--we felt, and this was Andrew, myself and Cintra--that we were going to get sidetracked if we were going to have everyone tossing in their two cents before we even had a framework document out. It’s my personal intention to have something moved from Google docs into the JAS public Wiki within 24 hours.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So it will be before the meeting?
Evan Leibovitch: That is right, that is my hope. Well, we’re going to have to have something in there. All I’m looking to do right now is to put something that is reasonable that will have a frame of reference that everyone can throw stones at. We are not going to resolve it in 24 hours, we’re not going to necessarily resolve it at the meeting tomorrow; all I’m trying to do is lay down some structure and ask the questions that need to be asked.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely this is a strawman, and is there any discussion between you and Andrew and Cintra--and this is my last question, Olivier--to, any intention to map it specifically to the numerical points in both the charters recognizing that both the GNSO and the ALAC charter match to a particular degree? Just to make it easier for when it comes to ALAC and GNSO?
Evan Leibovitch: Then answer is within 24 hours, no. Ultimately as the document continues to be worked on, I imagine that would be a very good task to do.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That preamble there, so that we don’t use the JAS work group time in ruminating over that.
Evan Leibovitch: I understand, but that’s something that can be applied later when it’s on the public Wiki, as you say, that’s just a simple matter of mapping.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, if it just has that header that says all of this text is going to be mapped specifically to blah, blah, blah it will stop them. I’m just trying to get something productive out of my midnight call next time that happens.
Evan Leibovitch: Olivier, I agree with you, I don’t want to dwell on this but I think anyone on this call is probably frustrated as anything with the nature of the JAS calls which I’ve not found to be productive in months. That’s one of the things that I’m hoping and praying to do with this document, is to lay down some specific structure and some substantive issues that need to be addressed so we can get out of talking about process and actually talk about what needs to be dealt with.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Evan, and thank you, Cheryl. The last word on this subject will go to Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you. Evan, even if the document will not be ready for tomorrow to be published on the Wiki page you can send on the e-mail list the questions you want the group to answer. I guess you have the questions on which you will need responses to go ahead in your report. If you cannot publish the report for tomorrow at least come up with the questions that we all have to answer. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Tijani, based on the conversations with Andrew and Cintra we’re going to have something out there on the Wiki before the meeting. What it’s going to be I’m not sure but it’s going to be the subject of, shall we say, some intense work between now and then.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: May I also suggest that the meeting for the agenda take that into account? I just don’t want it to be another meeting discussing--looking for a right word--crap.
Evan Leibovitch: Olivier, I’m just writing a report, I’m not writing the meeting, and will do what part I can with this.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, perhaps a word to the co chairs is what needs to happen there.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Evan, you can propose to the co-Chair.
Evan Leibovitch: Will do.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, well thank you very much. I think we’ve really hit on that subject that was particularly important since the world is really looking at this and the GAC is really looking at this. It needed to be discussed. Now we’ll move on to the action items from San Francisco. We are very late but we knew that we were going to have a very full item.
What I suggest is to read through them and to look if we have any action items to peruse specifically. Right, so starting with the first one. Mark Rotenberg will take the lead on preparing the ALAC statement on PEDNR post-expiring domain name recovery. That is in progress, I have been in contact with Mark. He has taken the lead on this.
I will follow up personally with him to make sure that he comes up with a first draft as soon as possible. This is due in on the 22nd, we’re hoping for it to be put to the vote on the 17th, I think. All the dates could change but we have to get this ASAP. By the way, since I can only read one thing at a time, if you do have something to say, if you could please shout out because I can’t see the hands while reading the whole list at the same time.
ALAC and At-Large to prioritize topics for beginner’s guides for Scott Pinzon. That has been done. ALAC and At-Large to---oh, and Heidi, do you wish to add anything to this, or…
Heidi Ullrich: No, not that particular one.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. ALAC and At-Large to provide input for videos on new gTLD’s to Scott and Michelle. There needs to be a follow up, and in fact we do have a section later on in this meeting where we will be speaking about this I understand. Or am I getting this wrong?
Seth Greene: That’s correct, Olivier.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That’s correct but it will be 5/8 in a couple of days, we’ll reach point eight, at this space at least. Next one, the GAC and ALAC to develop closer relations to strengthen outreach activity and this is ongoing. We now have to look at---well, the next being GAC and ALAC to hold meetings at every ICANN meeting and that is, of course, something that we need to do. ALAC to organize a meeting with the GAC in Singapore. In between,
Heidi Ullrich: Olivier, if I may?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Please, Heidi.
Heidi Ullrich: Are you going to follow up with Heather for a request on that?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I can indeed, yes, sure.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, if you could do that and then let us know and then we’ll go ahead and plan that when we start doing the meetings.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: What I was hoping would be to also have a conference call for ExCom and her lead at some point in May for us to at least get to know each other and talk about a few things. I don’t know how we all feel about this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent idea.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very good.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so let’s do that also.
Heidi Ullrich: Sorry, Olivier, that would be ExCom plus who? Just Heather or her vice-Chairs?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Heather and her vice-Chairs, I guess, and also her staff including the new secretary because I think it’s important that we get to know each other.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Let’s not be too descriptive. Let’s say our ExCom would like to meet your leadership team relating to ALAC and GAC relations because they might have particular GAC---they might particularly choose one or other member representatives. Clearer as well.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Perfect. Next I’d like to pass the GAC---the recent ALAC statement that contained some of the ALAC perspectives on the new gTLD’s.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was going to say woo-hoo.
Heidi Ullrich: That’s completed?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yeah, that’s done, actually.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Done! Done!
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I’d like to pass on to GAC the Wiki links from our activities. Need to follow up; I’m not quite sure I understand that one.
Heidi Ullrich: Hence the question mark.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So no one understands that question. Any suggestions from anyone who has a better memory than I do?
Evan Leibovitch: The only thing I can glean from that is passing on the links to the meetings in San Francisco that we were involved with.
Heidi Ullrich: Those are on the main ICANN schedule as well so they should have been able to find that on the meetings page.
Evan Leibovitch: I know, which made the question for a specific list like this kind of strange but maybe it was simply a matter of simplifying things.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so I think that’s basically either it was done or it’s too late, so we’ll just delete that one?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’d completely ignore that one. I think we can just ignore that and it can fall off the list.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That will reduce it from 122 items to 121. ALAC and GAC to begin written interaction especially on the scorecard. That would be a very constructive activity. That’s done. Call for membership on the work group of true-to-structure, accountability and transparency of ICANN, that has been done and is in place. Has there been follow up with Jean-Jacques about this?
Heidi Ullrich: No, not yet, we’re just creating a WIKI page for that and we will be in touch with him early next week. That’s going to be an item for further discussion on today’s agenda.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, I didn’t know that that was the case.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, we’ll wait until later. Chair/Interim-Chair is to ask for the development and then on the future of ICANN and future trends on the internet; also, work group to look into the future of ALAC and how it fits into the above. That is batched with the other action item.
The role and distribution of the ALAC liaison to these ALAC spending and out of Working Groups is to be reviewed and revised in light of the new model, structure and function of some of our standing Working Groups coming out of the review implementation proposals. That’s also going to be discussed later on. Full session on re-sellers to be held in Singapore.
Heidi Ullrich: Actually, yes. That’s with the registrars. Yesterday Evan mentioned that he felt that we would not need a meeting with the registrars in Singapore. Sorry, this was with compliance, sorry. This came out of the session that we had with the compliance team.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So Evan mentioned not needing a meeting with the registrars but he didn’t mention, did you mention anything about not needing a meeting with compliance, Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: Oh heavens no. I was making the case that considering all of the different constituencies, considering the fact you’re trying to open the door to the business constituency and there’s so many other people we need to meet with and we already met with the registrars at the last meeting, that shouldn’t necessarily be one that we have to do at each meeting. Was simply my point.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. We’re not discussing that now, we’re discussing---
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, with compliance? Absolutely, that was definitely not to be taken off the table.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So that’s an action item for the scheduling of the Singapore meeting.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, when you say full session do you want an hour meeting with the compliance team?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I would say maybe an hour is a bit too much. How long did we have last time? Same length as we had last time.
Heidi Ullrich: Officially 20 minutes but they took around 40.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Let’s lean more towards the 40 minute mark than the 20.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so we can give them, say, 40 minutes or so.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And Cheryl has raised her hand. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m sorry, can you guys hear me? My audio from mute sounds like old-fashioned ship to shore. I’m getting about every third word if I’m lucky.
Heidi Ullrich: Sorry, Cheryl, who is that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I cannot hear things.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You cannot hear us. Do you wish to be called?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I got about every second word, I got do and call.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Do you wish to be called by dialing in to you? Look at your screen.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alright, thanks Cheryl. I gather Heidi or Seth is going to work on this but we’ll continue in the meantime and I hope you can get most of the words. The ExCom is to consider the request by Sebastien Bachollet---oh yeah, sorry. We didn’t finish our action item on the full session on re-sellers. 40 minutes sounds more likely than 20 minutes but perhaps we can have 30 knowing that we might spill over a bit?
Heidi Ullrich: Okay.
Evan Leibovitch: Perfect.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Next, the ExCom to consider the request by Sebastien Bachollet to establish a small Working Group to discuss the location and logistics of the next summit. It would be helpful if we had Sebastien on this.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, okay. First we need to establish whether or not ICANN is supportive of having another summit. It wasn’t brought in on any of the issues on the---when we made the financial request. When we had the meeting with the ExCom with the financial folks at the end of the week we talked about the summit or whatever and it wasn’t put into any of our specific --
I don’t recall that there was summit-related things in the budget request but we need to find out from a very high level to get a green light to start doing this planning. I don’t want to start roping in a lot of volunteers for something that ICANN isn’t going to let happen.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I’m sorry, I was muted. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, thank you. I think that it is a sort of pressure if we organize this Working Group. We asked a lot of times, several times, about the second summit, and right now we don’t have any answer, but if we establish a Working Group to work a little bit, not deeply, but to begin to work a little bit on the logistics of the summit, it would be a kind of pressure. When we report on it, it is as if we already adopted it.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, Tijani. Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I heard yesterday that the Finance group is planning to have follow up calls with the SOs and ACs in the next week or so, so we might bring that up at that point.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Good. Okay. What I suggest, I don’t know, is Cheryl back on the call?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m back.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Cheryl is back, okay, perfect. Did you have a view on this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I came in part way through what Evan was saying, so I’m not sure what the beginning of the conversation is, but --
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: If I can just quickly summarize, sorry for cutting you off Cheryl, but Evan is basically saying that there’s been no indication that the funding is forthcoming for this, so it might be a bit premature. Tijani is saying that we need to start this Working Group, it might put more pressure on ICANN to fund it, once we start working out some of the logistics.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m afraid I’m agreeing more with Evan than I am with Tijani. I think the presence or absence of a hard Working Group makes little if any difference to ICANN, their financial decisions. I think we should, as Heidi said, take it up in a meeting with ICANN financial and then pull out the miracles as required, when we know there’s a good reason to do so.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so as a follow up on this action point, I suggest that we kick into touch for the time being, until the time that we have a meeting with ICANN Finance, and also until the time when we also have Sebastian on the call when that happens.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, there’s one other thing, and sort of combining both what I said with Tijani, the fact that ICANN hasn’t indicated the willingness to spend doesn’t mean that we can’t start making some moves in that direction. So it’s – pending the response that we get from financial staff, we may choose to elevate this and get Sebastian involved in perhaps getting the Board support, if indeed ICANN financial staff might not be.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, and I see an agreement from Cheryl on this, and I gather that because it was Tijani’s proposal to start with, I also see a tick from Tijani, so we have a green light for this. Is this all recorded correctly, Heidi, Seth?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I’m actually in edit mode in the Wiki.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, super. Let’s move on then. This is taking years to go through. The next one – and where am I now – ALAC to begin establishing communities we have access to that have experience in this field, to data mine on statistics.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: You skipped one item.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Did I? Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. It’s because I saw Sebastian. Okay. Sorry, well let’s first consider that one and then we’ll go back to the previous one. So ALAC to begin establishing communities we have access to that have experience in this field, to data mine on statistics. Or that – oh, these two are related, aren’t they?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think that’s part of the other one, yes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yeah, apologies for that. Seth, can I borrow your bootleg please? So Sebastian to provide ALAC with contacts for Board resolution on consumer trust, competition, and innovation. The status to follow-up. Heidi, any follow-up on that?
Heidi Ullrich: No, would you like us to follow-up with Sebastian on that information?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I think – I mean, I understand we were extremely busy until now, so now I see that is something we need to do in the close future, if you could please.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s something that we could punt to the ALAC meeting agenda, because to incorporate part two, which is the part you read out first, of course, what we need to do is get our reps from the regions to engage with their RALOs and see what links exist within each of the geographic regions. It’s not that difficult for some of us to say, but it might take a little preparation for all of us to say.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I think before things come together here, we’ve got the first two we just looked at, and then of course the Singapore meeting, the joint working session and meeting on consumer issues is to be organized to provide community driven information to the Board. And in Singapore, any meaningful data that will provide statistics that the Board is asking for, so yes, punt to the ALAC for the time being.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I’ll follow-up with Sebastian and then place on the agenda of the ALAC meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, and make sure that we have the appropriate time allocated. I mean, we need to book forum room space too, and it should also – we need to talk to Rosemary and the non commercial stake-holders group.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so that also has an add in to the scheduling of Singapore. Next, and ALAC and regions are to reconvene and discuss the detailed responses to this NOI, and that’s being thankfully done. The ALAC staff to contact CMR to control the quality of the translation, and I believe this is Ms. Rodriquez.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, and I can say that’s in progress.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That’s in progress, thank you. At-Large and IT staff to work on confluence archives, and that is in progress, and I can see need more from ALAC and ExCom on content of archives. Is there any ExCom input on this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Look, I’ve been drowning, and unless enormous things have changed, last time I looked it was the dog’s breakfast. I’m not sure I’m being rude, I’d have to have a look.
Heidi Ullrich: We have made a lot of updates in the last month or so, so do take a look please.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m pleased to hear it. It may be that there’s been improvement since the last time I looked it was the dog’s breakfast, hopefully that’s not the case now.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, and I’ll be announcing some good news that will help alleviate the dog’s breakfast in the future. (laughter)
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: It might move to a cat’s breakfast at some point, and then we might even move to humans.
Heidi Ullrich: It might be an English breakfast.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. So next ALAC to send in to the PPC the ICANN Board interpretations, because it is very clear and could be used for other purposes. I gather that’s also related to the previous one.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, to the knowledge base, I believe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: IT is speaking about that, aren’t they Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, they are. In fact, we have a very good temp who is working with Roman on providing the template for the knowledge base. In fact, once again, At-Large is in the forefront, because IT staff have recognized that the moment that we do this that all the other ACs and SOs will want one as well. So they will be posting this not in particularly the ALAC Wiki but into a separate level so that everyone can access it.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, we have so much time on our hands, this is great. Super. Okay, that’s good news. Now the next one: registrars to produce educations products for end users and consumers by the next meeting or sooner. And I guess it’s mentioned here, staff to follow-up with (inaudible) and registrars. So that’s in progress.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, if I could just go back to that previous one, I just looked into my main docs, and actually it was ALC starter kit that ALAC was to send to the PPC, so we will do that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, if I may on that last item you just read; which really came out of the last meeting we had with registrars, could I suggest – I follow on Evan’s suggestion that we don’t need to meet with registrars in toto at the Singapore meeting, but we can give them a block on our agenda. But it might be appropriate for a staff to staff connection following up on this action item.
Perhaps even a briefing where we have briefings on our ALAC and regional leaders meeting, often on the Tuesday, but who knows what’s going to happen, because Monday is going to be something else in Singapore. But whenever that meeting is held, Tuesday, Thursday or whenever, if it happens on the Sunday, that [T Mandor] whatever rep could speak to what has been gathered, because that really is a ball back in their court.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yeah, I’m happy with this as well. And so the last part is the registrars to develop three or four more ideas for education and outreach and to identify who among them would be ready to work on this. All of that, I guess, will be dealt with by staff. ALAC to identify any data that could be shared with the registrars. That’s something we will probably have to see with the ALAC.
And Patrick and Lutz to develop a statement with Eric Brunner-Williams on SSAC review and submit to the ALAC. That was completed with much blood being spilled. Alan Greenberg to put together IT issue for GAC scorecard, and that was completed with no blood being spilled, which was very good. And translate the guide to the Wiki for other languages and that was completed. I think that’s really excellent. I really, really like this guide to the Wiki, and I think we need to thank the various people who were involved with this very much.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, and yesterday they were finally posted, so we have them on our Wiki, and I will make an announcement to the RALO list.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, may I suggest that a formal note of thanks be part of the next ALAC meeting on (inaudible) because it really is a (inaudible) to the Board.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You’ve just taken my breath. It is indeed what I was going to suggest.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I didn’t realize you were a bit blood stained, but then yes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, I’m a man of voting, votes and stuff, we like that. So yeah, super, let’s do that as an action item.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so moving on swiftly; the ALAC to create a knowledge base for ALAC activities and that’s something we will discuss a little bit later. Roman and IT to create system for a knowledge base; well, I guess this is another knowledge base part, and I understand Roman already started whilst we were in San Francisco. ALAC to --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: -- knowledge base, (inaudible) translation to chat.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, he was working.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: He was.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: He just enjoyed our company and was working. ALAC to prepare response to GAC scorecard and submit it to the Board as soon as possible, perhaps even with an advance document is the titles document is not ready yet. I’m happy to say that was completed, and thank you very much, Evan, for the huge amount of work you have produced there. It really is very – that really put us on track. So much appreciation.
Evan Leibovitch: --He listens to it. Getting back that response from the GAC to the Board questions, I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt, that that was actually written before our statement came out, because it certainly doesn’t reflect anything we had to say.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Evan, I think they were working on it before we gave them our statement.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was going to ask, following on from that, if there has been any other feedback. I also assumed that the GAC response was something that was well and tried and probably being drafted at San Francisco, so I was wondering whether Olivier or Heidi or someone might have heard anything back from either staff or other leadership on the work we put in.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, no feedback on my side. An email that I sent to Heather, was it yesterday or the day before yesterday, returned a vacation message, so she’s away at the moment. It will still make it strange then, but yes, it does point to this report, these responses to have been written a while ago. So she will be away for I think a week and a half or two weeks. I don’t know whether you have any knowledge on that, Heidi.
Heidi Ullrich: No, and I have also not received any information on this.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: We’ll follow-up. Okay, next – Dave, that’s right.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Dave and Dev.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Dave and Dev to follow up with advice from Alan, Cheryl, and everybody involved in the proposed new GNSO policy development process from At-Large. That was completed and very good.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We can call it even.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Very well done. ALAC to request a 15-day extension on the PEDNR that was done as well. Patrick, Lutz, and Eric Brunner-Williams to write draft statement on Security, Stability, and Resiliency of the DNS Review Team’s set of issues. I thought we already had the – that’s a repeat action item. That was done.
Edmon Chung draft a statement on the draft proposal for the study of issues and the IDN Variant TLDs; that was completed as well. Carlton Samuels to draft statement on the proposed recommendation of the global outreach program, and that was completed as well; and of course all of these voted on, and there might be some that are still in voting stage. Specifically the Security, Stability, and Resiliency of the DNS Review Team’s set of issues, which as we all know, needed an addendum so as to refocus some of the feedback that we had, which certainly changed the way that the consensus was based.
Evan Leibovitch: I have no idea what you’re talking about. (laughter)
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Let me explain, or rather, let me not.
Evan Leibovitch: No, no no no, no Olivier. (Laughter).
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so chronologically, on the first of May, April, whenever it was, no, we’ll forget it. Next, Carlton Samuels – so that was done. So ALAC give Scott names by May for May and June podcasts, and that’s something which we will discuss in a moment. At-Large – or in a few years, if we go at this rate – At-Large to have a hash tag to put a twitter wall, staff to follow-up with Kendra, Rick, and Scott. Any update on this, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: No, I need to do that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If we could have a deadline for that to be sorted, so that we can be active in the Singapore meeting, that will be very, very useful. It is a very strong buzz and twitter community in the Singapore and Southeast Asian areas.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I can do that today.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thanks.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Heidi.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Those who twitter, we can be twittering, Live, or buzz blogging, or whatever, but I would expect a very active wall if we run live.
Heidi Ullrich: Thanks. And again, the news I will be mentioning under AOB will help us along.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Sorry, I’m trying to move on. It is 20 minutes past the – overtime already. And we haven’t even gone --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, we have never run a one hour ExCom yet, so don’t even try.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Have you seen what a template I’m being given to run? We should all speak in acronyms, that’s all, or every word should be an acronym or shorthand.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s not just that the meetings are longer, it’s the entertaining if you get them done in 60.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: If I set them longer, no one would turn up. So it’s all a part of making it look like it’s going to be short. Anyway, At-Large to have a hash tag to put on a twitter wall. So that’s done. Beginner’s guide for Singapore. Not done, sorry, that’s in progress. Beginner’s guide for Singapore, cyber study, protecting yourself online, a guide for end users and a guide for consumers, useful information for the end user.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s stuff that we’ve given to Scott, and that I thought was gone to action. That’s actually outcoming some of the prior action items.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I’ll delete that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Make sure we remind him that that’s one of the things we agreed on, but yeah.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And the ExCom to place Danny Younger’s comment regarding cyber squatting registrar on the next ALAC agenda, and that’s to be done. Are we going to be discussing this today? I don’t even know.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, just stick it on the ALAC agenda, don’t waste our time on it.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I hear no one saying anything against it, so yes, let’s do it. And that’s it. We have Danny Younger’s comment; for what it’s worth, I would like to see the ALAC produce a statement saying we have taken note of yet another lawsuit naming an ICANN-accredited registrar as a serial cyber squatter. We call upon the ICANN Compliance Department to eliminate the rogue registrars within our midst, for details, and we have the details there, and that brings us to the end of our action items. Yippee.
We can now move on to – any overall comment on the action items? None, so next is number three, continue debriefing regarding At-Large selected director process. Cheryl can speak to us on this. If I can just say one thing. Because you have been so involved with all of the teams, the BCEC and the ABSdt, I’m leaving it in your capable hands to continue the debriefing, to be in charge of the full debriefing. So Cheryl, you have the floor.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: One of the things I was going to ask, first of all we need to recognize that what we are doing is time critical, we’re still going to be within the next couple of months again. But we certainly want to catch the word from those who have been involved in it all along. I’m in two modes; one of them is I should just write the report and if you disagree let me know. That’s not terribly democratic, but then again, I’m not known to be terribly democratic.
The other is give one second shot for the BCEC and the ABSdt to respond to the call for comments, and yet again, tell them I’m happy to take the ExCom’s advice on this. If you want me to just write something and see if anyone salutes or throws bricks at it when it’s put up the flagpole, yes, I’m into metaphor mode, but I’m also on my second bottle of wine. Or is it worthwhile even putting in a call for gathering any discussion? I can go either way, it makes no difference to me.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you Cheryl. Tijani or Evan, any comments or preference?
Evan Leibovitch: Not really. I’m okay.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I agree.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You agree to what? Another debriefing of BCEC and ABSdt or Cheryl to write the report?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I heard that she didn’t propose that we have another debriefing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That is your preference, okay. – my work on that, then?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: If I may just – that’s what I was going to suggest. Yes, Cheryl, if you could – well, first thing I think is to gauge the temperature for another debriefing of ABSdt with BCEC. I know that the attendance was very poor the last time, and if it’s going to be another poor attempt, then it’s just wasting your time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I didn’t say we’d have a teleconference debriefing, I just said we’d have a debriefing.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so let’s do that and send a message out to ask --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We’ll do that, yeah..
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: -- if there’s business. Now --
Tijani Ben Jemaa: She needs to what? If she is thinking --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m thinking that we may have a teleconference, or we may post questions and ask for responses.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Now, one thing which we haven’t had is a candidate debriefing, and I know that several of the candidates might have things to say. Would you suggest, Cheryl, or in fact anyone here, would you suggest a candidate debriefing, having a call with the candidates? Or with each candidate in turn, or just emailing them?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Are you talking about the final slate of candidates or what?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Final slate, or all of them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You want us to contact 64 people, 44 of which didn’t make the cut?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I don’t want to do anything, I’m asking a question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: As stupid as my question might be.
Evan Leibovitch: No, Olivier, it wasn’t a stupid question. I’ve heard from at least one candidate who is still bitter at the way things turned out, and at very least is extremely irritated as to not having been able to properly make their case of why they think that they were badly handled by the process, at least giving them an ability to air it, number one. It may not be a great use of our time but it would certainly soothe some feathers; while at the same time giving us perhaps a little bit of wisdom moving forward. I don’t think every one of the 64 is going to step up and say what they didn’t like but I think there are a few that at least have at least plausibly legitimate beefs.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And so can I ask to whom are they going to be, sorry, who is going to hear this?
Evan Leibovitch: My personal suggestion was this was going to be the ABSdt, and since the candidacies are all confidential, personally- I mean if I had my way, what I’d like to do with this is send out a mailing to everybody that submitted an intention to run, and to ask if anybody would step forward and had any comments that they wanted to make. There’s one or two that I’ve heard a lot from individually that I would personally think the ABSdt would like to hear from who have made their displeasure fairly public, semi-public if not public.
And we’re not going to hear back from everyone, and some of them may just have some comments in writing. There might be one or two for whom an actual verbal debriefing might be useful.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Again, you’re saying the ABSdt needs to hear from candidates that the BCEC has already dealt with.
Evan Leibovitch: Well indeed, at least in one of the candidate’s problems they believe that they were screwed over by the BCEC so bringing their complaints to the BCEC would not be productive.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The rules set by the ABSdt make it very clear that the BCEC deliberations and decisions are final. And I think a navel-gazing exercise with one particular person who was heard extensively by the BCEC, extensively; and considerable effort was gone through to see that every one of their concerns was addressed, including having ICANN Legal (inaudible) in and going through and dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s in terms of the process, is counter to the process that the ABSdt put together. So I disagree with you.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay? Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, I don’t think it is for changing any decision of the BCEC. It’s only for the future, for the lessons learned. So we can… It is not a matter of changing the decision of the BCEC.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The lessons learned, we’ve already been debriefed about. We know a number of proposals and suggestions that will be going into the final report to avoid this issue every happening in the future.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, so you’re satisfied- I wasn’t able to make the first debrief, so I am a bit out of the loop.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Of the several thousand words that Heidi and I had with this particular candidate, believe me, we’ve learned a lot of lessons.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Alright, well if that’s the case then alright, that bridge has been burned.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And in terms of apology, as Chair I apologized unreservedly from the beginning.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. Evan, have you raised your hand again?
Evan Leibovitch: No, actually Adobe was just very delayed. So if I, I can’t even see my hand up in the screen so if it is, if you can lower it on my behalf.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Very strange.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, that happens sometimes to me, too, Evan. I put in type and it shows up five minutes later.
Evan Leibovitch: Remember who you’re talking to. I’m just happy to have the screen up.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Very strange now, yeah. Okay, right, well what I was going to suggest is for the sake of completeness to offer to have briefing sessions, or not even briefing sessions but written statements from the candidates who have a problem or who have a comment to make about the process. There is no need for the ABSdt to provide any answer whatsoever. It’s in listening mode, it is there to hear firsthand what the candidates have to say.
It will take it into account or not take it into account – that’s up to it for when it will find out. But it’s just in order for it to have the information at hand, and even if it’s been heard before. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’d like to turn what you’re saying on its head. Once we have a report I’m happy for that to be put to our community’s comments and to have input and reaction to that. And I think that gives ample opportunity to those who feel that there have been issues in the process to see whether the remediation and proposals for any remediation – the lessons learned – have in fact addressed those things, and will minimize if not eliminate the opportunity for those things to happen in the future.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So you are basically saying, if I get this properly, if I hear you correctly you’re saying let us do the last round of debriefing of BCEC/ABSdt, write a report and then gather further input from the community once the report is written.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep – put it out for community scrutiny and comments. And I think that fits (inaudible) for the response or lack thereof that may come from any and all. And I would have no difficulty sending the Wiki page link to the report to every single SOI applicant. Anyone can comment and I think those should be encouraged to do so.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Tijani? Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: I’m okay with that.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I have a little problem. If we do it that way perhaps some people wouldn’t make public comments if they are interested personally. They perhaps prefer to provide their remarks to the BCEC and ABSdt directly, not through public comment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, we can give that as an alternative. We gave those alternatives throughout the process, but I think what we’re doing is we’re trying to change the tune of the band to meet the slightly out-of-sync beating drum in the back left-hand corner of the orchestra.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: We don’t need to. We’re just listening, we’re just hearing it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, yes, but it is bordering on a number of other issues, not the least of which is some very definite recommendations on conduct and requirements for understanding of conduct of BCEC members in the future. So there’s a whole bunch of things that would go into the final recommendations and reporting back to the ABSdt, which will ensure this sort of thing is minimized as a risk in the future.
To be honest, and I’m perfectly happy for this to stay in the public record: if we had not had a breach of confidentiality by one of the BCEC members, this situation we are discussing and which took up huge amounts of the BCEC’s and Heidi’s and my time, would never have seen the light of day. So do you really want me to go down this pathway cause I will?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, I think we have an action item on this then, to go ahead with an attempted debriefing of BCEC and ABSdt members, and then produce a report and ask for comments from the community including private comments, or giving the community the option for private comments rather than just public comments.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, include in that action item the invitation to all SOI applicants to respond, comment, or privately email to that report.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Perfect.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very good, very good.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Is this recorded, Heidi?
Seth Greene: Yes, Olivier.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Or Seth, sorry. I never know who is there. Right, let’s move on quickly then to the next thing: the review of the At-Large Working Groups. As we know, there are several of them and many of them don’t seem to be particularly indeed moving that much. The question is do we want to close some of them? Do we want to reorganize them? Do we want to revive them? We know that there is one more Working Group that is now being created, and that’s the Future of At-Large… I don’t even know the exact name of it but it’s being created.
My concern by a new Working Group being created is that it will divert resources which were otherwise meant – and I’m speaking about people’s time – which were otherwise spent in other Working Groups over to that Working Group. That’s one concern. The other concern being that the knowledge that has been acquired and the work that’s been done in the other Working Groups might be lost, and we’re reinventing the wheel for the Nth number time.
So I’m opening the floor here for suggestions as to what we do with those standing At-Large Working Groups and whether we want to spend some time to reorganize them. And Cheryl, you have your hand up. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Olivier. Look, as anyone whose listened to me for any length of time knows I’m passionate about making sure Working Groups complete their purpose, retire them and that can require revitalizing them as needed; and occasionally with (inaudible) and renaming them and repurposing them. What we need to do with the current six, however, I think is not just an ALAC ExCom issue – I think it’s a whole of ALAC and most importantly At-Large issue.
I think that a number of the possibilities or opportunities that the new Working Group Jean-Jacques Subrenat and (inaudible) and several others came out of Singapore on will consume a number of the standing At-Large Working Groups, most obviously the At-Large Engagement in ICANN one. Now, I see that as a repurposing rather than a loss of whatever has happened from the At-Large Engagement in ICANN one, which really was only very, very active in the pre-Summit and Summit days.
What I am most concerned about, and this is where I think if we could spend a lump of time on our Sunday face-to-face in Singapore looking at these Working Groups, looking at what it means to have standing, ad-hoc, and other Working Groups in the light of acceptance and implementation from the At-Large Improvements recommendations, I would be wanting to see something that hasn’t happened with our Working Groups to date happening, and that is that they need to be chartered.
They need to be chartered with a particular purpose and if their purpose changes or if it’s completed then those charters need to either be modified or the thing retired. What we’ve tended to do is open things up and not purpose them in writing, and not give them a particular opportunity for closing when their job is done. And that’s something that we probably need to do.
If we were to do it even as the ALAC I think we would be rolling back some of the positive-ness and the energy and the input that we’ve generated by the five work teams that have been operating in the ALAC Improvements, and I just want to build on that success rather than be too prescriptive. I know me being not too prescriptive is probably a shock for everyone but I think this is one of those times where we need more input rather than less.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Cheryl, and I do have a follow-up question actually on what you’ve just said. Taking the example of the At-Large Engagement in ICANN and saying that much work was done by the Working Group, I look at the Confluence page, I go into the Working Group page and I find our monthly reports, documents and resources being empty. And I wonder where that has gone.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alright, I’m going to do that myself now. At-Large Engagement in ICANN, description…
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: My description has got “Specific offers of engagement on aspects of At-Large participation were made by ICANN staff,” which can be found on a list. And it’s got (crosstalk). Yeah, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Unless, Tijani, I see your hand is raised as well.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, let’s ask Tijani whilst we’re looking for the missing reports. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, thank you. I am watching the screen with the Working Groups already existing, and I do think we need a place to see the membership – who is still there, who is not there. We can also assess if the Working Group is still valid, if the utility, the necessity is still there. So I think a review of the Working Groups is an important thing as we said before, and even if we will keep all of them we have to review them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Now Tijani, actually you mentioned the memberships. When you click on the Working Group link you will find a page on each one of these Working Groups, and the membership is actually there and it has been kindly updated recently in fact. So I believe that the membership of each one of these Working Groups is up to date. Is this correct, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes. We updated these right prior to San Francisco.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I know that the Subcommittee on Finance and Budget is updated, well-updated, but since I don’t know the members of the other Working Groups I don’t know if they are still working. I know that some are still working but the others, I don’t know. I don’t have the feedback so that’s why I think we at least have to know if all those Working Groups are still working.
Heidi Ullrich: Tijani, if I may, Olivier also-
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Please, Heidi.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, the latest of what we have done on this is besides updating the Wiki is we put a call out for the new ALAC members to sign up to various Working Groups. So we’ve added the new ALAC members but in terms of actually calls, we have not had Working Group calls in some time. I know that for example, when the statement on the SSR was being put together they did use the Technical Issues Working Group mailing list. So some of the Working Groups are using their mailing lists but again, no calls on that.
And what I wanted to say earlier, in terms of the activity of each group’s run-up to the Summit, you’ll see that under “Meetings” all of the Working Group pages now are in the template format so they’re all basically the same. If you look under “Meetings” there will be a section that says “For information on specific past calls please click here,” and if you click on that you’ll find the calls that were held in the run-up to the summit.
Evan Leibovitch: Really?
Heidi Ullrich: Well, where they were. For example, the At-Large Engagement in ICANN-
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Let’s have a look here, because I’m afraid I don’t think I’m getting this. Oh, “click here for past calls.”
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah. So that links the current activities as they are with the initial meetings that these groups held.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So the problem I have is that I can’t find it. But the problem I have is I can’t find any documents that relate to these things.
Heidi Ullrich: Oh, okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Because once you go into these past calls then it basically shows summary minutes and action items. There’s actually nothing.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, look under documents. Go to the next section under “Documents,” click on that. And you’ll see information there.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Click on the… Okay, so the documents are fine, I guess, but if we go into “Meetings,” “for information on specific past calls please click here.” So I click on that and let’s say we’ve got the 25th of February, 2009, was one of the last meetings that took place. I click on this and then there is nothing there. The summary minutes are empty, the action items are empty, the agenda is empty.
Heidi Ullrich: Well, the agenda probably was, that’s what it was but yeah. But on the summary minutes, etc., yeah – I can follow up on that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: It’s the same (laughing) for summary minutes for each one of the calls. I’m just concerned that we’re now losing the knowledge that we had from all of these Working Groups, and this needs to be cleaned up. I understand what Cheryl is mentioning and I agree we should have a session on the At-Large Working Groups being discussed on the Sunday afternoon in Singapore; but at the same time, in the meantime we need to make sure that what we have done – and that’s a huge amount of work that many of these Working Groups have done – that this is readily available and can be found.
Because the last thing I want is for Jean-Jacques and his crew to waste their time doing things that have already been done before. We don’t have enough people to go tangential directions, taking resources away.
Heidi Ullrich: Again, I apologize that the summary minutes and the action items aren’t up. I would assume that that was because we were holding so many so often at the time we were unable to prepare those, but I’m wondering where the transcripts are. At a minimum where are the transcripts, where are the recordings, etc.? So I’ll look into that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you. Sorry, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There should at least be mp3s on everything.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, that’s what I’m wondering.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I mean I understand this might have been transferred over from the SocialText system and I just wonder whether we haven’t lost some information there. The SocialText is still running so it might be something for the computer staff to look at.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, or At-Large staff.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Or At-Large staff, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Look, it’s not just these. I mean there is existing SocialText pages which everyone assured me would still exist as orphaned pages. These are pages I know existed – APRALO pages, historical documentation from our beginning. They were inaccessible by any mechanism in the SocialText before we moved over to Confluence, and I was hoping that as the supposedly clearly orphaned pages we would be at least able to get these archived pieces of information which include the early elections and who-did-what-jobs from the beginning.
All of that’s gone, and it’s not only happened to APRALO. It could very well have happened to other RALOs as well. So it’s not just the work groups; there was considerable concern about what happened to the orphaned information on a number of SocialText Pages.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. Well I think we’ve got a couple of action items from that, one being to schedule the At-Large Working Group discussion for Sunday afternoon in Singapore, and the other being to follow up on this SocialText community/Confluence problem.
Any other suggestion for this item? Otherwise we’ll move on to the next thing. Oh, I see many hands up, sorry, I apologize. I see first Tijani, you had your hand up?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No, no, no. I am sorry.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, okay, everyone’s hand disappeared.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Everyone’s hand disappeared, so-
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was just wondering is it not appropriate at this Executive Committee meeting to formalize the leadership of the work group. It appears to me that Jean-Jacques is waiting for starter’s orders. Most of us I think would think that he as a leader/co-chair would be highly appropriate although we would need to run an electric fence around the paddock and encourage them to not jump over the top of it by putting 40,000V through the wires.
But I think we need some sort of formalization. Now, that can either happen here or at the ALAC meeting. I don’t particularly mind which as long as it happens before the end of the month.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Cheryl. Well, I think the last ALAC meeting formalized it, didn’t it?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The ALAC meeting was held in Singapore, and as Jean-Jacques emailed to Evan when Evan indicated that he thought Jean-Jacques was an appropriate lead, Jean-Jacques responded that he was a facilitator in getting it started but (interference). We need to have those terms of reference agreed to and we need to establish leadership, liaisons, etc., etc. And I think we need to make sure we’ve got the authors of the (inaudible) on that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well Cheryl, at this point in time I think the only thing we can do is to give the green light to staff to start formalizing the charter, etc., etc., as Heidi was suggesting for being done next week; and to agree to the Working Group in principle.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And can we maybe get it onto the agenda for discussion at the ALAC meeting?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I hear no objections so yes, that’s a yes. Okay, well that’s good. All recorded, Seth?
Seth Greene: Yes, Olivier.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. So now we move onto the next part, and it’s the review, the planning for the joint session of the GNSO Business Constituency and At-Large before Singapore, and I’m going to keep this very short. I’m due to speak to Marilyn Cade. We were supposed to speak this week but there’s always a problem with schedules and people running, doing things worldwide. We will speak very soon and I’ll probably fire an email off over to her right after this meeting to follow up and plan a joint session between the BC and At-Large.
The question is of course what agenda will we have? Is it just going to be a joint session or are we going to have also… There were suggestions from Marilyn for social events. I’m interested in hearing your views before sending an email to Marilyn, and also interested in whether we should have a little conference call with the BC leadership prior to Singapore. The floor is open. That sounds like a taboo subject, either that or I’m on mute.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no, you’re not on mute. Cheryl here. I liked the proposal (inaudible) for a social event because it builds trust. We’re stepping into brave new worlds here, and I think a social event – and if a social event run by Marilyn in any way, shape, or form it’ll be well-structured social event. Yeah, there will be hot topics for discussion, etc., etc. – that’s a good icebreaker that’s going to be really appropriate at Singapore.
I think discussing with the leadership before Singapore is essential. I think we need to have anywhere between three and five hot topics or points of mutual concern that we can gently shepherd the rank and file into discussing at whatever socialization goes on. And I think it’s an excellent opportunity then to get the BC constituency out of the GNSO to explore some of the collaborative tools and sharing opportunities that our community has benefitted from, At-Large has benefited from. And I think it would be useful for them to work with by working with us on a number of things.
At the moment what we’ve done is gained a reasonable amount of trust from individuals within ALAC and the At-Large community because of their performance in various work groups where BC is also active. But we’ve also carried a bit of, well, we’ve carried a few of the crazy people with us as well and we need to sort of, I think the majority of us aren’t crazy and can be trusted.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Cheryl. Any other comments? Tijani, Evan, you don’t have any view on this.
Evan Leibovitch: Not really. I’m okay with things.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may just on a couple of the topics, there’s clear nexus in terms of our interests on registrant rights and the RAA matters, things like that. So I mean there’s at least two or three things which we have lots of mutualism.
Evan Leibovitch: My only question was whether or not this was better as a social event or as a formal meeting. I’m okay with either.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think we should start off gentle and then by the end of the year we’ll probably be having a sort of a joint subcommittee and a couple of leads who are working with each other and reporting back formally at other meetings.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, well I was going to suggest the following thing, that we table a call with the leadership, and as we being the ExCom with the leadership with the BC to prepare and discuss what we want to do together in Singapore; whether we wish to discuss… Well, first we would of course tell what our hot topics are and then choose whether we would want to make this as a social event or as a joint meeting. And that way I think we will not only know our point of view and what we want out of this but what they are looking to get out of this. Is this a possible solution?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I see a tick from Tijani.
Evan Leibovitch: I’m okay.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And Evan’s okay, and I heard a “yup” from Cheryl, alright. So let’s do that. One thing which I do find that the BC is noting is the variety of people writing statements and being involved in the whole process, and Marilyn on a couple of occasions has told me she really wishes to also bring that kind of dynamic into her constituency. So there’s certainly things that we can teach them and there might be things that we can learn from them as well, especially sponsorship for example. That’s a good possibility. Anyway so we have an action item on that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just before we close off on that, if I may, Olivier-
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes, please.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: To do a social event I think is a good idea but if we have time in our agenda it may be possible, if such a social event happens early on in the week we could have a possibility – depending on the pre-Singapore call – of you know, a half a dozen of them and however many of us sitting in a room and interacting on real policy issues; whether there’s clear agreement or where there is departure on a couple of policy things that are hot at that time. That may be schedulable, I don’t know but we certainly should leave our door open to that possibility.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, certainly a small conference call would determine some of this and would determine maybe if we were to have a formal meeting with the BC, whether it might be a reduced formal meeting such as the one that took place with the ccNSO in San Francisco; or whether it might be a full formal meeting with all of the BC members and all of the ALAC and regional leads.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep, that’s a good way forward.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, right. Let’s move on then to the next thing if I can find my agenda… Where are we, where are we – oh, here we go: Planning of ALAC agenda for the 26th of April, 2011. Include Danny Younger’s comment regarding cybersquatter, I think we’ve already agreed to that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hmm.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Then we have a choice, because the fact is we’ve had so many different things going on simultaneously we do have to choose. So the idea is to have either a joint DNS Security and Stability Analysis (DSSA Working Group) discussion, or Geographic Regions, or the Study Group on Names for Countries & Territories, Technical Evolution of WHOIS Service.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Names for Countries & Territories is only just beginning, and all it needs so far is for an observer. And I’ve certainly offered myself as an observer there. Geographic Regions, you won’t have any further updates from the Geo Regions Review Work Group before the meeting. You will expect to have a next-stage report between now and Singapore.
The DSSA Working Group has only just started and has not actually held a meeting or done anything but we’ve already populated it, and I’m not sure what the Technical Evolution of WHOIS Services reference is to but how much time is that going to take?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: We can just have it all listed then and just fly through them I guess, but it’s about trying to reduce the amount of time spent on items which don’t seem to need any input yet. Because as you know we’re always late on everything, so even (inaudible) is good to gain.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But possible topics that cause too many upsets. Nothing can be upset by DSSA WG. Nothing will be upgraded from the Geo Regions Review Work Group. Nothing has happened with the Study Group because it’s only just formed, the Names for Countries & Territories, but you would need to formalize who your observer is. I’ve put my hand up and hopefully I will get the job. And I have no idea what the Technical Evolution of the WHOIS Service is, but if it’s a new cross-constituency Working Group I assume someone from our technical community and possibly from the WHOIS Work Group should be put forward as a potential if and when they ask for somebody.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Seeing as how you’ve managed to do this in 25 seconds you’ve got the job to announce this to the ALAC on the 26th of April, 2011.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’ll be my pleasure.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And of course you will be able to use, since it is a ten-minute slot you will be able to use the next nine minutes and 35 seconds to discuss the Legal complaint for the cybersquatting. So I think, is this also set? Seth, you have it?
Seth Greene: Yes, I have it, Olivier.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You have it. Fantastic, let’s move on to the next point, point #7: creation of the At-Large Knowledge Management System. And I’m just going to give you a quick update. As I understand, the Knowledge Management System is not only a technical side of things but it also includes a whole setting up processes for information that is worth keeping, that really is worth keeping, to be able to store it somewhere and have easy access to it; and to continue perpetuating it from generation to generation. And I’m really looking at the long-term here.
To give you an idea, the elections in LACRALO have just taken place, and the Elections Committee down there or the LACRALO leadership has learned a lot of things that range from reasons for people not to have voted initially, or how to hound ALSes that don’t vote; how things are meant to be done and not meant to be done. I suppose they are going to have some kind of debrief document that will be written to document what went right and what went wrong.
This might be very helpful for other regions, and this is the kind of document which I’d like to see going into a Knowledge Management System. The floor is open for comments, and I understand staff is going to deal primarily with all of the technical side of things.
What we have to deal with is to look at the processes and to set peer avenues for people and ALSes and RALOs, organizations, to be able to say “I believe this is important enough to go into the Knowledge Management System – how is it going to be structured? Do we need a Working Group on this? Do we just discuss it regularly at ALAC or ALAC ExCom calls? Or do we need to get the RALOs to discuss this in their regions?” The floor is open.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think, Olivier, I think this is one of those things where we do need strong RALO and indeed perhaps even ALS involvement in the establishment of best practices. But it’s also something that is going to grow once we’ve got a template in front of us and have seen what it is we need from ALAC and At-Large in the Knowledge Management System.
There are a number of international best practices in knowledge management of course, and we can draw on some of those, but I mean right now I think if we ask each of the RALOs to consider what they believe and come up for perhaps post-Singapore but planned for maybe some discussion in the end-of-the-year meeting in Senegal what they envisaged would be a set of criteria or best practices or knowledge management to meet their needs and those of their ALSes.
And then that allows us to take something concrete and look at what might be culturally very diverse an issue. For example, if I may just exactly identify for a very brief moment, I would think that there will be parts of the Asia-Pacific who believe knowledge management should be focused on the “who did what” over the outcomes and documents, and there will be other parts of the world which will have an entirely different view. And we need to sort of approach it from our great big melting pot called At-Large.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, Cheryl. Any other comments? And I noticed that we appear to have lost online Tijani and Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah, I got a total disconnect from Adobe. Like it basically just barfed and said “Go away.”
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Me too. It was a problem.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Very strange. Any comments, Evan, Tijani?
Evan Leibovitch: I personally have to admit to an extreme lack of interest in this particular corner of things. I mean there’s part of me that thinks in terms of project management that this can be to a certain extent an IT issue; that if we can take the collective materials that have been amassed, put some kind of a full text search on it and essentially make sure that it’s easily accessible to everyone, I mean that’s a good first step without having to over-analyze things.
Yes, there’s some good best practices; yes, there’s some things that can be gleaned, but let’s face it – this is a group that’s going to have a high rotation and a high turnover of people, and to a certain extent this can be solved by IT, to a certain extent we’re going to have to trust people to go and do a little bit of due diligence and make sure they’re not reinventing wheels. That’s just my two cents.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Tijani and then Heidi.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, I think that the concept is not different, is not clear for everybody and perhaps you are not thinking to the same thing. So Evan spoke about the IT team; I don’t think it is a question or a technical manner. The knowledge management is other things for me. So if Olivier, since you bring these ideas, can you please write each about what you mean, what exactly do you mean by “knowledge management”? So everyone can add his input and then we can have global inputs.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, Tijani, I accept to do that. Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, thank you. I would suggest that given Cheryl’s great institutional knowledge of all things At-Large that she be heavily involved in this project.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: How about if you were just going to give me a dictation tape and get me to talk for a few discs and we’ll see how that goes?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. I have through various discussions with RALOs heard much interest from Cintra Sooknanan as well. She has studied knowledge management at university and so she also has much knowledge about this, and she was very eager to be involved in any team that would be looking at this.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I really think this is something, it’s one of those that “make sure the edges are involved.”
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That’s the first rule of knowledge management, isn’t it?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mm-hmm. Well actually, no, I think one of the true rules of knowledge management is… No, I’ll shut up now (inaudible).
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So as action items, thank you Cheryl. As action items I have that I will- Sorry?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You’re thanking me for shutting up?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well it’s good – you’re shutting yourself up. I don’t need to shut you up. That’s great. I would never dare anyway.
Action items: write concise page about what I mean with regards to the knowledge management, and I will do that and send it over to the ExCom. And this could then also be used for any discussion that will take place in the wider ALAC. And the first step in the establishing of a knowledge management system on one side obviously is for staff to be looking at it; and on the other side to begin to start asking the RALOs to contribute on what knowledge management and need, what information they require in the long-term, what they want to save from their history, etc., etc.
Let’s leave it quite open to start with and see how it focuses. Certainly that’s a long-term thing, so it will be ongoing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, is it possible for us to flag out to the RALOs based on past agreements at the ALAC meeting this month that there is a time that this discussion is going to happen? That we are going to be talking about it (inaudible)? Just we sometimes set an unreasonable time course and it allows people to think about what they’re going to be doing in August or September instead of tomorrow.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So you mean forewarning everyone, saying “Over the summer we’re going to be asking about…”
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That’s an excellent idea.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (crosstalk) the concept.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You’re thinking about a few months away; I’m thinking about the next 24 hours.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, I know!
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So far I’ve always been thinking, at the end of each 24-hour period, “Is there anything else that I need to do?” and Heidi can vouch for that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, I do understand. Trust me, I understand, but I’ve also been listening to some of the other work teams and I’ve heard this from others.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, right. Moving on then to #8: setting goals for the next promotional collaboration with Communications, and that’s obviously the discussions with Seth… Not with Seth, sorry, with Scott. Seth can be involved as well if he wishes to. These are past collaborations, (inaudible), beginner’s guide, etc. We’ve got a lot of information now on the ICANN.org website at the /en/learning, and we’ve been asked what do we want next?
The discussions that I had with Scott in the past were that we needed to have either ALAC members or ALSes being presented. We needed more promotional information to go closer to the edges. So we have several questions here: if we’re going to have some ALSes or some RALOs showcased in a podcast, then we need to find a way of how we’re going to select those or whether the regions will select them by themselves. Do we leave it down to the edges to choose what they want next? The floor is open for suggestions.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: We have perhaps to ask which RALOs want to have such promotional collaboration. Perhaps if, I don’t know if NARALO is ready for that or wants to have a podcast, or I don’t know, a video or something like this, so they can. If you asked other RALOs and they are not ready it’s not, I think it’s not competition; it’s more readiness.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, so who is ready effectively to act right away? Heidi, do you have any suggestions?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, as I’ve put into the Adobe Connect room we might either place this question on the agenda of the next RALO calls or we have a single issue call on this item and invite Scott onto that call.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can I suggest we do both? We get the RALOs to discuss it, and then if we have that feedback from the RALOs, if we have a single issue call with Scott then we have a more organized and concise set of information to work with; and then it doesn’t actually matter if it’s an unfriendly time for APRALO. We will know what APRALO’s views are because they’ll have them put onto the Wiki by then.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. Any comments to that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, are we going to go with the cyber-study, the details that came out of our action items which seem to be an outcome of our action items? Because this can fit in here.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I’m pretty happy with that. I don’t know how you all feel about it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well I’m happy.
Evan Leibovitch: I forgot – is Scott involved in that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep, it’s all Scott.
Evan Leibovitch: He’s the right person.
Heidi Ullrich: Actually, he’s leading… That would be his-
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So let’s go ahead with this then – get both RALO calls on, well, get this on the RALO agendas and also let’s have a purpose call with Scott on these things, and of course publicizing it for the RALO leads to attend. It’s no use, the three of us or four of us plus staff to attend because we already know about all of this. So it really is an outreach, maybe even a community call but a community call might make it more, you know, might make it go in tangents.
The other question that I had on this was whether we…whether I remember the question and I don’t, so there you go. I had no other question on that.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: You are tired.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I raised my hand, Chairman.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Oh sorry, I didn’t, well your hand doesn’t show. Oh, your hand has just shown now! Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) One thing regarding the communication outreach and the learning stuff, it strikes me how we have the RALOs’ spaces in the Confluence with the ALS pages. It would be very useful if on the menu – and I’m not sure where, whether it’s a box or a dropdown or a top half of the page on each of the ALS spaces – if we had a link if not a laundry list of the resources that are already there.
We all know the limitations and the problems with the ICANN website, we know it’s going to be rebuilt but it hasn’t been rebuilt yet. And it seems to me that if isoc.au, my own ALS went to its Confluence page and had menu links to the excellency resources that Scott’s already put together including the jargon-busting and acronymic explanations – you have a lot to read. And that would be really, really helpful, and it’s just really more of a staff action item to discuss it with IT because it would have to do on the main framing of the Confluence.
But I just think we could do a whole lot better in terms of having that pinned to the various homepages. And the other thing is (inaudible) so far has not yet succeeded in getting the RSS on that page to properly run, so I’m not sure whether there is an issue, a technical issue there that I can’t get the podcasts down to either my Android or my web (inaudible). So I think there might be a few technical tests that need to be done as well.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And of course I was muted. Thank you very much, Cheryl, very good point. Staff, is this recorded?
Seth Greene: No, Olivier, I missed that. I’m sorry, if you could just summarize it or if Cheryl could I’d appreciate it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Link to the e-learning and (inaudible) ICANN has off the RALO and ALS Confluence pages; and I’m also questioning the RSS feed from those same resources.
Seth Greene: Thank you, Cheryl.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you very much, Cheryl. And we are now going to move onto the next part of our long agenda, and that is-
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Someone is washing dishes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Someone is washing dishes, yes. The ALAC and At-Large Improvements update, Seth, you’re on please.
Seth Greene: Thank you very much, Olivier.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m not washing dishes; I just poured another glass of wine.
Seth Greene: Thank you, Olivier. Just very briefly, I think everyone on the call knows where the Improvements project stands. I’m about to contact, now that this tsunami of work is basically ending briefly I’m about to contact all the co-chairs to start their sections of the final report.
There is actually a question that’s been raised; Olivier, it was actually asked by you, of what the actual steps will be to conclude this Improvements project formally. Of course the final report we know will go to the ALAC and the ExCom and then from there what exactly has to be done. So I’ll be in touch I’m sure with you, Cheryl, and we’ve asked to get in touch with Rob Hogarth on staff about that and try to figure that out since we’re in somewhat new territory as we know. I might need help-
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (crosstalk) as noted by the Board.
Seth Greene: Pardon me, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It goes to the SIC and then it’s noted by the Board. And what we’re doing is that because of Ray and only because of Ray he’s managed to get the SSAC review through before us.
Seth Greene: Oh really?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah. Not that anyone gives a shit but there you go.
Seth Greene: That’s too bad. Okay, so let me just conceal my disappointment for a second.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible) the SSAC review has like five recommendations and four of them were already implemented, so don’t worry about it.
Seth Greene: Good. Okay. Not that it’s a competition of course, as my mother often said. So the only thing I might, that I see on the horizon that I might need some help from the ExCom in is perhaps getting some of this work out of one of the work teams in particular, and I’ll keep you informed on that. So far I think we have good signs that progress is being made there as well. My fingers are crossed, so thanks very much.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan? Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Could you encourage Annalisa to ensure that she is contributing and moving forward on the report that Fouad is so far not (inaudible) to put through?
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. I’m surprised you think I have more sway but I will do what I can.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s a regional thing.
Seth Greene: Oh, and if I may actually – oh, sorry Olivier.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Seth. We might need to ask Sebastien who I understand entertains good relations with her.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m sorry.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, Seth, you’ve raised your hand. Seth?
Seth Greene: Thank you, Olivier. I just was going to add that I should also note, I think everyone on the call knows but I should also note that the public comment period on the Work Team A’s bylaws amendments is now open. Last time I checked there were no comments submitted; I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign but-
Evan Leibovitch: Still waiting to hear from Danny Younger.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Comments usually arrive rather late, just before the closing time. That’s one thing. The other is should we comment ourselves? Because if you’ll recall, the discussions that we had had at the time we heard from ICANN Legal was because we had one version and the version that was finally agreed was a different version. We were told “Well, comment about it,” and that is our way or that would be our way of saying “What we actually wanted would be more than that.”
Evan Leibovitch: I’ve been thinking about that. I mean I remember the original phone calls in which that was sort of said and it was almost interpreted almost shorthand as “Well, if you don’t like it I can’t do anything about it.” I cannot see the Board accepting anything that is not agreed to by ICANN Legal. We know they’ve been an impediment but at the same time, this happens to be a particular impediment we know the Board is not going to overstep.
So on one hand I have, there’s part of me that would like to comment in saying “You know, we really wanted more”; but on the balance, having reread it, I’m actually quite happy with the wording. It enables us to do what we want because it doesn’t limit the things that I think we wanted to do. There’s certain things I wanted to put in explicitly, like make sure that ALAC had the explicit overview over operations. That was something that was taken out by ICANN Legal but at the same time there’s nothing in the wording that precludes that.
So on the one hand while it wasn’t as inclusive a wording as I would have liked and explicit in that, there’s nothing in the wording that precludes us from doing what we want to. So I mean, Olivier, we could put in something saying we would have liked more but on the balance I’m comfortable enough with the wording that it doesn’t restrict us.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Evan, and Cheryl, you have the floor.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. I just wanted to uphold Evan’s current approach to this. I think that the wording gives us sufficient flexibility. I think that saying we wanted more probably will simply not only make no difference as Evan said in terms of the Board doing something that ICANN Legal is not confident by, and things like oversight over operations and technologies are maybe things that they would balk at; but it would also give our still-not-inconsiderable anti-ALAC and anti-At-Large parts of the ICANN community material to use against us.
So I’m happy to let the sleeping dogs lie at this point and as someone whose relatively experienced at finding loopholes and driving trucks through them as required it does give us the flexibility in that wording.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Cheryl. And Tijani, do you have any points of view on this or-
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No, nothing to add.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay. So I guess what we’ll do is to just wait and see.
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah, the wording of this, Olivier, is sufficiently open that we could sail an aircraft carrier through it, which by the way almost reminds me that you know, there were thoughts within Work Team A of having that scene where we have Yrjö and me on the top of the aircraft carrier with a “Mission Accomplished” banner across.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that aircraft carrier has to be large enough to land a few A-380’s on it, doesn’t it, mate?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Right. So children, whilst fantasizing of landing A-380’s on aircraft carriers I suggest that we move on to Any Other Business, since this seems to be more in place in the Any Other Business. Any other business?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, Olivier, I have other business.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes, Heidi please.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible)
Heidi Ullrich: I’d like to update you on a few staff updates.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yippee!
Heidi Ullrich: The first is very good news is that we have placed an At-Large Coordinator after about 18 months, and that person is actually an excellent internal candidate. You know him; it’s Matt Ashtiani who has been helping you on your travels for some time. As you know, he is basically a one-man 24/7 support person. He comes to the policy team very eager, very happy to be part of the team and very much looking forward to working with you.
He’ll be starting this Monday, initially about 20% but quickly working up to about 50% by the time of Singapore; and then by Dakar it’ll be nearly 100% as they place someone else in his shoes, in Travel. He’s going to be working on such items of the policy development, all aspects of the policy development work including the big poll voting, including the follow-up once those votes are finished; what we do to post them, to translate them, etc.
He also has excellent social networking skills in terms of Facebook, in terms of Twitter, etc., so he’s going to be working on that to make sure that At-Large is up in all of those areas – that we just haven’t had time to do. He’s also going to be working with the ALS applicants, so he’ll be being trained by Marilyn and myself on how that process works. So that’s the first post of good news. Any comments?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I put my hand down because I was asking what he was doing and now you’ve said it, thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Tijani, you have a comment or comments.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, indeed. It’s a very good piece of news. I am really glad to hear about that, first because now we have a new staff member and second because Matt Ashtiani is an excellent person at a human level, and also he is a very efficient staff.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes. Thank you, Tijani, and if I may add I totally agree with what you’ve said, and in fact, the first thing when Heidi advised me of Matt joining the team was a question saying “Well, so how the hell are we going to make it to Singapore?”
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Because without him nothing will work, yeah?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: It will be a remote meeting at that point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no, it’s simple – we make him in charge of our travels from our point of view. It’ll be wonderful.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So Heidi, please carry on with the great news.
Heidi Ullrich: Well, okay, the second one is that we still have the At-Large Regional Manager’s position open. Good news is that they are now going to move on to the top three candidates for the second round of interviews with the executives. I hope in the next few days if they haven’t been already that they will be contacted and those interviews I hope will take place next week so we can place that person relatively shortly, and definitely by the time of the Singapore meeting.
Currently for Singapore we will have members Seth, Gisella, Matt, and the Regional Manager as well given certain circumstances on that part. And then in terms of transition, I am officially hoping to go on maternity leave the end of April but it could happen anytime now, so I am rather frantically developing transition and handover notes for the team. But we’ve been in contact about that and I think everyone is for the most part comfortable already but I’ll be continuing to do handover notes, etc.
If there are any urgent issues that the staff are unable to answer, David Olive has said please contact him. He will be able to help you with urgent issues on that.
Evan Leibovitch: And of course you’ll be sure to let us know when the latest staff addition actually does take place.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, and let us know when the youngest member of the At-Large Community comes, we’ll need to know.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: She’s going to be our guest to join the RALO, isn’t she?
Heidi Ullrich: Maybe we’ll start our own. Well apparently there was a 405 ALS here in Los Angeles that we have not heard from but maybe we can reengage that one. Again, my plans are to take a full two months off, if at all able I will try to join the Singapore meeting remotely. But after that, through July and August I’m hoping to work ten hours a week but we’ll see – it all depends on circumstances.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh trust me, you’ll be awake at all hours – it won’t be a problem. Heidi, I’ve got my hand up, there is a reason. Without giving any confidential information I’m assuming you are aware of the regional geographic location of the top three. Am I going to be as disappointed as the rest of the non-American community? In other words, is the appointment, the selection of the top three from purely North American candidates or have we actually managed to step out of the East/West borders of the USA?
Heidi Ullrich: Well again, they’re the top three, so there are some that are abroad as well, in Europe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Excellent to hear that we’re not necessarily, I mean the (inaudible) was met, don’t get me wrong, but he’s another bloody [NDO] American.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, we did discuss that but again given we know that he’s literally able to provide 24/7… And unfortunately we did not get one applicant from the region we were initially targeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There you go.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you very much for all this update, Heidi, and I was going to ask for any comments or other suggestions?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The only other question I have, Olivier, if I may – Heidi, when is this announcement regarding Matt, which I think is an absolute delight by the way, going to be public enough for at least us to email Matt and go “Yay! Glad to have you on board, Darling, welcome!”
Heidi Ullrich: I think that you could do that right now, at the moment. He’s agreed to it, it’s just the work going on. In terms of the public announcement I’m working on something now and I think that David’s planning on posting that next week.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, as long as it’s okay for us to send, because I’m sure Tijani and Evan are of a similar mind – we want to welcome him aboard as soon as possible.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, that would be lovely. Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. And I have also an AOB, Any Other Business announcement to make with regards to the DSSA Working Group. There is movement on that. In fact, as recently as today the DSSA Working Group mailing list has been created and I have reminded the other co-chairs, and in fact everyone on the mailing list, that we have several members of At-Large that will be taking place in the work; and I understand that either they are already on the mailing list or they will be subscribed very soon.
I just wonder whether any of you have received emails from the DSSA working list?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Not me.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t know but I’ve received them from an awful lot of people this past week.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, if you could check because the assumption is that you are already subscribed, but assumptions usually get us in trouble. So I’d rather make sure that we are and then we’ll make sure we have things moving. I have entertained discussions with several co-chairs including Mike O’Connor and Jörg Schweiger, discussions over the week, and Arturo Servin as well, some of the co-chairs. Mike O’Connor has been very active in trying to chair the (crosstalk) Sorry?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mine came through the 8th of April, “Welcome to the DSSA.”
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Oh, perfect. And so Mike being a retired entrepreneur he happens to have a bit more time than all of us, probably all of us put together. So he is fully pushing on this and I think that we will start work imminently. That’s all that I needed to provide with regards to the DSSA Working Group. Any other business?
And if not, then I think I can happily close and adjourn this call at 1544, is that correct? 1544 UTC, which makes it very, very late but I think we’ve done an enormous amount of work today so I’m very pleased. Thank you very much to everyone.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good job, darling, and the other thing is, Olivier, a meeting after a face-to-face meeting is nearly always an awful lot of action items. There’s a lot to deal with after we’ve gotten together face-to-face so I think it’s good.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well, I’m glad we’ve gotten through it. And before adjourning the call I just wanted to thank the staff very much for the amount of work Heidi, Seth, Gisella, Marilyn – you guys have done so much this past couple of weeks.
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