GNSO WRAP-UP SESSION. 05 MARCH 2009. MEXICO CITY, MEXICO. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. We might as well start. We have a lot of people who aren't here, some have left already. This could end up blessedly short. I don't know. The post-meeting, we generally have several things on the agenda. One is to just talk through comments and things that people said about what we were up to, our own comments and such just to sort of make sure that we've elected and understand what comes out of all the suggestions, the open forums, make sure that we totally understand, all of those many repeated comments that we got during yesterday's meeting and all the value of them. And then to look at what's on our schedule for the next couple of months -- >>JIM BASKIN: I think you are cutting out. >>AVRI DORIA: Probably I'm too far away from it again. So, yeah, basically just start looking at what was ahead and make sure that we know we've got this many things that we're working on over the next couple months and then start scheduling into the various meetings to make sure things don't slip through the cracks. The other thing we want to do is we've got to talk about just various schedule things. Glen sent out a few possible meeting times. Hopefully, those are ones we can agree on because they don't at the moment conflict with other people's meetings; and then also at each one of these to sort of talk about what time we're at. There's not that many times that work out well but just the level of pain and fairness. We need to at least pretend that we are trying to share it. I have often talked about sharing the pain, but it seems it is more of an effort -- a pretense than a full sharing. But anyway... So I guess the first thing is, you know, just a general open discussion on the comments we received over the last couple days, both in the open forum -- both in the open forum and things that other people might have heard directly. And as soon as I find my pen, I will take a queue on who would like to start with that, if anyone. Anyone want to bring up anything -- you know, not only comments received but perhaps interesting issues, possibilities, new ways of looking at things. Yes, Adrian? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: I just wanted to say that I think at this time in Cairo we were talking about public participation, and I think positively ICANN staff have taken that on board. At least a few other folks are talking about it as well. I think that was something positive that we have been able to do. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, I agree. Even little things like we had talked about last time, the placement of a mike again and getting that back, that came back and all of those things. So people did listen. One thing, to let anybody know, the central mike is something you have to request. It is not automatic. So if you are part of planning any meeting and you want the standup mike in the middle of the room, remember to ask for it. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: And I thought it was interesting that Peter addressed the -- when I drafted that letter with the help of the other guys, and I made a comment that -- I think I had a paragraph in there about the board members closing their laptops and paying attention. And then I was told, rightly, that might have been a bit harsh. I thought it was interesting today that Peter addressed that and said, "We were criticized because we have our laptops open." I was watching those guys today. There was no way they were chatting to each other. There was a whole lot of not listening -- admittedly a lot of the public forum was garbage, but there was a whole lot that were not listening to what was going on. Even one of the board members did say -- >>AVRI DORIA: One of them mentioned it. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: They said about a tsunami coming and taking the laptops away would be a good thing. Maybe still some room for improvement. >>AVRI DORIA: Yep. Anything else anyone wants to bring up based on comments or discussions they've had or, you know, whatever? Basically, feedback or thoughts we should have coming out of this meeting? Edmon, I saw you almost reaching for your button. >>EDMON CHUNG: I actually made a comment on that specific item in the chatroom. I somewhat disagree with taking away their laptops. I think it is a very healthy thing for board members to be participating in the public chatroom during those sessions rather than spending valuable time answering very long questions live speaking at that time. And perhaps one of the things to do is to use more of the chatroom -- now there are people who disagree with me, but that's just my personal point of view. If they can use the chatroom to express their opinions, it will save some time for people to stand in line and talk live to -- >>AVRI DORIA: Adrian, I know you want to follow up. I just want to mention they will have to take mine out of my cold, dead hands. [laughter] Adrian? If we insist in it at the board, next they will ask to take them away from the GNSO. Yes, Adrian? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Oh, if that's the case, I may be retracting. I don't disagree with you, Edmon. If they were participating in the chatrooms, good, that's great. >>EDMON CHUNG: A few of them. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: A few of them were but not all of them. I will give them some laptops with the chatrooms open and they can use those. Thanks. >>AVRI DORIA: Tony and then Philip. Okay, Philip. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Perhaps in the pursuit of transparency, we could get a list of all the URLs that the board members were actually on at the time. [laughter] >>AVRI DORIA: I expect the staff has that. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: It does remind me, though, when I was Names Council chairman, I remember once being up on the stage and giving the presentation of the chairman's report and looked over at one board member who was busy on a travel site with some exotic booking for some holiday. Not always chatting. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Were there any other comments, thoughts, things that people said to you or were said to us in the meeting that we should remember, bring up, discuss? Ideas that people had perhaps in constituency meetings and other that are worth talking about? Yes, Philip. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Just perhaps as Rob is here, we had a lunch with the Nominating Committee and realize we given them an impossible task of transition with us moving to the bicameral position. Are we waiting for the board to come back to us on where the Nominating Committee three sit in selections and that sort of thing, or we supposed to be doing that? Or are we just hoping? >>AVRI DORIA: Rob? >>ROB HOGGARTH: It's on the list of key tasks and decisions that you all agreed you'd talk about as part of the work team. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah, that's us. >>CHUCK GOMES: So then that would be a task for this little working team that we are going to establish? >>AVRI DORIA: Yep. In fact, we had the first meeting and those were the kind of things that we did go through. Anyone else? Anything that came up? Yes, Tony and then Adrian. >>TONY HOLMES: To start with, apologies for being a few minutes late so you may have covered this before. One of the remarks that I made in the open forum today about a link so you can give comments on the meeting arrangement, I think it would be quite good if the GNSO paid attention to the scheduling. There are certainly times when I think as a community we are under intense pressure with the current scheduling and being able to provide feedback from constituencies. It may be worth having that discussion in a GNSO list at some time to see if we can make any discussions and improve it for us. >>AVRI DORIA: You are not talking just about the scheduling of our meetings but the scheduling of the whole week? >>TONY HOLMES: Particularly the elements of the week that impact the GNSO. >>AVRI DORIA: Thanks. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Adrian? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: I would just like to thank -- Alan Greenberg, it was you that got up during the forum and made a comment about the IRA? >>ALAN GREENBERG: Yes. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Good job. Thank you. >>AVRI DORIA: Anything else come out? Anything substantive policywise? Suggestions? Comments? Things that we need to think about that came out of any of the fora or the constituency meetings or whatever? Yes, Tony. >>TONY HARRIS: I'm not too clear on how the presentation by the city TLDs is going to resolve out because they seem to have made that to the GNSO and the comments they got back were not very encouraging. (off microphone.) >>AVRI DORIA: I will give my view on it. What we said was that part of the new gTLD process was that as soon as this first round had gone its route -- I mean, had started or whatever, that we were going to start a review process -- a policy review process of the policy that we had. It strikes me that that would definitely be one of the topics the council at that point -- I mean, it is not a council I will be on, but the council at that point would want to look at. I don't know that we want to make any policy recommendations that would affect the DAG. I don't know. >>TONY HARRIS: I wasn't actually suggesting that, but my only concern is will there be come-back from them for a reply? Is some formal reply required? Because it sounded like a formal request to become a constituency. >>AVRI DORIA: In terms of becoming a constituency. The becoming a constituency isn't really our call. That one belongs to the board. They have applied -- as the constituency status, at least at the moment -- I don't know if that's going to change in any way. But at the moment, the approval or non-approval of -- we can comment certainly during the public comment on those constituencies. But it is the board that will make a decision on the constituencies, and it is the stakeholder groups that may have something to say about the nature of the constituencies. I don't know. Yes, Greg? >>GREG RUTH: When -- but when the NC -- whatever they call themselves now -- the noncommercials explained their charter, I thought that they were saying that they reserved the right to determine whether or not applying a constituency would be legitimate or something. I don't know. >>AVRI DORIA: I see all three of your hands up. Which one of you would like to be the spokesperson in this case? Okay, Carlos. >>MARY WONG: I think this is because of the comment about female lawyers at this morning's public forum that I'm speaking now. [laughter] I don't know how to take that one. Just in response to that question, one of the things that we are going to do is probably clarify some language in the charter proposal we submitted that may not have made some things as clear as they ought to have. In response to a specific question, that is not what the existing majority noncommercial group proposal does. What it does say in the letter to the board is that we understand that that is -- constituency formation is a decision that the board may be reserving a discretion on. And that's well and good and perfectly fine by us. We don't want to do it. But what the charter does set out -- and like I said, we are probably going to amend that language -- is that we are willing to take a first pass at what kinds of interests and so forth could coagulate to form something that might be the basis for a constituency. But we're certainly not abrogating to ourselves the board's discretion in the manner. >>AVRI DORIA: And in any case, it is not a council issue, whether it was one or the other. >>CHUCK GOMES: Mary, let me make sure I understood one thing you just said. Were you suggesting that the NCSG would list possible categories for constituencies and that would be limiting? >>MARY WONG: No. I'm sorry. I probably need more coffee today. Not at all. There is no intent to be limiting. >>CHUCK GOMES: Fine. >>MARY WONG: A procedural issue more than anything else. >>CHUCK GOMES: I just wanted to make sure. I didn't think that's what you were doing but I just wanted to clarify. >>MARY WONG: Thanks, Chuck. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, Bill. >>BILL DRAKE: There is another proposal -- it is not our proposal -- there is another proposal that sets out that all of the constituencies would have to cluster into these groupings in order to divide up the six seats among them. That's not our proposal. Our proposal is to allow as many constituencies to be formed as possible in the first pass. "Coagulation"? The first pass we would be taking -- aggregation maybe -- the first pass that would be taken would be taken by the policy council which all constituencies would be represented on and it would be based on a set of criteria, transparency, openness, et cetera, so that it meets a threshold assessment criteria. Then we give it to a board, and the board makes a decision. >>AVRI DORIA: This is the NCSG policy council that you were referring to? >>BILL DRAKE: Yes. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. For anybody that walked in late -- and I will just -- I will go back to the topic just to mention. What we are doing is basically going through, in whatever order people want to bring up, comments that came out that they heard, issues that got heard that want to share with the council, ideas perhaps that came out in the various constituencies, whatever, just to see -- basically just to do a certain amount of feedback and debriefing of each other on things that might be useful to each other. So I saw Rob and Edmon. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Two quick observations. One, if you harken back to the recommendations endorsed by the board in the Board Governance Committee working group GNSO improvements report, an issue that the council may need to pay some attention to is that the recommendation for stakeholder groups was that they be a light structure that really had the primary duty of selecting, apportions or some other method of selecting council members. There was language in there that specifically said if the GNSO Council believes it is appropriate, the stakeholder groups could then also take on policy development roles. So something to consider as a group, and I haven't looked at all the stakeholder group charters in detail yet. But I know a number of them are thinking about it or proposing policy councils or policy development activities. And that may be something that the council as a whole wants to comment on. The second piece of it is that the new cyber-safety constituency petition has now been put on public comment forum, and that time period is going to go through April 5. If you are also considering potentially commenting on that one, that process has started. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Edmon and then Tim. >>EDMON CHUNG: I'm talking about something very distantly from that. >>AVRI DORIA: Was yours a follow-up comment? Okay, Edmon. >>EDMON CHUNG: Well, actually, there are two things I wanted to bring up. One, I think -- I wanted to say that the cross-SOAC meeting was largely improved. I think it was very useful this time around. And this leads to my second item that I wanted to bring up, which was also identified during that session as well with a lot of participation. One of the things that seems to be -- continuing to be an item is that people feel that if there is a priority at ICANN IDN TLDs should be definitely -- definitely be a priority. We are talking about not only ccTLDs but also gTLDs. And I think from a lot of discussions that I was able to have over the week and also, I guess, from the invitation from the board earlier this morning in the public forum saying to really inviting suggestions whereby some categories of gTLDs could move forward faster, I think -- I would like to broach the subject of potentially looking at -- to put it really directly IDN gTLD fast-track concept. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, Adrian. I assume this was in direct response to that. Otherwise, then I will go to Tim. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: It is in response to Edmon. Yeah, Edmon, I think I agree with the sentiment. However, I think it is a slippery slope if we start slopping and chomping and slicing and dicing was the word I was looking for -- slopping or chomping will do -- sorry, stenographers. Just in the fact, I was surprised that a board member even suggested it during the forum. I just shook my head and I thought, "Oh, man, this will open a can of worms that we don't want to do." From my opinion, it would be something I would like to stay clear of. I think we are doing well. We are not doing great, but we are doing well. I think you are adding a level of complication to this. There is also an issue with competition. Once you open a name space, if you are allowing others to go first, even though they might not be directly in contention with anybody else and they may be easier to deal with, the issue about being first-to-market is significant here. I would just tread carefully. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thanks. I have got Chuck and then I wanted to make a quick follow-up, too. Yours is a direct follow-up, right? >>CHUCK GOMES: Edmon, don't take this the wrong way, but what do you think was achieved in the ACSO session? I thought it was kind of entertaining, and maybe there were some achievements on the -- in the second session. But maybe it is just because I'm looking for something different and so I would like to hear -- because you obviously think it was valuable. I would honestly like to know why you think that because I'm probably missing something. >>EDMON CHUNG: Just to answer that, I think -- I think, to me, why it was useful, I think it created -- let me put it this way. I think the format created some sort of interaction that was interesting. Whether it is useful for the overall determining of policies and everything, I think there was another comment that was made that I agreed to, I think it was by Raimundo on the board that it's not -- we can't just rely on the waving of papers to make positive decisions and I agree with that. In any case, I think the interaction was useful. And that's also why I support the chatroom sessions, and I usually participate in them during different meetings as well because that helps gather some additional information from the community. I wanted to respond to Adrian but I guess I will let others speak first and then come back to me. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. I put myself in the queue for a quick follow- up. I think in terms of -- in some respects, I find your idea appealing but only if they have already -- hmm? The idea of a gTLD fast track but only if we've lost the everything coming together as a response to that because, I mean -- and so there is a certain appeal to if, indeed, there is a prevailing that says "IDNs go first" and that decision is made by the board, then it seems quite reasonable to say, "Well, if IDNs go first, all IDNs go first." But I still worry about anything that causes what you call the slippery whatever. And anything -- basically, any time anybody races ahead like IDNs are trying to do or perhaps various subsections of the gTLD are trying to do, it sort of feels to me like it is pushing others and delaying there. That's the piece I wanted to add. Lots of follow-ups. I had Adrian, Zahid and then Kristina and then Alan and Tim and Edmon. No, you can have a follow-up to that, too. Okay. I said Alan and Tim. And Chuck. Wow, this one ended up good. Okay. So, Adrian, you were back in the queue. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Can I suggest we pick up -- this is not my follow- up. Can I suggest -- because Edmon has raised two topics there, one the fast tracking of IDN gTLDs and then the other of the cross-ACSO. Can we pick up one? And I will jump in wherever is appropriate. >>AVRI DORIA: Which one did you want to speak on? And we can do the other one. [laughter] I'm sorry. It's been a long week. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Nothing. I will do the -- >> (inaudible). >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yes, thank you. I don't even know what I am doing. Am I doing this? I thought it was a novel approach. To have the discussion in that way was good. I thought the topics were garbage, quite frankly. The second one was probably okay on the policy development side, but to talk about new gTLDs, that ground was well trampled and had been trampled long ago, to talk about is there demand for these things, da- ta-da. There is very limited time in these meetings. Everybody is flat out. If we are going to do something, let's make sure it is a topic everybody wants to jump in. I would have much rather seen something about IDNs, for example, and had an open discussion about that on two levels there at least because you got cc's and g's involved. >>AVRI DORIA: Now I'm confused because I had many people in follow- up but I don't know which they wanted to follow up with. Which of the people on follow-up wanted to follow up on ACSO? Kristina, Alan and Tim, you weren't sure. Yeah, okay. So Kristina? >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I thought it was significantly better than the session that we had in Cairo. But having said that, it seemed as if an unintended consequence of having that meeting was to basically double track everything else on Tuesday and Wednesday so that -- I mean, virtually every time I went to something, there was also something else I really wanted to go to. And since I haven't quite figured out how to be in two places at one time yet, I had to skip it. So while I do think this session was better, to me it wasn't worth -- it wasn't good enough to me in my view to justify having to miss everything else I really wanted to attend. >>AVRI DORIA: Schedule displacement. Zahid? >>ZAHID JAMIL: I actually liked the direction, I liked the format. I can agree that, yes, of course, maybe some of the content of what came out may not have been very useful to many people and we want to get on in doing work, I think it is very useful for new participants to come there and listen who how the interaction is taking place. It is difficult for them to go to each of their ccNSO and go to the GNSO. I'm speaking as a new person. It will be easy. It doesn't help us making our policy at all. I would agree with that, I like the format, maybe we can improve the topics we are using. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thank you. Tim, you wanted to comment on ACSO? >>TIM RUIZ: I'm going to comment on both, if I can. >>AVRI DORIA: One at a time. >>TIM RUIZ: I keep getting skipped in the queue so I'm getting worried about having an opportunity -- >>AVRI DORIA: I will put you in the queue again for the next topic so you will be in through three times on all three queues. >>TIM RUIZ: Actually, they are tied together. How's that? [laughter] I thought that Edmon -- what Edmon just raised would have been a good topic to raise during the ACSO meeting actually. And I see, too, where Adrian's concerned. I can understand that, this fast tracking gTLD IDNs. But I think it would have been interesting to see the reaction of the ccNSO to that idea while we were meeting together face-to-face because I agree with you, Avri, while we don't necessarily want to just push it as something we do, I think it is a great idea to keep on the table if the ccNSO continues to push the fast-track IDN idea as something coming out before gTLD IDNs. So I think it is something that we should get on the table with the ccNSO perhaps just so they know what we're thinking. Might kind of help keep the playing field level. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, thanks. Now we got three -- we are still in follow-ups. Tony, when you raised your hand, you raise it had in follow-up or new topic? Okay, so we've got Alan, Chuck and then Tony. We are mixing the topics. Yeah, okay. Put you at the end? Okay. You started it. Put you at the end. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Okay. This is ACSO. If the original purpose -- and I think it was -- was to get the various Supporting Organizations and committees to work better together because at one point there was talk of these type of meetings replacing the face-to-face meetings between various pairs of people, then it is not meeting that need at all. I don't think last year's did. I don't think this one did. If the aim is to try to get some of the thoughts of the people who participate in these various groups out to the rest of the people, I think it has been quite effective. But in that case, it is not really aimed at the people within our own councils. It is entertainment and enlightening for those that aren't participating day-to-day but it is not helping us do our business better and cooperate better with the other organizations other than it does allow us to see someone across a table we might not have known before and perhaps talked to them at coffee afterwards. That's a marginal benefit from such a large investment of time. >>AVRI DORIA: So you put us back on the ACSO track. Chuck, was yours on ACSO? >>CHUCK GOMES: I will be like Tim. I'm going to do both. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. >>CHUCK GOMES: By the way, this is a fun meeting. It is kind of nice to be relaxed and laugh a little bit. But on the ACSO, kind of following up on what other people have said, I think what would have helped me probably if I -- if there was a clearly stated objective for what the session was about -- and Alan was kind of going there a little bit right there. That's just a simple comment in that regard. Clearly stated objectives of what the session is for so people that maybe have different expectations they at least know what is expected out of it, including myself. On the fast-track issue, I actually think that might be an option that we explore in the small group that you and Chris are going to set up as a joint working group where I haven't thought of a lot of solutions how we could come together in this issue, but that actually could provide a means where we could come together, deal with the competition, the first-to-market issue. I think you can also -- I think there is also ways to deal with the fairness issue in terms of competition that way, too. But we don't need to go into those details here. >>AVRI DORIA: Tony? >>TONY HOLMES: A lot of what I was going to say has been said by Chuck and also by Alan. He used the word I think "entertaining," I thought it was entertaining. I don't think it was worth a whole afternoon and maybe half an afternoon is fine, not for the whole afternoon, particularly so I agree with Chuck that there was no stated outcome and there is no follow-up so it was an awful lot of time to spend doing that and then I agree with Kristina. You are in a position where you are doubling up the next day and it doesn't seem justified? >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Phil? >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: I think both the first experiment in this in Cairo and the one this week demonstrated to me I think the impossibility of ACSO replacing the bilateral meetings. If we wanted to do that, I think you're dedicating a week to a sophisticated planned meetings of ACSO, topic-related, et cetera. And I think that just becomes rather unwieldy. However, having said that, I do think it had value. I think, just in terms of brainstorming some of the ideas that came out when the topics were quite general. I think Patrick Sharry chose that intentionally for the first one. I think in terms of the quality of brainstorming the ideas, et cetera, that floated around, I found value in that. And, as I said to Patrick afterwards, that there were some things that I learned or that we considered that I hadn't addressed or looked at before. So I think there certainly was value in that. Is it a key event that we should be -- we were talking earlier about scheduling on the calendar? I think probably not. Maybe that might have been a thought in terms of scheduling. I think it's pretty simple, actually, to go through the list of ICANN events, red line all those that should never clash, and give that a start and say that's what we want and everything else can be fitted around that. Clashes are clashes. I think this event was good, useful, fun. Essential? No. >>AVRI DORIA: Thank you. On the same topic? >>TONY HOLMES: Yeah. Just say I think Philip's suggestion is excellent. If we could red line the events that shouldn't clash, I think it would be great help for us and everybody else. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. I think that's it on this topic, at least at the moment. Tim? >>TIM RUIZ: I almost forgot. >>AVRI DORIA: Your new topic. >>TIM RUIZ: I just wanted to -- and I'm sure everybody's seen it. But the board review working groups report from the board review that was done by the Boston Consulting Group, whatever. That's been published. So I think that's -- just curious if that's something that we should look at as a council and have a comment on. Because one of the recommendations that concerns me is the reduction of the size of the board. I personally don't support that. I don't know how the rest of the council feels. But it would certainly have an effect on -- even on our restructuring. Because one of the -- at least to some degree, part of the concept that was come up with, I believe -- was, you know, had to do with how we select these two board seats. Now, if there's only one board seat, there's some serious rethinking we need to do with the whole piece of the restructuring. >>AVRI DORIA: Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah, I think everyone's aware, but at 5:00 today, that's the topic of discussion. And I think it is a good thing for us to talk about. I don't think we probably don't have time today to prepare for today's session, but it's a comment period. No. It seems like something that would be the second part of this meeting. But I'll take it for now and put it on the agenda for an upcoming meeting within the comment period. And perhaps we could talk about it on the list. Okay, Bill, you were on the queue. You had something that you wanted to -- okay. Sorry. I had one that this is a bit of feedback that I got, and it was in relation to our topics and our meeting. And the recommendation is that there be a position paper, a synthesis paper, a something of each of the topics, a one-pager on each of the topics that we were covering in our meeting. And this is perhaps something that we can ask staff to prepare, if it's something we think is interesting in that, you know, we're talking about the RAA and the amendments. And half the people in that room may be there for one topic but not know the other one. And, if so, a briefing paper -- that's the right word -- a briefing paper on the topics could come out, you know, two weeks before the meeting, 15 days before the meeting, whatever people are asking for, that that might be something that was useful for the people that came to our meetings to understand. Especially the new folks. And certainly something we could point some of them to who said, "I don't understand what you're talking about." The other thing that -- and this is when I was listening to this, this piece of the idea was -- was my extension on it was we've seen that on the Saturdays and Sundays -- this is, again, not something we would do -- but they have these educational things. The ICANN 101. Maybe something that was a GNSO 101 that basically told people -- essentially, went through that briefing paper. And I would hope that, if a briefing paper was done, it would be something that the council would get to see, do a review of, et cetera. But it was an idea and then an idea that was extended on. Yes, Adrian? Okay. Any follow-ups on that one? There's Chuck, and there's Kristina. >>CHUCK GOMES: By the way, I like your idea on the document, and I think it needs to be relatively brief because new people are going to have trouble -- they're going to have to go through so many of those. But I also think it probably would be useful if we have a two or three- minute max little context setting for topics, too. Because everybody's not going to look at that paper. And it would be good for those who are new, I think. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah, I usually think we're going to do that, and then we don't. But Kristina? >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I think the idea of the background and kind of the one-pagers is helpful. But, personally, I am already just dying trying to get everything done to get here anyway. So, to the extent it would be possible to have the responsible policy staff person do an initial draft of that, I think that would be fantastic. >>AVRI DORIA: That was exactly my idea. I didn't have us writing it. I had us having an opportunity to do a review. Yes, Marika. >>MARIKA KONINGS: Some of the information will already be in the policy update, so it might be relatively easy for us to pull that information out and just put it on one sheet that will be distributed at the meeting. >>AVRI DORIA: Philip? >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Actually, Marika, you and I were on the same page literally. I'm just looking at policy updates. I think more than that, don't give yourself more work. Ensure that in writing the policy updates they are perfect for that purpose as well, and then we're talking about transfer of media, nothing else. Because I think that's exactly the job. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? On this -- on follow-up on this? >>MARY WONG: Yes. Follow-up. And I hope this is not out of order or anything like that. But, in terms of conversations between some of us and with people in the community, there's been just a lot of confusion, sometimes not just about acronyms or policies and discussions, but as to, when you go to a particular meeting in this conference, for example, what the agenda is. And, even if you have an agenda item, there's no link to either a policy paper or a background paper or just a brief information. And what we heard in the public forum, when we were all sitting up there in the lights, was that people are not going to go to the GNSO web page, as it currently appears, and go through all the links and all the documents and know where to find things. So perhaps one sort of nonsubstantive way is just to coordinate the links and the listings on the agenda and the meeting schedule on the Web site for that particular meeting. >>AVRI DORIA: Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: Excellent. And, in fact, I don't know how many of you have gone to the link from the master schedule in ICANN. But it's almost useless to helping somebody know what to do. And we could post our agenda for our meeting there. We would have the links that you're talking about. I think that would be very useful idea. >>AVRI DORIA: Yes, Marika. >>MARIKA KONINGS: If I could just point out, for some of the topics that was there -- if you look, for example, at the fast flux working group, we posted links there as well to the initial report and things like that. But I agree. I think we should make a habit of doing that for all the issues we're working. >>AVRI DORIA: A lot of things were done but weren't necessarily coordinated. For example, all the documents we were talking about were easily findable on one page; but that page wasn't necessarily linked with the schedule, you know, the master schedule. So we could have found it, but other people couldn't have. Yes, Liz. >>LIZ GASSTER: One thing I think would be helpful is just to -- I think it's a great idea. No problems at all -- but know which topics, because we have so many topics. >>AVRI DORIA: It was specifically related to the topics on the agenda. >>LIZ GASSTER: But, I mean, even on the agenda. I mean, if you consider how many topics we had on the agenda, it could be a couple dozen. So do people really want background papers on -- >>AVRI DORIA: I think it was the Wednesday-type agenda, not the weekend discussion. >>LIZ GASSTER: Okay, very helpful. >>AVRI DORIA: Those are really working sessions for us for anybody that wants to come. I was talking about the open forum session where we have maybe four, maybe five hour-long topics. So yeah. Okay. Okay. If it's that that on that one, Adrian has a topic, and then Edmon has a topic. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yes. I'd like to direct this to Chuck. Chuck, can you give me a definition of the word "Gaming"? [Laughter] >>CHUCK GOMES: Fraud, illegal activity. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: That's all I had. Thank you. [Laughter] >>AVRI DORIA: Edmon? >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: This better be about gaming. >>EDMON CHUNG: It is totally about gaming. I'm sorry for the confusion earlier on. I just don't want one of the points to be missed. I wanted to get back to what Adrian had mentioned. And I agree that we shouldn't sort of go down the slippery slope. And I think it's important to have -- you know, if we deliberate on the possibility -- and I heard different feedback that says, you know, this might be a good idea. But, unless different things fall apart, I guess my point is, if there are people interested in starting to look at it now, I'm more than happy to devote my time. And we don't have to, you know, act on -- you know, we can set a lot of the -- some of the suggestions up. And then, you know, when it happens, that that might take longer than we want to, we might be able to act on something. So I guess with the principle of not affecting the current schedule of the new gTLDs, I think that's a very clear important principle. But with that said, I think, you know, it should be a -- it should be a topic that is worth discussing, at least my point of view. And I was wondering how I could -- you know, what we could potentially discuss on this. >>AVRI DORIA: Yep. Well, I suppose there's two ways to go about it. One of them is for a couple people to work with you informally. Otherwise, it becomes something that we, you know, set up drafting team to do and work on and make it a named thing that, you know, then becomes a named thing that we're working on. And it enters the set of things that can be discussed by others watching what we're doing. So the question is, then, do we want to do it in a formal sense and start working on a formal sense now? Or is it sort of an idea that a couple people want to sort of develop in the background and bring forward at the time? And that's really a council decision of, you know, do we want to put it on the table as a formal working item? Or do we want to work on it as kind of an item that a lot of people are interested in or some are interested in and they work on informally? And I don't know. That's sort of a council thing. We don't do decisions, necessarily. In fact, we don't do decisions at this meeting. So it's something that I can certainly put on an agenda, but, you know, with the visibility and transparency that an agenda brings. >>EDMON CHUNG: I think, you know, I'm happy to take -- I'm happy to take the hit, if I put this on the agenda and there's problems with it. And I think Chuck's suggestion of having some communication with ccNSO is probably a good idea. >>AVRI DORIA: I'll definitely -- >>EDMON CHUNG: And I don't think -- you know, I don't think it would -- at least in my point of view, I don't think a ccNSO would look at this as any initiative that sort of intervenes with what they do. >>AVRI DORIA: No, I don't think they would. Yes, Adrian? Another topic, yeah. I don't think anyone's commenting on that one. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Thanks. I did speak obviously for Felicia -- be careful -- facetiously before. That was nearly dangerous. I did want to commend both yourself and Chuck for, you know, dealing with things the way you did. I think Peter caught a bit of flak today for dealing with things a little bit differently. But I think we also need to be careful during those opportunities we do have for public interaction that we don't get railroaded and sidetracked on topics. I note -- I don't know whether ICANN has done it before, but ICANN did have an ICANN 101 session. Actually, Avri, you went. >>AVRI DORIA: I went to it. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: So we do do things for newcomers and things like that. So whilst I absolutely respect that ICANN is a difficult world, getting up to speed is extremely hard. And people do have questions. People have the right to ask questions. I do think we need to be careful that we maintain our course and we do make ourselves available in that forum to discuss the topics that are driving ICANN at the moment. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah. Thanks and acknowledged. Kristina. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I know that we do this already, but perhaps it might be helpful to make it clearer at least by making a statement to the effect at beginning of our meetings but making sure there's really a very clearly defined period of time at the end, you know, reasonable amount of time, not 10 minutes, not -- but on the other hand, not an hour -- for just whatever anyone wants to ask and make it very clear that, in order to keep the meeting progressing on schedule, that we really do ask -- we're open to any questions -- but we do ask that you kind of refrain until the end of the meeting. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah, I think you're right about saying that. I mean, I did say it a couple times. And I did actually -- I do, generally, try to reserve an hour for it. Though often, by the time we get to it, it ends up being 45 minutes. And I don't worry too much. Yes, Adrian. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Yeah. I think so. Just be careful with the words, "Ask us any questions." Right? Because it's not the public -- I know, I don't think it's necessarily -- I could be wrong. Maybe the setup of the thing is. But we're the council, and you want to ask us stuff that the council does, right? >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: Well, sure. But I don't think that necessarily has to be limited. If people have questions about how does the council work or just any question, really, about what we do, how does the policy development process work, et cetera, yeah. It doesn't want to be the public forum. But I think, as long as you can make a reasonable connection between the question and the council, it's kind of anything, as far as I'm concerned. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: That's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. And you worded it better for me the second time, which was there has to be a reasonable connection to the council. That's all. >>AVRI DORIA: And I think it's up to the person chairing when they're completely -- and one of the answers I wish I had thought to give then, as opposed to later, is, "You should talk to the ombudsman about some of this or bring that up at the open forum" or, "here's the right place to go for that." So don't have to tell them to, you know, to go jump in front of a car, but, you know, you can tell them to go to the appropriate place. >>CHUCK GOMES: Yeah. I talked to Mr. Foody, Paul Foody -- is that right? Something like that -- after the meeting. We had a nice conversation. [Laughter] >>CHUCK GOMES: We did. Honestly. But one of things I discovered he didn't have a clue that registrars, for example, have two different agreements -- one with ICANN and one with registries. So he was seeing registries as having responsibilities that they can't have because that's not in the agreement. So just an example of how we can maybe provide a little bit of context, although I'm not sure we could provide that much context. But good illustration of how things can be taken out of context and totally missed. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah. And that's one of the places where a GNSO 101 could actually help people. Yes, you want to -- >>JIM BASKIN: Were you able to give him the mailing list for every domain in the Internet? >>CHUCK GOMES: I just gave him yours. [Laughter] >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Was there anyone else on this before we move to the next topic? Okay. So that was good on the feedback and, you know, stuff we collected. In terms of topics coming up, we've got at least one, you know, and then things that we're not already working on. The next part of inter- registrar transfer is being worked on. And, in this case, you know, we've given indication to the working group -- and perhaps we need to confirm it -- that we're interested in having the current working group, as it's finishing up its work here, to basically make a recommendation of a charter on how it would continue. And then the council would take that, discuss it. You know, if there was a need for a new report or a new vote or a new motion or whatever, we could decide it at that point. Yes, Marika. >>MARIKA KONINGS: Just a clarifying question. You really want, then, to develop a charter for the next working group? Or you want them to come back and saying, "Well, we'd like them to continue. And, in our opinion, we should continue with B, C, D, E first." >>AVRI DORIA: Essentially, a charter. >>MARIKA KONINGS: Charter for a new working group. >>AVRI DORIA: Essentially, for them to have the first idea of what the continuing charter would be and then develop -- it's sort of when we're starting a new working group, it is very top down. When we've got a working group that might continue and they know the topics, I was thinking they could make the first suggestion. And then it becomes a iterative process. >>MARIKA KONINGS: Don't we need an issues report first to point out what the issues are so they can actually develop the charter around the issues that need to be addressed? >>AVRI DORIA: That may be. I mean, I'm not sure. This particular -- this particular set of things that had a working group that had a long report that had various things. Perhaps what would come out of it is, "We don't understand X, Y, or, Z and need more information on that." And then that gives us the guide on what to ask for in an issues report. >>MARIKA KONINGS: Because my feeling is, having already looked at all the background documents, I mean, in the ones that provides the -- just the B, C, D, E categorization, there's just one sentence on each issue. So probably at least would be to provide further information. >>AVRI DORIA: Tim? >>TIM RUIZ: Yeah. Do we need to make it formal that way like a charter? I mean, can't we just ask them for the recommendation? It could become the basis for a charter if we decide -- >>AVRI DORIA: Exactly. That's essentially what I was thinking, but yeah. But they would take, basically, the first crack at it. And then -- and then that would give us something to work off as opposed to us putting together a drafting team to take the first crack at it and go on from there. Yes, Marika. >>MARIKA KONINGS: Could I maybe first make a suggestion for the group to actually first look at the categorization and the different PDPs that are still outstanding for them to maybe first look at which things should go first if there's any differentiation in the order that there is now, and then make that as a first recommendation to the council and maybe as a next step develop a charter around that? >>AVRI DORIA: Certainly. I think whatever really works. I don't know that it needs to be decided you guys do this first -- in fact, I think in conversations with them, that had been sort of the idea of what they would approach first. >>MARIKA KONINGS: I Just want to make sure. We have a next call on Tuesday, so -- >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. No, that's good. But I think that it should be fairly open for them to look at the body of work and, basically, make a recommendation as to how to proceed, whether it's the order or the -- yes, Adrian. >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: Sorry to break your flow. I have to leave. I'm doing a encore performance of my invite to Sydney presentation, for the benefit of film. I believe it will be put out on the ICANN Web site. >>AVRI DORIA: I missed the beginning about the bugs and everything. >>CHUCK GOMES: I missed it, too. Is there going to be translation? [Laughter] >>ADRIAN KINDERIS: I've got nothing. >>AVRI DORIA: We've succeeded. Thank you. So, anyhow, that's one set of things. Another thing that's pending is, while we have sort of decided that, at least at this point, we're not doing any council -- as council work on the gTLDs DAG, we have not talked about yet whether we wish to make any comment on the IDN ccTLD. Well, perhaps we have the beginning of an idea. But we haven't talked about that. So I think that's one thing that needs to go on the agenda for our next meeting. I wasn't looking to get into it necessarily at this meeting. But that's something that seems that, you know, we need to talk about it some and decide whether there's something that as a council we wish to say or do. Yes. >>ZAHID JAMIL: I don't know if this has already been discussed. But there's an economic report that came out. The words are "preliminary economic report." And I was just wondering whether this is a good time to ask the question whether are we supposed to wait for our final one and give our comments now and there will be another final economic report on new gTLDs that will come out from ICANN later? I'm not sure of that. >>AVRI DORIA: I have no idea. I certainly think that we can, if we wish, give reports on the preliminary and go on from there. But -- yes, Jim? Okay. Okay, Alan. >>ALAN GREENBERG: My understanding was it was labeled "preliminary" because the board hadn't seen it and authorized its release. I don't think the intent is to revise it. But I may be wrong. >>JIM BASKIN: From secondhand knowledge, I've been told that there will be a comment period for these reports that have just come out. And I don't know how long the comment period will be, but there's supposed to be one. That's secondhand. >>AVRI DORIA: One of the first things we might want to ask for is someone to, you know, come to the council meeting and just give a brief discussion on it, even though we will have read it or could. Is that something we would like to have happen? I see a couple nodding heads. A couple. Okay. I'll ask, you know. And see if we can get someone to come and give a general presentation on it at one of the meetings. Yes, Edmon? >>EDMON CHUNG: I just want to make sure that we don't -- I want to jump back to the item you talked about IDN ccTLD fast track. >>AVRI DORIA: Yeah, yeah. >>EDMON CHUNG: And the discussion about IDN gTLD fast track. Although the same group of people, most likely the people who were interested in talking about it would be the same group of people. And we can probably use that as a basis. But what I sort of want to jump back and ask about that is that if we are going to want to make some comments to the ccTLD fast track, perhaps we should try to talk a little bit more about it between now and next meeting to get something going. >>AVRI DORIA: That's right. When does the comment period end? You know offhand? >>EDMON CHUNG: It's actually before our next meeting. It's early April. >>AVRI DORIA: We haven't actually talked about when our next meeting is. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: It's April 6th. The fast track proposed solutions? Yeah, it's April 6th. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. So it's unlikely, unless we do something now, that we would start something as a council, unless we work it out on the mailing list. >>EDMON CHUNG: That's sort of what I was -- >>AVRI DORIA: -- driving at. Yeah, I got it. So I guess it becomes a more imminent question. Do we want to do something on the mailing list in terms of a council response, or do we want to just rely on individual constituency and personal response? We have responded with each one. I mean, one interesting thing would be to take -- and Edmon has carried most the weight on weighing these things -- is to look at the responsiveness to the one we passed on the last version and see to what extent anything has changed based on where we commented. And I haven't done that yet. So -- I assume you have? >>EDMON CHUNG: A little bit. Because all these documents coming out, it's hard to read all of them. But the red line version is pretty good. I think, in general, it seems to me that our comments have been at least heard by the staff. And some of which -- some of the elements in the current draft reflect some of the comments that we've made. So I think it was a fruitful exercise. In terms of what additional things we need to add, I don't think -- I think the -- all the current materials have already pretty much encapsulated the comments or issues that we -- we have. And, if we do want to do anything, it would really just be more like an applauding to the staff and thanking them for including it and hoping they continue that path. >>AVRI DORIA: If there's a general notion that that's a good approach, is that something you'd be willing, as has been the case in the past, to do a first draft of and send to the list? >>EDMON CHUNG: Sure. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. Chuck? And then I'm just curious whether other people think it's a reasonable thing to ask Edmon to have done or have asked Edmon to do. >>CHUCK GOMES: I think it's very reasonable to ask Edmon to do that. [Laughter] I do support the approach. And just a quick question. This is getting a little bit into details. But I think it's just a question that would be helpful to me to know. But, Edmon, am I correct with the three-character limitation for IDNs, that a simple solution would be to make an exception for CJK? Does that avoid some of the problems that staff was trying to focus on and at the same time deal with the CJK issue? And, of course, what I'm getting at -- one of the board members today suggested that, you know, it's really helpful if you'll present solutions on some of these things. >>EDMON CHUNG: I think we are talking about two very different things. The IDN ccTLD fast track does not have any limitations. It could be one character -- I should go back. It could be two characters or above. It doesn't have the three-character limitations. The ccTLD fast track currently -- as currently planned in the draft plan allows two characters or more. It is the gTLD implementation -- applicant guidebook that has the limitation of three characters or more. >>CHUCK GOMES: And I obviously blended over into the gTLD process. So... >>EDMON CHUNG: To answer your question -- since Avri is doing something else, to answer your question, there are simple ways to deal with it. There are simple proposals that could be made to deal with it and string confusion test is definitely one of them and also dealing in a universal way with that particular issue. There are a few simple solutions to it which staff should be able to implement. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. So if you are willing to write up a thing and then send it to the list and we can do the list review so that we can have it completed in time, that would be great. >>EDMON CHUNG: Sure. I was kind of wondering if everyone would trust me and send to the bigger list or if somebody would like to revive the earlier list that had a smaller team. >>AVRI DORIA: I think people would trust you with it and just do it on the bigger list. >>EDMON CHUNG: Okay. >>AVRI DORIA: Anyone disagree? Anyone really want to help him craft it? I think you're alone. [laughter] But thank you. >>EDMON CHUNG: That's fine. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. I don't know what other topics we want to put on for substantive items for the agenda, but I was thinking we could keep adding these and discussing these on the list. If the meeting is starting on the board issue at 5:00, I'm wondering whether people would actually want to attend that as opposed to continue here, which would mean it would be good to move on now to the administrative things which is the dates of meetings, the times of meetings. Then there is a discussion of when the constituencies have to have their names for people to fill out their forms for Adelaide and all sorts of good stuff. I turn it to Glen now for those items. Yes, Edmon. >>EDMON CHUNG: Can I just quickly -- I'm sorry I'm belaboring the issue. >>AVRI DORIA: No. >>EDMON CHUNG: I want to make sure that the discussion earlier is really that the IDN gTLD fast track would also be put in these things -- >>AVRI DORIA: Put on the docket for the next meeting to talk about some more. >>EDMON CHUNG: Okay, cool. >>AVRI DORIA: We can talk about it on the list before then. Yeah. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Thank you, Avri. The proposed dates for the meeting, are they in order with you? Otherwise, perhaps -- (off microphone) -- we can change now. And, secondly, I sent out a chart and that chart of time zones covers all the time zones of the present councillors. Has anybody got a preference for a time for the meetings? Because I know that's always a very difficult -- >>CHUCK GOMES: I have a proposed solution to the problem. We don't allow anybody from Australia. [laughter] >>AVRI DORIA: We allow them but only when they are not in Australia. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: He is not here anyway. >>CHUCK GOMES: I recognize that. [laughter] >>BILL DRAKE: I sent you an e-mail saying that March 26th is no good for me. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Yes, I saw that. Thank you very much, Bill. >>AVRI DORIA: I think if it is just one council -- yes, Carlos. >>CARLOS SOUZA: That is probably not a good day for NCUC at all because I really -- I will probably not be able to attend the March 26. I don't know if we had, like, a precedent in changing dates because one constituency, one representative -- I don't want to put that burdensome on other constituencies. >>AVRI DORIA: You are specifically asking that it be moved, in other words, as a constituency? I mean, that's -- >>CARLOS SOUZA: I don't know if that's precedent. >>AVRI DORIA: We try to schedule the meetings so that they are as convenient as possible for as many people as possible. >>CARLOS SOUZA: Actually, we had opportunities in which there will be just one representative for one or the other constituency. So I don't think that's a big deal. We can discuss previously the agenda and the items. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: We do, of course, have now proxy voting, so you are not losing rights. >>CARLOS SOUZA: No, no, there is no losing of rights, just the discussion during the call. >>AVRI DORIA: Olga? >>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Avri. Thursday mornings, sometimes the calls are morning for me on Thursday and sometimes it is afternoon. Mornings until June I have some problems. I have changed some of my classes at the university. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay, so that would be a time-of-day issue, not a specific day issue. Okay. Yes, Mary? >>MARY WONG: Just a suggestion, maybe we should just have a quick show of hands or something going through the dates. I mean, I'm assuming there has got to be at least one person that can do three of four or something like that. >>AVRI DORIA: I don't know if everyone knows their schedule well enough. We are sort of working on trying to pick up any exceptions that people knew of. These meetings give us sort of the every-three-week average that we have been trying to maintain without clashing with board meetings or other ones. >>MARY WONG: Quick follow-up question, Chuck. So is this the time to register the fact that we can't make specific meetings on an individual basis? >>AVRI DORIA: No. This was basically just a "here's what we've come up with as a schedule. Is it totally impossible for any of the constituencies"? And if not, then this discussion moves to, "And what time of day do we want to put these things at?" Did you want to comment, Philip? >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: I'm not in a position to confirm all or not the dates because I haven't got my agenda with me. But I think in the past we have dealt -- why people have let Glen know directly either times or days that are unsuitable, certainly not to the whole list but just Glen, and then a judgment can be made. If there is a significant number, we change. If it is a couple, then we don't. All of us have had problems with one meeting or another. It is the only practical way we can do it. >>AVRI DORIA: At this point, that would be a good idea. If you can't make any of these dates, let Glen know. Of course, two of you already have but I would still send an e-mail saying so. Yes, Chuck. >>CHUCK GOMES: Real briefly -- and I think everybody is aware of this already. Now that we have formed work teams, I think it will be harder to find times that are convenient but it doesn't detract from the need to do what we're doing. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. So then going to times, so at the moment we'll hold these as the tentative. Though, if we get lots of mail and lose a constituency completely -- because I try -- I know one thing that I look at when we're doing the "whose at the meeting" is first setting quorum. We want to make sure we have enough people for quorum, otherwise we can't vote on anything. And, two -- and I don't think we've had a meeting -- but there has to be at least someone from every constituency there. So if we find ourself in a situation where everyone from one constituency knows they can't make it, then we know we've got a really bad date. Yeah, okay. Great. Okay. The next thing is the times. Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: If I'm correct -- and I'm probably not -- it looks like there is only two times on that chart where there is only one bad hour and neither one of those really look that bad, although -- I mean, one of the times and not on the other where it affects me. The very first one looks like there is only one conflict, and it is a 6:00 a.m. time which to me -- that's not nearly as bad as midnight to 4:00 a.m. or something like that. In my case, I would even do a 5:00 a.m. although I'm not crazy about that. The other one is the -- oh, I guess it is not that great for Brussels. I'm sorry, I didn't see that that was midnight. It wasn't in the pink, so it may not be a very good time. >>AVRI DORIA: Midnight is okay in Sweden, but I understand it is a problem in Brussels. [laughter] >>CHUCK GOMES: I was looking -- >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: (speaker off microphone). >>CHUCK GOMES: Sorry about that. I was just looking at the pink- shaded boxes. What is the significance of the white and the pink? Pink looks like bad times. What's the white? All the midnight times? Okay, got it. >>AVRI DORIA: You can see the border. I mean, this is really a hard puzzle. And that's why we always end up pretty much with the same people in the early morning and the same people -- rarely does Europe get the bad time. >>CHUCK GOMES: Then we need to fix that. >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: Excuse me, speaking as an European I have had my entire winter 8:00 key family dinner time ruined the last set of Thursdays. I think I would like to have that on record. >>AVRI DORIA: You would prefer the midnight? It wouldn't ruin dinner? [laughter] >>PHILIP SHEPPARD: It might cause indigestion. But joking aside, in the past I thought -- I mean, summertime I thought was always -- northern hemisphere summertime was, I thought, typically better for us in general. I thought we had better flexibility, whereby moving something like five hours forward is it now -- or back -- I thought it always had given us quite a good spread. Does not work in our current set-up? I am not sure of the general makeup in terms of having people on the Pacific coast. Basically Pacific coast of the U.S. and far east Australia is a challenge not to give them outrageously horrible times. >>AVRI DORIA: Use your mike. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: It is 12:00 noon in summertime. That will be the 12:00 noon UTC. >> Can't hear you. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: It is a 12:00 noon UTC which gives 14 hours in Brussels, 9:00 a.m. in -- on the East Coast, 5:00 a.m. in -- Pacific time. >>BILL DRAKE: That can't be right. >>LIZ GASSTER: It is only three hours between Pacific and east. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: That's summertime, summertime. Because really we only have one meeting in wintertime. What's the other place we got? Melbourne is a reasonable -- I think it is 6:00 in the morning and then 11:00 at night. See if Adrian can do that. And then we have got New York -- yes, Singapore. Poor Edmon always gets the -- How is that time for you, Edmon? >>EDMON CHUNG: Well, actually, I have said that I prefer midnight. But I understand that there are other councillors in my time zone that may not prefer that. But I guess my preference is always closer to midnight or after. >>AVRI DORIA: This is always one of the hardest problems we have to solve. Yes, Alan? >>ALAN GREENBERG: I'm not sure but I think the default time was shown on what Glen sent out is at an interim time when one side has changed time zones and the other side hasn't. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Sorry. It is the 31st of March and the 1st of April. So I think that Pacific time hasn't yet changed. Is that right, Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: We change next weekend, this coming weekend. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: You will have changed already, and eastern time has changed. >>ALAN GREENBERG: All north American will change at the same time. The question is when Europe changes? >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Europe changes the last weekend in March. >>AVRI DORIA: So that first date expands it. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: America will have changed. Europe will have changed. And I think there is a slight modification for Australia. >>AVRI DORIA: I think we will have to continue this one online. We are not just making progress on this at this moment. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: No. Would you each like to send me your preferences and then I can -- >>AVRI DORIA: Oh. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: No, that doesn't work? >>AVRI DORIA: That will be hard for you. >>ALAN GREENBERG: This is one of the cases where the Doodle that you look at, it really fills it out. It is easy to look at it. >>AVRI DORIA: It might take a couple iterations and using the one that is the relative times. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Yes, the one that you can change. >>AVRI DORIA: And then we can all look at it in our own time zone and say, "I can handle that" or "I can't." And you and I can work on a couple of possible times. We can come up with a couple that I'm willing to do 5:00 in the morning. I'm willing to do 1:00 at night. Make those reasonable. >>CHUCK GOMES: Having the three options "I can't," "I can," "I rather not but I will." [laughter] >>AVRI DORIA: I'm not sure we can combine that with the variable time. We can? I wasn't sure whether those options were together. Okay, great. The last thing we had was the travel. I will let Glen explain it. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: The travel, I sent out that the Sydney Web site is up. The venue will be the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. And the meeting staff -- the ICANN meeting staff has asked the council, please, to make their own bookings as they did for here in Mexico. They said it worked out very well, and they will be responsible for -- if you are a sponsored member of the GNSO going -- ICANN-sponsored member of the GNSO, they will change your booking for you. There will be very little inconvenience there. Secondly, the drop-dead date for the constituencies to choose their representatives going to Sydney is the 6th of April. >>AVRI DORIA: Which is essentially a month and day. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: You will have by the 6th of April, certainly long before the 6th of April, you will have that data form to fill in again as you did for this Mexico meeting. And as long as we have the names -- Kristina? >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I don't want to speak to everyone, but that's actually going to be impossible for the IPC because the current -- for both Cyril and I, our terms were extended by an amendment to the IPC bylaws to carry through June. And assuming that the board does, in fact, do everything and decide everything that needs to be done, we will actually be in the process of having our elections for our new councillors at that time. I mean, we can say we are going to want travel for one and half people but we are not going to know for at least another two or three weeks thereafter who those people will be. >>AVRI DORIA: Zahid? >>ZAHID JAMIL: I may have got this wrong. I went to the Web site of the Hilton and tried to book it and what I got was a total figure of 3,000 something dollars for my stay. At the moment, it doesn't give you an option to say you are ICANN and using special codes or whatever. It may be difficult to book it because your credit cards get blocked with that amount of money. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: When the booking is open, which I think will probably be within the next day or so with the ICANN rate, then you can do it. >>AVRI DORIA: Okay. So I guess we're going to have to see what we can work out with staff about the IPC in terms of -- so you're basically saying you could have it a week later? A week and half later? Something like that? >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I need to go back to our bylaws and count the dates, but I can tell you that there is a reasonably good chance that the people who are the IPC councillors on April 6 will not be the people who are the IPC councillors on June 20th. >>AVRI DORIA: Therefore, they would have different needs and the constituency would give it a different balance. So, okay, I think if you can sort of determine when the IPC would want it, then we can ask staff to show -- ask that part of staff to show a little leniency, flexibility, what have you. Yes? >>CHUCK GOMES: Glen, will you send out a message to the list so that we can easily forward that to our councillors on at least the deadline we know now? >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: About the deadline, Chuck? >>CHUCK GOMES: Yes. >>GLEN DE SAINT GERY: Yes, certainly. >>AVRI DORIA: Mary and then there was Greg. Right. Mary? >>MARY WONG: Sorry, not trying to hold people up. Building on to Kristina's point about the IPC, NCUC may not be the only constituency. There may be other constituencies and councillors. Some of us may have the possibility of external funding from other sources. We're just not sure that we can confirm by the 6th of April. And so we would ask that to the extent -- Of course, we'll name somebody. But to the extent that we might need for good reason to substitute the name that that be considered. >>AVRI DORIA: I think we are just going to have to talk to the staff and see whether we can get any -- what we can get. Yes, Greg? >>GREG RUTH: One thing that might -- will probably come up as before is the NomCom-funded people like myself and Ute who will get to go to -- we will certainly get partial funding but who knows what. >>AVRI DORIA: Right. And you and I had spoken about that, and I would put before the council again, the option of assuming that we still had the money and could still use it of covering the day or two that ended up. And it is something that we would bring to the council as we did last time because the council would need to approve the expenditure because under a certain amount, I think the chair can almost do it. But it is still better to have the council to approve it. >>GREG RUTH: I guess that all has to be done by the drop-dead date. There is a drop-dead date in the NomCom. >>AVRI DORIA: We have a lot to figure out in the next month. We should coordinate on the e-mail list. We'll talk to people. We'll see if we can get any bargaining time, go to Denise and see if we can help us with the travel agency people to get a time. >>KRISTINA ROSETTE: I have a solution. We could just kind of blow up GNSO reform. [laughter] >>CHUCK GOMES: I don't know if the registry constituency will use all of its remaining seats or not. So is everybody okay with an auction? >>AVRI DORIA: Only if the money goes to a foundation. >>ALAN GREENBERG: Only as a last resort. [laughter] >>AVRI DORIA: Is there anything else people wanted to have on this before we freed everyone to go and hear about the board restructuring? Let's restructure everything while we are trying to get everything done. Okay. In which case, it was really good hanging out with you this week. Thank you.