Geographic Regions Working Group Thursday, 29 October 2009 ICANN Meeting Seoul, Korea >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Ladies and gentlemen, can we start because Bart has got to leave pretty shortly and I'd like him to explain his mind map, before he goes, and to answer your many questions. Bart, all yours. >>BART BOSWINKEL: Unfortunately, you can't see it properly. What I tried to do over the -- since the last meeting is to look at the overall process where we are, and would we've done until now and what we need to do, and then take into account, say, we've issued a -- I think it's called an "initial paper," so that's identifying the issues. So we had hardly any response and now we need to get from the initial paper into the final report with recommendations. So what I'll do is I'll PDF it because I've played around with it this morning. I had a PDF. I will send it to you. But it's not so much the individual words and everything else. It's more a method of where we are. What it says here is "Identification of Issues." >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Well, you can zoom in on that? >>BART BOSWINKEL: Yeah, I can do it. This is best. I'd go into presentation mode but then you lose the overall track of it. What I've tried to do is to -- I'll go back and then I'll go into this mode. We've got the -- this is identification of issues. What we need, and partly we have it already, which is called a framework for analysis. Against what elements do we want to analyze the current issues. And so Dave has done some work on it, so we need to have an historical analysis, we need to have a functional, "This is what we already identified," the elements say that's operational participation and representation, and that's already in the interim report. You may want to say, "Okay, what is important to analyze the issues is what is really the impact of these issues for the particular SO or AC. And then you have a kind of what we've -- this morning we'd discuss as the values. This is, to what extent is geographic regions a tool to reflect geographic diversity or is it more? Is it a tool to reflect geographic and cultural diversity? Because that will have an impact on the solution which you want to go. So that is a bit creating the framework. We've already done some stuff on that, and -- but it's a next step to complete it. So the next step is -- and we've touched upon it. Dave, in his paper that he sent around, has more or less already an historical analysis, but we need to complete the issue analysis or the analysis of the issues, both on, say, historical, functional. We've done that in the whole overview we've presented in the first report, but it probably needs to be more in depth. And then the issues -- the impact per ACSO, so per advisory committee and per supporting organization. Okay. We've identified the issues, but what is the underlying theme there, and that is something we need to do, probably. So that is, once you've done that, then you have a full scope of why is it a problem -- what is the problem and why is it a problem, and then you can go into solution mode and say what -- because then you know what you want to resolve. And in order to resolve it, you can say -- that was my idea -- is you can define a solution space. It is, in fact, what you're saying, because this one doesn't matter. You have different options. And the different options say you can go to a uniform complete redesign of the whole concept of geographic regions, so that's one option. A second option might be tinker with the current model or maybe a third one is, okay, do it per SOAC, even maybe the board, and come up with a differentiated way of moving forward. But these are probably -- probably you can expand it. This is just a brain dump in five minutes, so -- but it shows you that's something we need to think about as a working group, which directions we want to take, and I think that is -- with a little bit of impact, so this is the question: What are the solutions? And then why -- which solution is prepared and why are these -- or if you come up with the end solution, why is the perfect solution or not the perfect solution? And I think a bit of solution analysis going back to the framework doesn't solve the issues. That's where you stop in the next phase because then you want to have feedback from the community. Are we on the right track, yes or no? And then the last phase will be, okay, given the feedback we got, we're going to drill down to one particular solution or maybe two, if it's unclear, and come up with the recommendations of this working group to the board is this is the way forward. So that -- in that -- in this manner we -- I would say we've -- the meeting we had last week, you know, I didn't know where we are, so I tried to think out a way through where are we in the process, what have we done until now, what needs to be done, and where does this group want to end in the next paper. In the next stage. And that is a bit reflected in this one. You can discuss whether I've -- all the elements are captured, but I think the main thrust of the whole process is captured in this mind map, and some of -- this can close. Now and then something pops up. And you can refine everything you want. But it's -- it provides you and us, as well, a supporting style with a kind of checklist of where we are, what needs to be done, what can be ticked off and what needs further discussion, further refinement. That's about it. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Thanks, Bart. If I could sort of relate these to how I see our reports, I would suggest that our initial report covered yellow and introduced green. The report we're working on now sort of starts at green, covers the light blue, and purple, and -- >>BART BOSWINKEL: This one. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Yeah. This one. And touches on the one that Bart's at now. And then the final report goes in detail on the solutions and comes out with the recommendations. So that sort of relates it to -- to the reports. I certainly found that very helpful. I hope you did. So moving on from there, one issue I would like to pick up is: Within the framework, we've got down at the bottom there this -- this values issue, which I think is quite an important one. There is no doubt, from an historical perspective, when regions were introduced, they were used purely for geographic diversity. It was sometime later that the core value of geographic and cultural diversity was introduced. In many of the comments that we have had and indeed are listed in our first report, there were concerns about cultural diversity as well as geographic diversity. So I think we need to decide ourselves how we feel about this. Should geographic regions be used as a tool merely to impose geographic diversity, or should it be geographic and cultural diversity? And I think it's quite a significant issue. >>BART BOSWINKEL: (Speaker is off microphone). >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Yeah. Be grateful for people's comments on that. To give you an couple of examples, since there is silence, if it is just geographic, then issues such as is there a requirement for an Arab region or is there a requirement for something that recognizes the small island states or things of that sort disappear out. If you're just doing geographic, it's not an issue. If you include cultural, then they start becoming issues that we've got to address. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Thanks for this and I think this is going to be an incredibly useful tool, and I look forward to working with it in this context but perhaps we should be looking at it in some of the other contexts that we're all fighting our way through in some other groups. In reference to what we're trying to solve as a problem, and starting with some of the radical solutions in that darker purple box, there's also a "start again totally" option as well. Adam Peake, as I was coming to this meeting, as he's wont to do to try and stir me up, said, "Oh, don't forget to say we should just have one global region. After all, we're all netizens." I said, "Well, Adam, yes, I'm happy to bring that to the table." And he said, "Oh, no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that." But, in fact, I am happy to bring that to the table because that is not an unreasonable thing to look at in terms of, we are all a global region, but now how do we deal with the other needs? So I wouldn't ignore that, as a flippant way of doing it, if we do have a blank slate, and think about, though we might be using different types of categorization to meet different needs of needs and solutions, so I think that's possibly worthwhile exploring. Not to do now, but I -- he was going funny and I'm deadly serious. I think we should actually be thinking about that. >>BART BOSWINKEL: I think -- sorry. I think because then I have to go -- I think you can do whatever solution -- define the solution space, whatever you want, but what is important -- and I think that is the role of this working group -- is not provide the solutions but at least add an impact analysis. What does it really mean and what does it mean for the community to go on and how does it impact all the ACs and SOs. Because otherwise it's -- it looks very nice, but -- and you could have even an impact on the type of changes needed. So the impact analysis of the solutions could also include a start of the change process you have to go through, because that might show that some of the solutions, although they seem politically very viable and everything else, will take about five or six years to be implemented, and then the question is: Who's going to do it, and what's the impact on all the resources? I think that is something that has been lacking -- now I'll speak on a personal note -- that's been lacking in some of the recommendations some people sent to the board, is: We propose something, but we have no clue what it really means we're proposing what the impact on the organization is the organization as a whole. Because I don't think this group and other groups want to spend the next five years discussing geographic regions, and if you go -- if you go down the path of a complete redesign, a uniform redesign, you have to do it. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Oh, yeah. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, chair. I also want to endorse this mind mapping tool. I said to Dave it would be good if I knew how to use it because I think it certainly helps me to have a good overall idea of how the thing works. With regard to the question from the chair, I think while I'm a little uncomfortable with the term "cultural," I think it's a starting point to deal with some of the issues that we are talking about. That's one. But I know of Adam's interest in saying we would have a global -- if we had to write it all over again, let's start with saying that we are netizens and, therefore, we have a global space, and then the concept of dividing into interests or constituencies, then the issue of small island states and so on becomes a constituency issue, and then you could go into it that way. So I would endorse Cheryl's suggestion, that in looking at solution issues, we actually embrace this one. I would also suggest that we do bring in the issue of cultural space because it's a starting point for some of the other issues that are going to come out of here. That's what I think. Thanks. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Anybody else got comments on the cultural/geographic issue? Paul? >>PAUL WILSON: Sometimes like a pandora's box or hornet's nest to me that, you know, if you're -- I don't think small island states, for instance, are really seen as a cultural issue. I see them -- I think they're seen as an economic and development issue, and that means if you want diversity in economic and development factors as well, then you're looking at so many dimensions that at least I think it becomes unworkable if it's being done as a general framework and you could only make choices according to the particular needs that are -- that these regions are being applied to. Maybe the -- the thing to do is to say that geographic representation provides -- tends to provide cultural diversity, but it's being picked for reasons of workability and simplicity and also objective -- and the fact that the geographic regions can be objectively set and in fact, you don't -- you don't need to quibble too much about interpretation. It's just a choice to set geographic regions for -- you know, for a number of purposes and according to a scheme that's simply agreed on what will be arbitrary -- what may be arbitrary divisions in some cases, but I just -- I think position are starting to get very complicated if there are multiple dimensions, and in the interest of subsidiarity if we're moving in that direction, then it would be much better to delegate out to the particular functions, whether it's this -- cc's or the RIRs or the ALAC or whatever their own choices about this, because it just seems to be an exercise in centralizing a complex system and trying to -- trying to cover all bases from the central point and it starts to become a bit unreal as far as I'm concerned. So I mean, I think -- and possibly, again, this is the -- this is the case of the -- as I said the other day of the -- taking -- sticking to our brief, which is geographic regions, and saying, "Well, that's what we're looking at," and we can comment that the selection of geographic regions can tend to provide cultural diversity and that would be part of the -- part of the interest, but we're not going to get into an analysis of cultural regions and try to extend our brief by proposing an alternative. My two or three cents worth. >>BART BOSWINKEL: Sorry. I need to go. What I'll do is I'll PDP this. I can provide it as an outline document as well, so I will send it to you and then it's -- yeah, if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. So see you later. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Thanks, Bart. Paul, I agree with much of what you say but not all of it. I think if we restrict geographic regions as a tool for only geographic diversity, that doesn't rule out other methods of introducing cultural diversity. So to that extent, I agree with you. I'm not sure that I agree that including cultural diversity would put it outside our scope. I think that's a decision for the working group to make. Any other comments? >>ZAHID JAMIL: I don't think I have a view on one way or the other. I'm just at the moment trying to grapple with the issue. I had some -- did some thinking last night and I was thinking -- and I'm just going to try to apply this to some things that were said today. So we have -- from a legal standpoint, technically, we have the geographic regions working group, another diversity regions working group with participation, et cetera, but I think that one of the intentions was to also sort of to allow us to be able to look at the regions from that perspective, but that's what the bylaws say, "geographic/cultural diversity." If we look at geographic regions within regions, I mean, let's take the example of something that's close to where I am from. In India, you have several different languages, and within India you have several very different cultures. You might have the same thing happening in Malaysia, for instance, where you have three different cultures within the thing. I know this complicates things, and maybe one of the reasons I also feel apprehensive is I don't know how to deal with it. How would we apply that? But I don't think that we should not ask the question because we don't know the answer to how to do it. Maybe this is something we should explore. If it's really just unworkable and there are no solutions to that, we should just -- because one of the -- one of the things that the GNSO principles was, we have to make it simple also. So let's try and explore it. If it doesn't work, fine. Let's not go there. But it's worth exploring because I think from -- from an Internet user's perspective, in a geographic region, you can have different microcosms and -- of cultural diversity, and I think we need to start addressing those aspects. I mean, the Indians when they get up and say, "We have 22 official language, we have some which are not unofficial, and we have different cultures." So this is something we need to sort of at least to put out to say, "Hey, look, we are sensitive to this. Eventually if it's unworkable, we'll do something else." And -- sorry. I'm taking too much time, but one last point. Maybe I think that the idea is not bad. You may have a generalized principle of geo regions -- and I don't know how to sort of reconcile this, but I think that different constituencies, for instance, have very different needs -- exactly -- needs, exactly, of what it is that they require. So I mean if you look at, say -- in my CSG, if you look at the IPC, if they were to look at the map of the world and say, "Well, where are most of the intellectual property issues, et cetera," they may have different colors appearing, or forms. If you look at the BC, you may have different ones. Maybe ALAC has different. So that's another thing we need to ask. I mean, I don't think we should sort of stop asking those questions at this stage at least. Thank you. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Anyone else with comments? Olga? >>OLGA CAVALLI: So sorry I was late. I was in another meeting. I really want to support what cede said. I don't have a special feeling about cultures or regions now, but we should explore. That's my comment now. >>PAUL WILSON: I'd just comment again. As Zahid was talking I was thinking that when you talk about Indian cultures, you might not want to also talk about Indian cultures as restricted to India, but the Indian diaspora, and so that another case of really the difficulty of trying to cover all of these bases. You might also think about youth as a -- as a region or as a culture or as another type of subdivision of the community, and it does get incredibly complicated with these overlaying dimensions of -- of diversity that we might need to consider if we're trying to take a broad interpretation of the role of this group. Which is why, again, I think I put it all in the "too hard" basket but that's a bit too simplistic and I don't mind discussing it. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: My thing is that I think we recognize that there's an issue here. To me you might as well mention it and say, "Here is what is coming on the horizon. This is not going to be a situation that is going to be this year or next year" kind of solution. It is for us, I believe, to at least put those -- posit those as issues and see where it goes. I really believe that that's the way we ought to do it. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Yeah. I think from a practical perspective, Paul, actually RIRs have taken some cultural -- basically cultural decisions and the split-up of the Caribbean between sort of English- speaking and non-English-speaking recognizes that more than ICANN's regions do. >>PAUL WILSON: Yeah. That was -- in the original RIR subdivision that we lived with when there were three RIRs was very much a pragmatic -- a decision that was a pragmatic decision made, I think, at the staff -- RIR staff level very early on, or at least at the management level as the RIRs really started to -- to be established and need to delineate regions, and that was done with the luxury of very little attention by anyone else. Which was the same luxury that the three RIRs enjoyed, really, when they were all established. But by the time LACNIC and AfriNIC they were under a much broader spotlight and, yeah, that -- that process was much more I think carefully considered, but I think it was also considered on a very -- again, on a very practical and pragmatic basis in that the RIRs are service organizations and the primary language of the service provider really does matter. So I'd say that was a language distinction rather than a cultural distinction, as such, but, you know, you might say they -- they mirror each other quite accurately. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you. A quick point. I think you're absolutely right about the diaspora, for instance, and I think maybe this is not something we can do right now. You're absolutely right, maybe it's too complex. But we should explore. To give you a example of where I think this may be happening with the diaspora, if you look at a social network, you have a diaspora that is on a social network which is completely unconstrained by geographic constraints and that's one group, if you will, and it's a culture maybe. Yeah. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: If I may, I think because there were cultural and, in the end, linguistic drivers to the beginning of this process that we should decide at this meeting: Do we simply look at a hierarchical need for geographic regions within ICANN and say, "For representation of regions, blah, blah, blah," or do we take the more open-book approach, which shows the community who have the concerns that we have looked at it, we are offering it as places for their opinions to be sought, and then in the analysis -- which Bart very, very firmly, I think, made clear to me -- we have to spend serious time on looking at the consequences of such decision nodes, should they ever be taken. We can then justify to the community why some things are simply too darned hard and at this point in time at least are not worthy of going down. It's not a good use of resource. It was always going to be pandora's box. I agree. >>ZAHID JAMIL: We don't want to be accused of not looking into it. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: so in terms of where that would fit into our work plan, would you see that as being something that was explained in this report, so that the feedback of the report, that then leads into the final report with a recommendations? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I think this is the place where we now say, "Look, you asked for it, be careful what you wish for." >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Fine. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: "Think this through and now really get back to us, because these are the things that we're going to be considering in the analysis phase." And to that end, I think we should seriously consider doing some Webinars and some community calls to support this in the regions that have the interests in this area. If not -- I'd prefer all the regions, but we probably need to do at least two, for time zones, is what I'm saying. We can't just do one, you know. Rob, you know how exciting and complicated that is. It may actually end up needing to be three, which is a little more than I'd like normally from a resource, but then a Webinar is something that everyone can go back and -- actually, can I just point out for the record: A Webinar should be something that people can go to and get the information shared with later, but when I try to do that for the public participation Webinar, the Adobe room tells me that the meeting's closed. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Fine. But before you can do that, I think we have got to get this interim report on the table. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: (Speaker is off microphone). >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Yeah. Which I suppose nicely moves us around to the next issue, which is: How do we move on from here? Rob and Bart and I talked about that this morning, and we think that perhaps the best next step would be for everyone to look at the -- I think they called it the issues list, is it? I don't have it out here. Yeah. Annex B at the moment. Which is the matters to be taken into consideration. It was in our first report, and it's an annex to our present draft, and we think it would be very helpful if each of you could go through all the issues that are there and give us your personal comments on each of those. So a lot of them, for example, come from the GNSO principles, which is fine, but, you know, Number 4 is "Makeup of ICANN geographic regions should be considered in the wider context of the geographic region requirements imposed on all ICANN bodies." Do you agree with that comment? Do you not agree with that comment? And I am asking you to do it as individuals, so as a member of the working group. It's not a consultation process at this stage. So looking for feedback on that all the way through to go to Rob within a relatively short time scale. But I'm coming back to you and saying what sort of time scale can you cope with? Yes, Olga. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Yes, about GNSO principles, please consider that these comments or this outcome is the process of a drafting team we held in the GNSO that took us quite a long time to reach agreement. I chaired that drafting team. So perhaps us, Zahid or myself, or you, find the comments to those pieces of text and then that's okay. It is an outcome from the GNSO as a whole but not necessarily an individual opinion of us as members of the council. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: That's fine. In fact, perhaps one of the things you could do for those items that are GNSO is explain a little bit what the reasoning was for coming up with each of those rather than just being bold statements. I'm not suggesting you do it now. I mean as part of the process, that would probably help. >>OLGA CAVALLI: I don't know if I was clear. What I tried to say is that we reached some agreement in the drafting team in the GNSO of perhaps more general concepts. Some of us in the working team were for some other more specific issues regarding geo regions and cultural issues. But as a whole in the GNSO, we didn't get agreement in the drafting team. This is what I meant. So, perhaps we could add some personal comments to this text. That's what I tried to say. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: That's fine. Yes, indeed, that's fine. >>ZAHID JAMIL: I have some questions about a couple of them, and I was just wondering because they were comments and they were remarks, if I could ask Rob right now. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Yes, by all means. >>ZAHID JAMIL: There's two. There is Item Number 8 and Item Number 21. In Item Number 8B, the remark, "Does the present method of grouping depend on territories with their mother country?" I was wondering what the context of that is. That was my first question. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: I can explain that one. The comment came from me. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Sure. And the other one is Go Daddy's response to the public where they said, "Ideally, the RIR region and the geographical region assignment should be aligned." I don't know what that means. That's the only reason I'm asking. What's that all about? These are the only two questions I have. >>PAUL WILSON: The RIR regions are, as I said before, really well- established and very stable. They have been for quite some time. They have also been adopted by some other organizations in a more or less loose sort of way. Some of the AP -- I don't know if you know the term the AP-star organizations. There's a bunch of them, APTLD, APRICOT, APIA. There is various things -- for want of any alternative, they said they'll copy the APNIC service region as their service region. But it's -- as I said, it was pretty non-standard. It was pretty arbitrary the way it was set up. So our definition of Asia-Pacific goes as far as Afghanistan. Doesn't include Central Asia, the Kazakhstans and so on. It includes Mongolia. It includes Pacific. We include South Asia except that Iran is actually a south Asian country and it's not in our service region. So, you know, I don't think there's anything really -- there's certainly nothing perfect about our service regions. And I don't why Go Daddy would think they were worth following except for the sake of -- except because they are pretty well-established. They're actually not going to change -- or the RIRs, as I said before, are really reluctant to make any change because, basically, we've got -- in every country, we've got all the ISPs in that country have established service relationships with their particular RIR. And for us to suddenly say to Iran, for instance, even though it may have a small handful of ISPs to suddenly say, "Sorry you now have got to transfer your entire service relationship, your contracts and everything from one to the other" for some arbitrary reason, it was pretty difficult. It was hard enough in the case of the establishment of LACNIC and AfriNIC. There were major exercises in terms of transfer of records and contracts and worrying about fee payments and all sorts of stuff. So, again, we're not about to change. And you'd have an uproar if anyone said the RIRs should realign to something else. But then, again, I don't think anyone would say that our definitions should be imposed on anyone or necessarily adopted by anyone. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Paul, I think Go Daddy's point was the other way around. >>PAUL WILSON: Exactly, yes, but -- >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: There are many advantages in some people's eyes, in the RIRs, regions. Looking at it from sort of a ccTLD point of view, particularly the small ccTLDs have very few people in the management area. They've got to deal with the RIRs. They have to deal with ICANN, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As things set up at the moment, if I can give Cayman as an example, because of the rule in 8B, Cayman is part of the European region for ICANN. We fall under ARIN for IP addresses. And if we wanted to go to ALAC, we'd probably be in LACNIC, LAC. Now, the fact that they are all different means that their meetings are held in totally different places at totally different times in different languages. So to align them all in one area would have many logistical and organizational advantages for many of the ccTLDs. So I think that's one reason coming from that. I see you're poised, Cheryl. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I was poised. Yes, it gets very poised when I'm not on the phone, isn't it? Sort of, "I'm here, I'm here." Just a random thought. They happen occasionally. I'm wondering if we should also look then because there are real benefits when we are doing that analysis of what the options are to having unification or harmonization of resourced, useful meetings, et cetera, et cetera. I think that's where this mind mapping that we were looking at earlier is going to be a really, really useful tool. But we might want to also propose a hypothetical situation or something for people to consider. And that is that we do a clear dissection into two purposes for regions: One being structural and one being functional. And the structural can be the representation model. For example, I live in fear that you're going to carve off two, three or more different regions and look what happens to my ALAC because I, by definition, have three people from every one of those regions. You have caused me a huge, huge nightmare, budget, all sorts of things. Plus, there is the investment that our existing Regional At-Large Organizations have made into building and developing ALSs in the current structure. So there are sort of structural reasons for regions. But there are all those very good functional reasons that perhaps looking at a bifurcated model might also be interesting. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: I mean, there are already quite significant differences the way regions -- even existing regions are interpreted because sometimes it applies to the citizenship of the individual. Sometimes it applies to which region the ccTLD is in, irrespective of the nationality of who happens to be running it, et cetera, et cetera. So we already have quite different interpretations of it. I don't think I cleared up, really clarified the comment in Item 8. It stems back to a problem that was encountered back in 2000 with allocating two regions, areas, that are not countries, i.e., really the dependent territories of various European and United States as well. And it was decided for reasons unknown, but I think perhaps because of lobbying by the French, that those dependent territories would be allocated to the region of their mother country. And it was done -- you will see my analysis and historical comment. The way it was put didn't even make sense because they talked about citizenship and then used citizenship but without saying of whom to allocate a territory. It made sense for the French because it so happens that the French islands in the Caribbean are actually considered legally to be part of France. They are French departement. They applied that then to the Dutch and the British. The British dependent territories, the citizens of Cayman, are not British citizens. I believe the same is true of the Dutch. If you go to some of the American islands, American Samoa are not U.S. citizens. But some of the other American dependencies are. And it was just a blanket, "Oh, we're going to put them all with their home country." It made absolutely no sense, was legally incorrect. And, in addition, it actually reduces geographic diversity because as a result of that someone from Cayman could be put on the board of ICANN as an European representative. Somebody from Jamaica could be voted on the board as coming from Latin America and Caribbean. And somebody from, let's say, Puerto Rico could go on for American. And, yet, they are all within a few miles of each other, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So in my view at least that bit has got to go. [Laughter] But there is an interesting follow-on commentary to that, of course, is if Mozambique as an example or the French islands are part of France, why do they have separate ccTLDs? But that's a whole other issue. [Laughter] >>ZAHID JAMIL: Now we're going to have trouble with the GAC. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: (Speaker off microphone). >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Getting back to workload then, could I have people's thoughts on how long they need to give us feedback on the Annex B? I think of this only as the first iteration, folks. So I don't want to take too long on it. What I'm hoping you will do is take the table and within the remarks column add your own remarks and comments. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Is it possible -- Sorry, Cheryl here. Is it possible to have this as a collaborative workspace so we can accumulate marks as we go? Various things ranging from proprietal to non-proprietal software exists. The Wikis are there. The Wikis are probably less attractive only inasmuch as my color won't come out as purpose when I make my comments, and I like that to be the case. But it does mean that Cheryl is saying that versus anyone else is saying that. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: My hesitation is there is then a great temptation to "I agree with Cheryl, I agree with Cheryl." >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Absolutely. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: And we don't get enough thought. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Quite obviously there would be nothing wrong with that line. [Laughter] And I'm surprised you even thought that there would be a problem with that as a policy development process. But, no, seriously, in the use of some of the collaboration tools, we can literally all be putting up our comments at the same time. And I really doubt that this group around this table are likely to just say "me too." If they do, I think the people that put them here, need to know and take us back off the table. >>OLGA CAVALLI: I think having that space that Cheryl is pointing is a very good tool. And we can add our names, initials or use colors for distinguishing the income. In some drafting teams or working teams, sometimes we use too much the list, which is okay. But sometimes it becomes kind of a nightmare of comments going back and forth, and it's very difficult to track, especially if you're chairing or putting all together. It's only from my experience, but it's a comment. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Rob, can we organize this? >>ROB HOGGARTH: Yes. I will utilize the talents of my colleagues to make that happen. My sense is there are a number of different modalities that we can use. I'm familiar generally with Google Docs. I don't know if that ends up being the best common denominator for the group. I know you were talking about some other Google product at one point, Cheryl, to the Wave or -- >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I think the perfect thing for this meeting to do is establish if there is anyone around the table that has a particular aversion to anything that you have ready access to or if they have a suggestion for something we could use and then put it to the list to make sure that we're not suggesting a product or tool, which is inappropriate or philosophically unpalatable to one of the members. >>OLGA CAVALLI: What about Socialtext? Because many of us already have a user name and password to access it. Perhaps you can create a space there for geo regions. Julie, she's very good in that, and I can also help you. But we put that document there, and perhaps we don't want to go editing the document, but we can add our comments in the lower part with our names. There you have who contributed because you log in with your name and your password. And then you have the date and the time, so you have kind of a thread of comments in the lower part. Or if we have the privileges, we can go and edit the document, which I think it's more complicated perhaps for you. We'll be preparing a new draft version. But Socialtext, it is already there. And I think we already -- I use it for GNSO and for the drafting teams. >>ROB HOGGARTH: We do have -- the geo regions working group does have the Wiki. This document is already on there. So it may be, you know, just a matter of formatting to highlight it or bring it to the top so it's just easier for all of you. I think the key there is -- and I like that concept of the comments. While all the comments will be together, there will have to be some personal management you all take to that. It won't be as easy as comment side by side with remarks. You will have to reference in your comments, one, two, 15, 18. But we can certainly make that effort, and I'll just work very hard to keep it in an organized fashion. The greatest thing would be difficult because you are all just throwing so many comments into it at once, that it would be a challenge. But my sense is with the time differences that that's unlikely to be an issue. But, yeah, I have already been trying to cut and paste that one table, create that as a separate document and then upload that on to the Wiki. I know that there is a challenge, and I'm not even going to attempt to do the various columnizations. I will get a colleague to help me with that to have that posted visually. But I think that direct comment, if you guys are all in agreement, that will be the first option. And then if we have difficulty, we'll create some alternate. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: If I may, clearly, we're going to have an issue only if -- and I'm going to be least affected to this because of my particular time zone. But you do recognize that in Socialtext, whenever two people are editing at one time, only one of you will get in and it will blat out your other -- We have that happen in the ALAC a lot. So I think there needs to be -- we actually have -- if even Heidi and I are editing any of our documents, I give someone the pen at any particular time because we've all lost in some cases considerable hours' worth of work when it goes down. I'm wondering, though, Rob, because Socialtext upgraded itself a couple of times recently and there might be tools that I have never used and unfamiliar with. Maybe a quick pass by the experts at ICANN and just say, "Here is what this group wants to do, is there a good way of doing it? But make sure we've all got the little "CLO" -- you can all say "CLO," but our own initials next to the comments. That's probably the most important thing. >>ROB HOGGARTH: My understanding with the comments, you can add comments and the system incorporates. So the challenge is you indicate if I actually created the document and then you were all populating the same thing. No? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Double-check with Heidi because we have now made learned to make sure if Danny Younger is asleep, we can actually afford to change the Wiki because he puts things in comments while we are doing things -- he sees us, we're editing, and we have had conflicts. As I said, just ask the people who actually know which is not me. I'm very limited in my use of it. But, yeah, let's do it. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Great, will do. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Everybody has still avoided my question of time scale? I'm thinking in terms of about two weeks. >>ROB HOGGARTH: And perhaps, Dave, what I'll do is I'll conduct the inquiry I've discussed with Cheryl. And Monday or Tuesday say it's open, begin, the land rush is on for making the comments. And then we'll just tag two weeks from the date of that announcement to the team list. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: And the follow-on from then will be that Rob has said he will help analyze those comments. I will also be trying to pull out the core elements or analysis of the historical stuff, which I will then circulate for comments and we'll work in that way. As we get your responses, we'll give you more work to do. >>ROB HOGGARTH: Yeah, the approach there would be -- I think the analogy I used is it is just an internal working group, public comment forum, where at the end of the two weeks, I'll summarize and try to consolidate some of the comments because there may be those "I agree." But if everyone is doing it independently, there will be different perspectives, yes. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: And then further down the road, once we have got firmer ideas, we'll be asking you to look at the potential impact of those ideas on your own organization. So that's beginning to look at the impact analysis as well. Okay, people, I'm happy to put the floor open and Rob's lept onto it. Go ahead, Rob. >>ROB HOGGARTH: The other area is the survey document. And for those of you that attended the meeting on Tuesday, I simply have not had time to incorporate the various edits that were discussed at that meeting. So I'd invite people who have not yet had an opportunity to just provide some thoughts or edits, please feel free to do so. I will be working on those over this upcoming weekend. The one issue, of course, there is -- as I understood the discussion on Tuesday, is that the edits will then be recirculated to the team to have a sense as to, again, the details of the questions and having those formats and having everybody comfortable that we're asking the right things. I have an appointment on Tuesday with Ralph of Big Pulse who is the expert on helping us develop the actual presentation. And I will be talking with him and I will share that feedback with all of you in terms of some of the options for the multilingual capabilities, with options with respect to potentially how to parse the data based on the answers to Section 1. I understand it can be very robust that way. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: I don't have the present draft in hand. Do we have a question that says anything like, "Should we just be looking at geography or should we be looking at culture as well?" >>ROB HOGGARTH: I will incorporate that thought. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Is that perhaps a reasonable question to ask? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Yeah. >>ROB HOGGARTH: It does not, and I'll add that concept in the next draft round. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: The floor is open. In that case -- No? >>ZAHID JAMIL: Sorry, just one point. I have to say that I put out the fact that we're going to do a survey to my constituency. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to respond to it at the moment. I think they got the RIR and separation and new gTLDs on their minds, but I am going to keep pushing it. I don't know if other people are having the same problem. >>ROB HOGGARTH: The key there, I think, will be the delivery mechanisms that Cheryl and I have been discussing offline. If we can through Big Pulse and then I will be discussing with them sort of what other add-ons and what delivery mechanisms they have, it may be a case where the folks can do it through some Twitter feed or something. We will try to find some inventive ways to make it as easy as possible and then just sort of build on that. I think various working group members have different perspectives in terms of how much feedback we'll get. But I think any feedback is valuable, and the more we can talk it up and keep it out there, the more value it may have. >>OLGA CAVALLI: I will circulate it in different networks I belong in Latin America. I promised to do that with the regional RIR. They have very important networking and Web page. They would be willing to publish it and circulate it. And some other regional networks I belong to, I'll do that. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Thanks, Olga. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Just a final thought. I have no idea why I didn't bring it forward earlier. As chair, perhaps we could ask you to approach the AC/SO chairs' list and ask them to make a point of bringing it with their endorsement to the communities, a quick e- mail. I think, you know, that's one of the reasons we're all supposed to be getting together. It is why we have a list. You won't post directly, but I think that would be -- just gives it a little bit more getting-on-the-agenda opportunity. >>DAVID ARCHBOLD: Yeah, thanks. All right. There being no further business. The meeting is adjourned and I look forward to your comments in two weeks. Thank you.