[governance] What ICANN Do

[Kieren McCarthy]

Hi Kurt, 

Yes, I agree. We had this conversation a long time ago when I told you that
as far as I could make out you had got the organisational structure correct.

I am not in a position to decide how ICANN as an entire organisation
represents itself and, if I'm being honest, this chart idea has fallen way
down my list in terms of things to raise, but thank you for the reminder. 

I will suggest as far as I can that the internal structure of ICANN is laid
out.



Kieren



-----Original Message-----
From: Dirk Krischenowski | dotBERLIN [mailto:krischenowski at dotberlin.de] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 11:33 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: AW: [governance] What ICANN Do

Kieren,

When it comes to transparency at ICANN it is important for new people
visiting the ICANN website or an ICANN meeting for the first time to know
who's responsible for what and who reports to whom. When I look at the ICANN
staff website I only find an alphabethic order of people working for ICANN,
not an organisational chart or something similar.

I just want to let you know that I made such a chart beginning of 2007 but
since new empolyees are not announced all the time I failed to follow it:
http://www.icannwiki.org/images/2/2b/ICANN_Staff_Organizational_Chart.pdf

I should be not too difficult to get this organised.

Dirk



-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Dan Krimm [mailto:dan at musicunbound.com] 
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 5. Dezember 2007 23:42
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Betreff: [governance] What ICANN Do

At 1:40 PM -0800 12/5/07, Kieren McCarthy wrote:

>Does this list think it would be of much benefit if I created a factsheet
or
>somesuch that clearly defines what ICANN does and does not do?
>
>I knocked up some wording that I have been soft-testing here:
>http://www.icann.org/participate/what-icann-do.html
>
>Comments welcome.


Kieren,

This is an interesting but minimal beginning.  What's I'd like to see is
reference to the details that impact actual policy making at ICANN.

For example, when outlining the organizational structure of ICANN, it's
very useful to delineate the lines of authority (who can say no to someone
else at what stage of the process, who selects who has representational
authority, etc.).

What you have here is just the very top-level overview of what's going on
(and much of this sort of thing can be found elsewhere on the ICANN web
site), but the real meat of ICANN's operations is down in the belly.  I'd
love to see this expanded down there.

For a more specific example, in the accountability section you mention an
"independent Nominating Committee" but without detailing the process of
selecting NomCom members themselves (and you should point out how the
various constituencies have a formal hand in selecting and constraining
that representation -- see: http://nomcom.icann.org/faqs.htm#1_4 -- 5 ALAC,
2 BC, 1 each from Registries, Registrars, ccNSO, ISCPC, IPC, ASO, Board
academic appt., NCUC, IETF, and TLG) it is not clear to the reader that the
word "independent" is actually materially arguable here, given that it
takes the authorization from one of the groups listed in order to get onto
the NomCom as a voting member in the first place.  So even though there may
be no other body within ICANN that has the authority to overrule the NomCom
decisions, many of those bodies have input into NomCom informally through
their own representation.  (I understand that the claim of "independence"
of the NomCom may have some significant legal and/or regulatory
ramifications, so this could be treading on thin ice.  This is where your
job gets delicate in the highest degree.)

So if you left it at this, it would most definitely not be "transparent"
because the bird's-eye-view of ICANN structure really does not do justice
to understanding how power really flows under the hood (i.e., how policy is
actually made at this institution -- will you make reference to the motto
of "rough consensus and running code" as the iconographic deliberative
model, and describe how that works in practice?).

If you are going to do this at all you should try to do a very thorough
job, because otherwise your effort might be viewed as an attempt to
obfuscate and finesse rather than to truly inform.

And then we get into disagreements, and people start throwing around ad
hominems, and we just get distracted from the substantive issues all over
again.

Dan

PS -- Granted, some of the important details apparently have not been
settled yet, such as the Board's authority for "line item veto" or
boundaries of jurisdiction for overruling policies that arise from SOs.
The ICANN "constitution" (in terms of competing authority of checks and
balances) is not actually fully completed in full detail, so far as I know.
So it may be that in order to do this project right you would have to
unearth some of the very contentious points that cause so much
consternation in the IG community.  But to avoid that level of detail might
simply be interpreted as weaving wool for the eyes.  Again, a highly
delicate task.  I'm sorry that I don't have an easy "consensus" solution
for you here.

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance


____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance