ICANN's "constituency silos" (was: Re: [governance] [igf_members] MAG Renewal)

[John Curran]

On May 17, 2013, at 4:50 PM, David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:

> Likewise, I spend most of my time at ICANN within the GNSO. The GNSO itself is very much multi-stakeholder - besides the range of civil society groups represented by NCSG councillors like myself, there is a wide range of commercial groups represented, and the GNSO spends a reasonable amount of its time liaising with other groups such as the GAC, SSAC, the ICANN board, etc. But I have very little idea about what actually goes on within other silos. The problem is not so much constituency-ism, or lack of engagement with other stakeholders, but lack of engagement with other silos. I spend lots of time engaging beyond my constituency at ICANN -- but engaging with the other constituencies within the GNSO silo consumes enough time and energy I have not much left over for engagement beyond the GNSO silo. But this engagement beyond the silo is crucial for a functional organisation and process. 
> ...
> On 16/05/2013, at 6:46 AM, Keith Davidson <keith at internetnz.net.nz> wrote:
>> On 16/05/2013 8:05 a.m., Roland Perry wrote:
>>> ...
>>> The problem with attending different silos is the way the agenda has
>>> become increasingly arranged around constituency-ism (so if you want to
>>> attend "your" constituency then you can't do that as well attend
>>> others), and with as many as ten tracks simultaneously.
>> 
>> Exactly my point.
>> 
>> At a personal level - I spend most of my time in the ccNSO silo, and have a good understanding of the ccTLD communities views on all sorts of issues, take for example, WHOIS. I have some idea of the GAC's view, and no idea of any other constituency views on this topic. It would make more sense to have the multistakeholder dialogue on this topic so I could appreciate the range of opinion.
>> 
>> At an operational level - the WHOIS review team came to an ICANN meeting and had to do 11 separate presentations to work through all constituencies - surely this is a waste of everyones time, most especially the review teams, and surely it is symptomatic of being non-multistakeholder in nature as it is a series of silo'ised discussions.

This constiuentcy-based structuring of policy input is unique to ICANN (at least among 
the commonly recognized set of Internet organizations); while there are "areas" and 
"tracks" in IETF and RIR meetings, in the end, the actual discussion of a given draft 
takes place in a public forum following a fairly well-understood process flow.  There 
are certainly many collections of folks who get together separately in the hallways 
and over meals, but in the end there are specified times during the meeting when each 
document is brought forth for consideration and discussion by all who are interested.

I have known folks of similar views on a given doc to make joint statements in such 
sessions (to make clear that their perspective is recognized as a common view), but 
primarily the discussion of proposals focus on the pros and cons of the proposal and
any suggested changes that are on the table.  ICANN's original structure was to have 
policy development delegated to a Protocol Support Organization (PSO), an Address 
Support Organization (ASO), and a DNSO (Domain Name Support Organization) operating 
in this fashion, leaving ICANN itself in an oversight and coordination role.

The restructuring of ICANN to instead be constituency-aligned and with DNS policy 
development within ICANN (as set by ICANN's initial Board in the Singapore 1999 
meeting) avoided a difficult decision in having to select a single independent 
organization from the applicants to serve as the DNSO, but the full implications 
for open and transparent multistakeholder policy development remains to be seen.

FYI,
/John

Disclaimers: My views alone. Present (and objected to the change) at the 1999 meeting.



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