[Chapter-delegates] ChAC-SC Advice notice

Mon Mar 2 10:57:38 PST 2020

Dear Richard, Gonzalo and Colleagues,

As it has been discussed recently and as outlined in the recent webinar with Gonzalo. There are a number of communication issues on the whole process. If we leave each position on the sale on the side and look at how things are communicated and discussed within ISOC realms (ChAC, CD, Board, public, etc.) it seems that for some, things are just starting while for others things are nearly done. I suggested in the webinar that in such scenarios, it would be recommended to produce simpler, concrete and straight messages, less dialogic, less rhetoric. Current communication practice has precluded persons to go through deep analysis in subjects that are not critical to their day life issues, initially as a time management strategy.

A simple analysis on the press shows, as expected, a lack of analysis in most of the published material, obviously a lot of good communicators within ISOC have written otherwise. However, most of ISOC members, members of the public, and those related to .ORG, weakly or strongly, first thing they retain is the headline. In Latin-American press, I have read things that may surprise the English speaking world of ISOC. All of them arising from lack of understanding, misleading interviews or even payola. In these phenomena, developing world is not very different from the fully developed one.

I invite the colleagues and the relevant ISOC staff and BOT members to produce simple, straight forward material that provides accurate and assertive information, in order to reduce lengthy discussions on issues not critical to the process. While continuing deeper discussions in the appropriate lists, under identifiable threads.

As a conclusion, excess of information precludes communication as time for analysis and discussion is a scarce resource.

Sincerely,

Dr. Luis M Martinez
ISOC Mx Chair

From: Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org> on behalf of Richard Hill via Chapter-delegates <Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
Reply-To: Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch>
Date: Monday, March 2, 2020 at 4:56 AM
To: "mnemonic at gmail.com" <mnemonic at gmail.com>
Cc: 'Chapter Delegates' <Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] ChAC-SC Advice notice

Dear Mike,

Thank you very much for this. I much appreciate your message.

Misunderstandings happen all the time, and it is good to speak frankly so that they can be cleared up.

Best,
Richard

From: Mike Godwin [mailto:mnemonic at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 2, 2020 13:12
To: Richard Hill
Cc: John More; Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] ChAC-SC Advice notice

Richard, I appreciate your referring me to the 19-page document's summary of the different views.

I hope I may be forgiven for having possibly misread the use of "unanimous" and "full" in characterizing ChAC's recommendations, given that "unanimous" and "full" did not seem to me to be accurate in light of the disagreements among members that I was aware of.

I hope that over time my personal failures in misreading various mailing lists--which I undertake to be an engaged member of the community--are not ascribed to ISOC or the board of trustees generally.

Thank you for your response.

Mike Godwin

On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 4:51 AM Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch<mailto:rhill at hill-a.ch>> wrote:
Dear Mike,

I submit that the document containing the advice to the Board contains ample internal evidence to show that all views were captured: about 10 pages of the 19-page documents consist of an account of the diverging views, concluding with the following summary:

“ Finally, and most importantly, people who posted to the list are divided as to how to proceed. The diverging views do not fall into neat categories, but perhaps can be summarized as follows
a) Stop the sale: ISOC should retain .ORG as at present.
B )The sale should not take place until all relevant documents and information have been made public, and the ISOC Board of Trustees has taken into account the comments made by the ISOC constituencies
c) The sale should take place, but Ethos and the new PIR should be bound to respect either the initial conditions under which .ORG was delegated to ISOC, or some other set of conditions designed to protect the public interest nature of .ORG.
d) The sale should proceed as proposed.”

The advice submitted to the Board reflects the less extreme positions.

The process used to develop the document was well described by Greg in his previous post, so I won’t repeat that here.  I will however underline that the editing team included both people who are strongly opposed to the sale, and people who don’t see much of a problem with the sale.

If you want to see how the document evolved, and how comments were accommodated during the editing process, you can look at the Box folder which contains the successive versions of the document. I presume that staff can give you access to that folder, if you don’t already have access.

I trust that your sincere concern regarding the ChAC process has been addressed.

On the other hand, I remain sincerely concerned about (1) the process used to make the deal (2) the effects of the deal on .ORG registrants and (3) the reputational damage to ISOC.  And I have to say that your interventions have exacerbated rather than allayed my concerns.

Best,
Richard

From: Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org<mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org>] On Behalf Of Mike Godwin via Chapter-delegates
Sent: Monday, March 2, 2020 01:13
To: John More
Cc: ISOC Chapter Delegates
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] ChAC-SC Advice notice

First of all, let me apologize for seeming to be clever, or seeming to attempt cleverness.

I take very seriously the fact that many members of this list oppose the sale, and I entirely support their right to oppose it.

My concern about what seems to me to be efforts to suppress dissent is genuine, but that means that nothing would please me more than to learn that my impressions are incorrect.

I would prefer to believe that no dissent is being suppressed, procedurally or any other way. I am happy if I can be proved wrong with regard to any of the impressions I have expressed prior to now.

Please accept both my sincere apology and my reaffirmation of my sincere concerns.

Mike

On Sun, Mar 1, 2020 at 7:02 PM John More <morej1 at mac.com<mailto:morej1 at mac.com>> wrote:
Your aspersions are completely out of bounds.  Your cleverness about due process is only cleverness.

I happen to be a supporter of the sale, since I believe the Trustees had a duty to diversify the assets of ISOC by getting out of the .org business. That is not to say, I think the process could not have been different and the the sort of protections now being implemented were not needed.

I would have welcomed incorporating reflecting whatever dissent you wanted to make, especially if it were supporting the sale.

John More

On Mar 1, 2020, at 5:29 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com<mailto:mnemonic at gmail.com>> wrote:

Richard writes:

'With due respect, the ChAC process was scrupulously followed, as Eduardo has explained. You apparently think that that process is not appropriate. You are of course entitled to you views, but it is the process that was approved by the Board.'

The notion that scrupulous adherence to due process is a defense is a common argument in Hell. See, e.g., this statement by Grant Gilmore:

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/342530-the-ages-of-american-law-the-storrs-lectures-series

In relevant sentence: "In hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”

Your argument that that due process was "scrupulously" followed is no comfort to the dissenters whom you participated in suppressing.

Mike

On Sun, Mar 1, 2020 at 5:07 PM John More via Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org<mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
Juan

I fully recognize how busy most of us are. There is a difference between the elists which are often loaded with repetitious comments and can be a waste of time. The ChapterAC process for the advice was clear and scrupulously followed. Moreover, it involved relatively minimal time demands except for those of us on the drafting committee. All that was required was to review the draft and send in an email opposition. If there had been opposition expressed, a vote would have been required.

So I agree that silence is not assent, but it is a “consent" that the proposal go forward without a formal vote, especially since withholding consent was fairly easy to do.

I do hope you will be able to be involved if the ChaptersAC has another issue like this one.

Yours,

John More
ISOC-DC

> On Mar 1, 2020, at 4:04 PM, Juan C. Cigala, Internet Society Canarias via Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org<mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>
> I agree with Franca and Solomon, silence is not consent.
>
> Many of us haven't the time to take care of this kind of never ending kind of discussions.
>
> I support the debate, but with the due respect for the time of the others.
>
>
> On 2/27/2020 04:49, Solomon Hopewell Kembo via Chapter-delegates wrote:
>> I agree with Franca, silence is not consent.
>
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