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Reporting and Misdirected Anger

by Bret Fausett at 10:04AM (PDT) on June 22, 2006 | Permanent Link | Cosmos | Digg This

In a comment to an item below, Keiren McCarthy points to this delicious gem of a Board resolution, passed unanimously on Wednesday, June 14th:

Resolved (06.__), the ICANN Board acknowledges the fact that the approving and publishing of minutes of meetings were in arrears and the Board acknowledges the difficulty that causes members of the community in keeping up with the Board's activity. Accordingly, the Board notes that it had directed action and the staff has complied with steps for ensuring extra resources are being applied to this problem, so the Board is now confident that minutes will be dealt with, in a timely fashion. The Board noted the ICANN Staff’s work in bringing the minutes up-to-date. Lastly, the Board noted that both the Board and the Staff have indicated strong intentions to maintain a timely reporting of the Board’s activity.

Too bad it took ICANN less than 48 hours to put the lie to its "strong intention[] to maintain a timely reporting of the Board’s activity," by missing the five business day reporting deadline for the meeting it held on Friday, June 9th.

In other comments below, Veni Markovski spends more of his credibility defending ICANN's late reporting, arguing that posting the report after the end of the fifth business day (a Friday) but before the beginning of the sixth business day (a Monday), constitutes technical compliance with the bylaws. He also suggests that my post characterizing ICANN's late reporting as a bylaws violation is "yellow" journalism.

First the facts and then a comment. Fortunately readers of this weblog and followers of ICANN's activities don't have to take my word, or Veni's, for the proper calculation of time for issuing preliminary reports. The Bylaws are crystal clear: "No later than five (5) business days after each meeting (as calculated by local time at the location of ICANN's principal office), any actions taken by the Board shall be made publicly available in a preliminary report on the Website." It doesn't say "before the beginning of the sixth business day," but "no later than" five business days after each meeting. For the meeting ICANN held on Friday, June 9th, the time clearly passed at the close of business on Friday, June 16th, the fifth full business day after June 9th.

What baffles me is why an ICANN Director would turn his anger on the person reporting the bylaw violation rather than focusing on the person(s) responsible for the late reporting. How much more ridiculous can Staff make the Board look than by flouting one of its resolutions just two days after it was passed? If I were a Board member, I'd direct my substantial concerns at the person(s) responsible, not at the ICANN community member who pointed out the problem.

Keywords: savingthenet, icann, IANA, Governance

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5 days?

by Veni Markovski on Sat 24 Jun 2006 04:23 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Bret,
as you pointed out, people can read, and reach their conclusions without any further influence by me or you.
But you say, "If I were a Board member..." Well, become one, and make sure that the organizaiton runs the way you want it. I would be looking forward towards your constructive criticism, after I've seen only your criticism for its own sake.
It's often quite easy to say "if I were", but it's even easier to not to be part of the solution.

veni

P.S. You have misunderstood what I wrote. I am not defening late reporting (although, as it turns out we are arguing about 1 minute difference). I am actually offending criticism fot its own sake. There is substential difference between beeing critical and constructively critical.

Re: 5 days?

by Veni Markovski on Sat 24 Jun 2006 04:29 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

P.P.S. Ops, and I forgot - I am not angry at you. Why do you actually think I may be angry at you? If you are seriously thinking I feel anger, that measn that you are taking this whole argument quite seriously. Don't forget rule No. 2 of the Old English Club, which was "Never take yourself too seriously".
Anger? For a delay of one minute? For not giving some space and understanding? For plain criticism without actual desire to help in the solution? Everything else, but not anger, Bret.

5 days?

by Veni Markovski on Sat 24 Jun 2006 07:25 AM PDT | Profile | Permanent Link

Bret,
what I say, is that there's no excuse for delays. There should not be delays, and one of the tasks of the June 14 decision is exacttly that. We are aware that there has been substential delays, which were coped with in the last few weeks, and I hope that from now on it will be better, and within the by-laws.
What I was arguing with you, is that there are two ways to solve any problem - you choose the rude "yet again", "credibility", "dis-", "bad", etc. I prefer to push step by step, until I achieve what I want.
Besides, in this case it's even not about what I want, it's what the ICANN community, and the Internet community need - a better working ICANN, a non-stop service from ICANN wrt DNS/Root work.

I hope now it's more clear.

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