Public Participation Committee (PPC) Minutes 4 December 2010

PPC Attendees: Jean-Jacques Subrenat – Chair; Thomas Narten; Gonzalo Navarro; Vanda Scartezini; Katim Touray; and Kuo-Wei Wu

PPC Apologies: Katim Touray

Invited Attendees: Bertrand de La Chappelle and Sébastien Bachollet

Staff Attendees: Barbara Clay – Vice President for Communications and Marketing; David Olive – Vice President, Policy Development Support; Samantha Eisner, Scott Pinzon, Christina Rodriguez, Nick Tomasso, and Filiz Yilmaz


The following is a summary of discussion, action taken and actions identified:

  1. Approval of Minutes: All voting members in attendance approved the minutes of the prior PPC meeting.

  2. Redesign of ICANN website: The PPC received a presentation from Staff on the status of work to redesign the ICANN website to meet the goals of (1) helping visitors find what they are looking for; (2) facilitate community communication; (3) enhance ICANN through presentation of a collaborative, dynamic site; and (4) increase visitors to the site. Staff provided an overview of the work to date, including an online survey and in-depth interviews with community and Board members, and the move to Wiki software for community collaboration. Staff also discussed a focus to improve mobile phone support, search filtering, and multilingual support. Staff's work, including selection of a vendor to assist, will continue, with a goal of implementation beginning in March 2011. PPC members highlighted the need to be very precise in the accuracy of wording. PPC members also suggested the possibility of forming an advisory group of website "customers" to assist in the direction of the work and confirm the problems users are experiencing are solved through the redesign efforts.

    • Actions:

      • Staff to report back to the PPC on the feasibility of creating an advisory group to assist in the redesign efforts.

      • Staff to include reference to the redesign work in the PPC Public Update session in Cartagena.

  3. Meetings for the Next Decade: Received a presentation on the concept of hub cities for ICANN meetings and proposed methodologies for maintaining rotation through ICANN's geographic meetings while achieving efficiencies in travel ease, facility identification, cost and contractual negotiations, as well as the requisite changes in meeting funding and sponsorship opportunities. The PPC engaged in a discussion of the scenarios presented by staff and determined that it was premature to make any recommendation on proceeding with this item due to the need for more precise cost estimates on the financial benefits of such a move, including costs to ICANN participants in travel. The PPC also raised a concern of involvement of the local internet communities in the areas where ICANN visits, and the need to review this concept in a holistic manner, including addressing ICANN's working methodologies, and the need to integrate the outcome the work of the group reviewing ICANN's Geographic Regions.

    • Action:

      • Staff to provide estimate of cost savings in the hub city model.

  4. Public comment process: Received a presentation from staff on ICANN's Public Comment Process, with focus on the effectiveness of the forums and the interface, perceived equalities between various subjects for public comment, the volume of comment forums open at a time, and the duration. There was also a short discussion on staff summary and analysis of public comment and impact of the comment process. The PPC noted the discussion of public comment processes in the preliminary report of the Accountability and Transparency Review Team, and requested staff to consider the public comment process in light of those initial suggestions, and to consider how comments are actually dealt with. The PPC discussed the usefulness of translation of executive summaries of items for public comment.

    • Action:

      • Staff to update the discussion document and circulate for PPC comments prior to public posting.

  5. PPC Community Update: Staff and PPC reviewed the agenda and proposed presentations for the PPC Community Update session in Cartagena.

    • Action:

      • Staff to update the presentations as noted by PPC in advance of the Community Update.