Summary

  • ICANN's Board named Miriam Sapiro chair of its Organizational Effectiveness Committee on 22 October. Chris Buckridge, the chair recorded in August minutes, remains a committee member.
  • The committee inherits a Review of Reviews process that drew 23 public comments and is headed toward a revised draft and another public comment period. Its November docket includes new-member introductions, an RSSAC review update and a charter review.

The committee that checks ICANN's homework now has a new person at the head of the table. In its 22 October organizational resolution, the Board appointed Miriam Sapiro to chair the Organizational Effectiveness Committee. Chris Buckridge, identified as chair in the committee's August minutes, appears in the new lineup as a member, alongside Greg DiBiase, James Galvin and Ian Sheldon.

This is more than a nameplate swap. The committee's published remit covers organizational and specific reviews, the IANA Naming Function reviews and the framework that tells reviewers how to work. The live question on its desk is unusually circular: a cross-community group is reviewing the system of reviews itself. Somebody has to keep track of who checks the checkers.

The 25 August committee minutes give that circle a timetable. The Review of Reviews draft drew 23 comments by 4 August. Staff told the committee to expect substantive revisions, a second draft and another public consultation. The earlier August target for final recommendations had already slipped. The minutes describe questions about the scope and timing of future reviews, and the workload for the community members and staff expected to run them.

There was no OEC meeting scheduled in October during ICANN87. The published November plan brings in the new members, a progress update on the second review of the Root Server System Advisory Committee and the committee's annual charter review. Sapiro inherits those appointments and the larger question of how a review system can produce work that institutions actually finish. The next useful receipts are the revised proposal, the second comment window and a committee record showing what happened to the objections already filed.