Putting an important caveat upfront here: I do work for ICANN but I have not followed the GNSO Improvements process sufficiently closely to have a full understanding, nor do my views in any way represent the views of ICANN. So as Devil's Advocate and with my main concern being the effective participation of larger numbers of more diverse participants within ICANN: Doesn't the Charter as put forward by the NCUC effectively undercut the new constituency groups that have applied to be recognised? You mention the contentious CyberSecurity constituency, but there are three others that I'm aware of that aren't contentious - Consumers, IDN gTLDs and City TLDs. Those group's applications are either still out for public comment or have just come back from public comment. Isn't the NCUC jumping the gun a bit here by asking for a more free-form constituency approach when we haven't even got the new applications approved? Again, from my perspective of wanting to see new participants and effective participation - I've always liked the idea of new formal consistuencies because they bring people in on particular topics and by being formal it imposes the kind of structured participation that is effective in producing actual results. If you have it more free-form, people just won't get together sufficiently to come up with solid input. And that means that whoever does the work gets the last say. I would argue that this approach - where you have to follow ICANN obsessively to have an impact - is behind alot of the participation problems with ICANN. Instead, if people with votes were forced to go and ask for people's opinions, it would allow effective participation for those that don't have the time or inclination to answer every email and read every mailing list. Again, this is posted purely in the spirit of discussion - if you think your approach would lead to broader and more effective participation, I'm happy to be persuaded the other way. Kieren McCarthy (general manager of public participation, ICANN)