Reform of the UKRAC

[Whois-Search]

Dear Members,

At present the UKRAC is facing intense criticism from one particular elected NED who claims:

* It doesn’t produce much of use
* It can’t claim to represent the broad views of members
* No one wants to be on it
* That councillors feel “outside antagonists”
* That the UKRAC is not “proactive” enough

I personally fear we are going to lose the UKRAC by next year if we do not see significant reform before most of us term out.

That is despite efforts made over the past three years by the UKRAC (including myself) to respond to the following policy changes:

* Member Community Guidelines
* Member Community Terms of Service
* Revised Community moderation complaints process
* Proxy Services Incident Plan (PSIP)
* Zone file availability
* Working Group process
* UKRAC Code of Conduct
* UKRAC election timetable
* Filled UKRAC vacant seats

More recently not showing as completed on the hub:

* .UK Registration Policy review
* Drop List Implementation review
* .me.uk and .net.uk restrictions review
* Anti-avoidance and Connected Persons Clause review
* Expired domains implementation review
* Councillor term lengths review
* Transactional Data Release review
* Online Harms review
* .UK pricing principles review
* DNS abuse contract changes review
* Terrorism etc guidance review
* EPP standization consultation response

And many other things that pop up under “AOB”.

Often what we suggest is just ‘noted’ by the board for example from latest board report:

UKRAC - the Board received a report from the UKRAC summarising discussions held at the 5th March 2024 Council meeting and noted the Executive's response to the Council's recommendations as part of the Expired Domain Names consultation exercise.

A lot of work went in to that expired domains review and we now have nothing to show for it.

So over to members…

- What can be done to save the UKRAC?
- What would you like the UKRAC to do?
- Which events would you like the UKRAC to attend?
- Who should the UKRAC represent?
- Why do not many members stand for the UKRAC to trigger an election?
- How do we fill the empty seats from next year?
- What do you think of the UKRAC segments?
- Should the UKRAC have more “teeth”?

Of course there might be members and other board members who agree with the NED at the start of this message. I would like to hear from those people too with detailed reasons why they think like they do.

Thank you

 

[ELIFE-MZ]

Hi Andrew

"Often what we suggest is just ‘noted’ by the board"

.. there is the issue. Either Nominet takes UKRAC work seriously or shut it down. A waste of time otherwise I am sorry to say.

 

[Whois-Search]

.. there is the issue. Either Nominet takes UKRAC work seriously or shut it down. A waste of time otherwise I am sorry to say.

While that certainly is an issue and the expired domain review took a lot of time up as @rob will tell you…Nominet is not a registrar and doesn’t eat their own dog food.

Therefore when product or policy staff make changes they don’t always see it from registrars point of view.

The UKRAC was also setup to give registrar input through member elections. The UKRAC is also supposed to give input to price reviews and so far we have had the pricing principles for next year's price review.

So while “shut it down” might seem to be a logical step the problem is Nominet will be deciding policy and prices without any member / registrar input. Wouldn’t it be better to widen the input?

Either way most of us term out soon and we won’t be staying on it by 2025 (three of us retire this September, three next September).