[ppml] Individuals vs. organizations in the public policyprocess

The ARIN policy discussions are not limited to individuals.  "Policy
development is an open and transparent process. Anyone may participate
in the process -- a prior relationship as an ARIN member or customer is
not a requirement..." Link: http://www.arin.net/policy/index.html

Organizations pay the ARIN fees, receive the vast majority of the
addresses allocated by ARIN, and are subject to the ARIN policies. As
Scott mentioned, the ARIN member organizations each get one vote.  PPML
participants should consider that individuals speaking on behalf of
their organization may have gone through an internal vetting process
before posting a note.  This will often include internal
discussions/debates/education and an enterprise impact analysis of the
policy proposal.  

>From my perspective the organizational affiliation is useful when a PPML
message is posted as a position of the organization.  It helps provide
additional context for the comment.

Regards - Fred 

 
-----Original Message-----
From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of
Scott Leibrand
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 5:57 PM
To: Stephen Sprunk
Cc: ARIN PPML
Subject: Re: [ppml] Individuals vs. organizations in the public
policyprocess

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
> Thus spake Steve Bertrand
>   
> For the record then, and given what you said about the NAY/YAY
consideration at the meetings, myself, and the company that I work for
strongly oppose this policy.
>
> Not to pick on Steve in particular, but this is the second time this
week I've seen corporate endorsement of a policy position.  My
understanding is that ARIN, like the IETF, is a community of _people_
with opinions and that corporate affiliations are for identification
only.
>
> Can someone from the BoT or AC clarify whether I've got that right?

Speaking as an individual (I'm not on the AC yet anyway), I think that's
correct, as far as the public policy process goes.  As a matter of free
speech, I think everyone is free to speak for their company if they
wish, but that has no more weight than speaking for themselves.

Where companies (ARIN members) matter is when it comes to voting: each
ARIN member (ORG ID) get just one designated member representative, and
hence one vote for AC and BoT seats.  However, it's important to
distinguish between such elections (and other actions taken during the
ARIN member meeting), and the public policy process (and public policy
meeting), which operates by consensus of individual participants.

-Scott