[ARIN-consult] Reminder: Consultation on Increasing the size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

[Rob Seastrom]

> On Jun 1, 2017, at 1:43 PM, Jason Schiller <jschiller at google.com> wrote:
> 
> I would support adding additional seats for the purpose of increasing diversity if
> such seats had some sore of restriction... 
> 
> For example each of the three new seats will be scoped as follows:
> 1 seat will only have nominations from Caribbean region community.
> 1 seat will only have nominations from individuals identifying as a women 
> 1 seat will be designated as a "new comer" and will only have nominations that have never served on the ARIN Board.
> 
> This proposal lacks any such restriction.

Mostly agree with Jason here.  If the Board believes that increasing the number of seats is *necessary* in order to increase diversity then I am in favor of it, but only in conjunction with specific measures taken to have qualified candidates stand for election and be subsequently voted in.  I can't in good conscience support a simple expansion of the count of people on the board in the hope that it will cause good candidates for those positions to magically appear; it will not.

The expansion of the Fellowship Program was a commendable first step.  What else can we do to encourage participation in the process by members of historically underrepresented groups?  I believe we have a larger problem than the (highly visible) make-up of the Board.  Hopefully any solution that helps with Board composition will also cast a long shadow over the entire process and result in greater diversity throughout.

I am neither in favor of nor opposed to the restrictions/carve-outs that Jason suggests, but will observe that they may be one effective tool among many that the Board or NomCom may bring to bear.

One note though on the specifics of reserving seats - a "newcomer" seat could be compelling, particularly in the interests of reducing "clubbiness" but the devil is in the details.  A naive implementation would result in a situation wherein a good candidate who had been elected and faithfully served a term would be ineligible to stand for re-election.  Moreover, a credible "newcomers only" carve-out would have to disqualify previous and current and former AC members, previous and current ASO AC members, previous ARIN employees, and perhaps others.

In conclusion, I support increasing diversity but not half-efforts; on the specific issue of board size increase, if it happens it needs to be a larger part of a coordinated effort to ensure that the seats do not merely get filled with existing well-qualified-but-not-adding-any-diversity members of the community.

-r