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

Fri Jun 9 13:11:29 EDT 2017

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the response.

As far as I can see, diabetics like me are not found on the Board.

Nor is anybody evidently physically challenged, I see no wheelchairs for example.

Nobody is deaf. No redheads either.

You most pointedly did not answer my questions, let me try them again.

Who is to be included in the preferred groups? 

Here is Lee’s “answer”:

>The members. Right now they prefer "rich white guys."
>I apologize to any Board members who do not identify as "rich," but you *do* have the flexibility to spend time on ARIN rather than on your day job, and you are all senior executives.

>I also recognize Merike, who is a Board member, and whose presence does not invalidate my point about voting patterns.

Sorry Lee, that is not the answer to my question. The “preferred groups” are the ones for whom a seat is reserved.

But your answer does beg the question of whether we should include the poor in the preferred groups?

My question relates to defining who belongs to what groups, after the groups themselves are chosen.

For example, any group you define really represents a spectrum, and where do we define the edges of that spectrum?

If it’s women, is a personal identification as a woman enough, or do we need blood tests like the Olympics?

If it’s homeland, do you have to be a citizen, or can you have a second-home in your “homeland”?

If it’s experience, who judges whether the experience meets the bar?

If it’s nationality, what about dual-nationals?

Who chooses the preferred groups?

Here is Lee’s “answer”:

>The members. Right now they prefer "rich white guys."

Voting members chose the current board, no seats were reserved for them, thus none is in a preferred group.

But you say the members choose the preferred groups. How do the members choose which groups they prefer? Can we vote on it?

That’s the 800lb gorilla of my questions, you have not provided an answer.

Who verifies inclusion in the groups?

>I'm making assumptions based on the group photo and bios of the Board on ARIN's site. John used to work for a large ISP, but that was a long time ago, and he is not elected.

Sorry, Lee, making assumptions based on photos is not verifying inclusion. Is Caitlyn Jenner eligible for the woman’s seat? How long must a candidate live in the Caribbean before that is his homeland? How do we verify if somebody is poor, or is black, or is physically challenged? Whose job is this verification, when does it occur, and to whom can decisions be appealed, under what processes? 

Sorry but you did not answer a single one of my questions. Not a one.

And thinking it could be done by any group of people in any short time is unrealistic.

I hope the board has the foresight to look at the myriad of issues which will be inevitably raised by embarking on a road that diverges widely from the path of the responsible stewardship of number resources, and instead chooses to engage in social engineering, tilting at windmills unrelated to registering number resources, and sowing division in the community.

Who among us can decide whether it’s more important that we have a representative from a large ISP or a representative with a vagina? Shouldn’t that be something left to each individual member to decide?  Any further steps in this direction removes that ability from the voter and lodges it where? With whom? With the Board which we are assuming is hampered in its own decision-making due to the whiteness, maleness, or Canadian-ness of its members?

Regards,

Mike

From: Lee Howard [mailto:spiffnolee at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2017 11:53 AM
To: Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com>; 'William Herrin' <bill at herrin.us>; 'John Springer' <3johnl at gmail.com>
Cc: arin-consult at arin.net
Subject: Re: [ARIN-consult] Reminder: Consultation on Increasing the size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

  _____  

From: Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com <mailto:mike at iptrading.com> >
To: 'William Herrin' <bill at herrin.us <mailto:bill at herrin.us> >; 'John Springer' <3johnl at gmail.com <mailto:3johnl at gmail.com> > 
Cc: arin-consult at arin.net <mailto:arin-consult at arin.net> 
Sent: Friday, June 9, 2017 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ARIN-consult] Reminder: Consultation on Increasing the size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

> ARIN is about number registration, not about defining groups of members and making them “more equal” than other members.

Board of Trustees <https://www.arin.net/about_us/bot.html> 

Board of Trustees

ARIN Board of Trustees

Well, middle-aged white men certainly seem to be well-represented on the Board. Disproportionately, given the demographics of meeting attendees; the AC is more demographically representative.

Large ISPs, content providers, and CDNs are completely unrepresented.

Rural and Caribbean ISPs are unrepresented.

Address market participants are, as far as I can tell, unrepresented.

So, "middle-aged white men who can afford to spend several hours a week and a couple weeks a year not doing a day job" seems to be the primary representation. I would venture to say that that group is not "more equal" than others.

> If the community feels that the viewpoint of a certain gender or homeland or skill set is valuable, it is free to choose 

> whomever it wants to meet that need.

> I don’t know what could be “assured” to be “fairer” than that.

It's called "the tyranny of the majority."

Even weirder than that, although I couldn't find a breakdown of members by country, I wonder whether Canada is disproportionately represented: 3 of 6 elected Board Members are Canadian. 

If Americans distribute their votes among candidates but Canadians tend to vote for their clan, you get disproportionate representation. Whereas Caribbean members have a hard time finding someone to nominate (who can spare time from a day job), and may not have enough members that voting en bloc seats a Board member.

> Who chooses what groups are preferred?

The members. Right now they prefer "rich white guys."

I apologize to any Board members who do not identify as "rich," but you *do* have the flexibility to spend time on ARIN rather than on your day job, and you are all senior executives.

I also recognize Merike, who is a Board member, and whose presence does not invalidate my point about voting patterns.

> How are those groups defined?

By the set of people nominated and forwarded by the NomCom. 

> Who verifies inclusion in the groups?

I'm making assumptions based on the group photo and bios of the Board on ARIN's site. John used to work for a large ISP, but that was a long time ago, and he is not elected.

> What prevents the proliferation of defined groups?

I pointed out potential voting patterns above.

> Any single one of those questions can only be answered with hours and hours of fraught debate and rulemaking. 

> How can the Board make this decision without beforehand clearly answering the questions above?

Funny, I did it in ten minutes of writing an email.

> Considering that the issues presented to the Board relate *only to the registration of numbers*, and that no 

> evidence has been forthcoming that indicates the Board’s decisions have suffered from lack of diversity, what 

> is the scope of the problem that would justify up-ending the principles of multi-stakeholderism?

Leaving aside the rest of the political issues associated with "Internet governance" (and we shouldn't leave them aside), we have a Board that makes decisions about the AC's consensus judgments, fees, contracts, strategy, and budgets, based at best on information provided by the staff and the community, and not from personal knowledge. An advocate of an position is a better advocate if they have experience with the issue, and weaker if they only have second-hand knowledge.

So far in this consultation, I have not actually expressed a position to the Board, but writing this convinced me I should:

I believe the Board does need greater diversity. Reserved seats (AfriNIC-style) might accomplish that. Annual diversity training for the NomCom might help. I don't have other suggestions, but I'm glad the Board is thinking about this.

Lee

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