[ARIN-consult] Consultation on Expanding the Size of the ARIN Board of Trustees

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 3:35 PM, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> Specifically, the question is simply how small of a Board does the ARIN
> community feel comfortable when it comes to setting strategic direction
> in sensitive matters that are too early to engage with the full community.

John, that's mission creep. The community doesn't want ARIN or its
board to set a strategic direction for the Internet or any part of it.
That's not the proper role of a *registry*. A registry records and
reports. They don't "direct."


> Review of our past remarkable successes is what drives my concern
> that it is possible for a competent and diverse Board of six well-qualified
> members to nonetheless lack similar deep understanding of key portions
> of the Internet ecosystem, simply because the Internet of today has
> many more layers involved in service delivery and six skilled Board
> members can only span so much industry knowledge.

Respectfully, if ARIN's board lacks any breadth it is most likely
because the membership who elected them reflect a similar breadth.
That's a problem with the selection process for the board, not its
size. As we also discussed last year.


> Moving to a slightly larger Board reduces the possibility of gaps in
> the Board’s overall understanding of the Internet ecosystem

I've heard no credible reason to suppose that adding more board
members with the same selection criteria would have a positive impact
on this goal. Didn't hear it last year. Not hearing it this year.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>