[ARIN-consult] Reminder - Consultation on ARIN’s Membership Structure

Sat Nov 6 11:13:42 EDT 2021

We should be discussing the deeper changes to the NomCom that you yourself referred to Scott, when faced with the clear inadequacy of the NomCom's "explanations".

This petition number should be zero, because there are no good reasons why qualified candidates should have to clear that hurdle of a pre-election before the real election.

Two pre-elections, really, the dark one we presume occurs in the NomCom, and the petition process itself.

I have yet to hear a single convincing argument for retaining the NomCom's ability to exclude qualified candidates.

Two that I have heard is the danger of too many candidates, and qualified but otherwise undesirable (by inside information possessed by the NomCom) candidates getting slated.

Neither of these is a good reason for undercutting the very nature of democratic systems by imposing a dark group's exclusionary decision on the voting population, subject to increasingly onerous petition requirements for outsiders.

One more time I will point to RIPE as a valid comparison, where self-nomination with the support of 5 members is deemed a sufficient threshold to allow the voters to consider the candidate and make their own choices.  We're the one having public and embarrassing problems, while RIPE has dealt with self-nominating troublemakers successfully (IMO) within their system.

In the context of current events, this change to the petition process which actually make it harder to petition, is completely tone-deaf and I object to this change.  We heard multiple comments at the open mic and on the ppml related to providing checks or outright removing the NomCom, yet here we are considering terminology that strengthens this star-chamber at the expense of rejected candidates like me.

If at all possible, I would pause this consultation until the Board has a chance to consider changes to the NomCom that could impact these revisions significantly, and either makes those changes (or not) prior to making a decision on this language regarding minimum thresholds for petitions.

Regards,

Mike

---- On Sat, 06 Nov 2021 01:48:42 -0400 Scott Leibrand <scottleibrand at gmail.com> wrote ----

I still believe that the proposed changes are slightly better than doing nothing and allowing the petition threshold to increase to >200 (from a larger pool of GMIGS) (and considerably better than the current state, where only ISPs vote).

But we could accomplish similar goals more simply, for example by just redefining the petition threshold to be 2% of GMIGS with a valid Voting Contact, as of the opening of the Call for Nominations.

More detailed response inline below.

On Fri, Nov 5, 2021 at 9:49 PM Owen DeLong <mailto:owen at delong.com> wrote:

By forcing everyone from the old fees to the “Registration Services Plan”, they get membership automatically just like anyone else on an RSP.

Ok, yes: after a more careful reading, I agree that the 2022 fee structure and the current membership guidelines would interact to produce a situation where ARIN approximately doubles its current membership. And I agree we should be comparing the proposed changes both to the "do nothing" alternative as well as to the current state. 

Without these (or some other) changes, the "do nothing" alternative would result in the petition threshold being raised from the current 124 ("two-percent of eligible General Members in Good Standing") to about 250 (with a corresponding increase in the number of organizations eligible to sign such petitions).

This proposal under consultation would prune inactive members (who haven't voted 3 years in a row) from the voter rolls, and require them to re-register to be able to vote again. In doing so, it would reduce the count of eligible-to-vote organizations (General Members in Good Standing) considerably, most likely well below 6200, thereby reducing the petition threshold (while selectively decreasing the organizations eligible to sign petitions by removing those least likely to be paying attention and interested in doing so) below the current level, and likely down to the minimum of 100. That would have the net effect of making petitions slightly easier than they are now.

As noted above, I still believe that the proposed changes are slightly better than doing nothing and allowing the petition threshold to increase to >200 (from a larger pool of GMIGS).

Another less restrictive alternative would be to continue to allow individual organizations to decide for themselves whether to receive election information and be eligible to participate in elections via the current mechanism: "designating a Voting Contact and keeping that information up-to-date is a crucial responsibility of each ARIN Member. Without updated Voting Contact information, a member organization loses the ability to vote in annual ARIN Elections" (https://www.arin.net/participate/oversight/membership/). If that remains in place, we could redefine the petition threshold to be 2% of GMIGS with a valid Voting Contact, as of the opening of the Call for Nominations. Alternatively, if we want to start from the construct of Service Members vs. General Members, we could accomplish largely the same thing by removing the 1-year waiting period before Service Members can apply to become General Members. 

If the goal is to prevent "poorly informed single-issue voters dropping by for an outrage election and overwhelming the votes of the folks who've stayed well informed and participated over time" (as Bill Herrin put it), perhaps we could accomplish that simply by having the voter registration deadline (to apply to be a General Member, or to provide a Voting Contact, respectively) be something like the date of the opening of the Call for Nominations.

-Scott

On Nov 5, 2021, at 7:29 PM, Scott Leibrand <mailto:scottleibrand at gmail.com> wrote:

Can you point me to the language that makes end users into general members under the new fee schedule?

Scott

On Nov 5, 2021, at 7:10 PM, Owen DeLong <mailto:owen at delong.com> wrote:

On Nov 5, 2021, at 16:32, Scott Leibrand <mailto:scottleibrand at gmail.com> wrote:

I am generally in support of these changes, because they would allow people like me, as an employee of an End User organization, to participate and vote in ARIN elections.

No, the fee structure change brings that about. 

These changes are strictly aimed at providing a mechanism to disenfranchise those who don’t vote in 3 consecutive elections. 

Owen

Minor nit: The redline changes introduced a couple of typos in both places where it's supposed to say "participate in members-only discussions".

In the unlikely-for-now event that general membership declines below current levels, the 100-member petition threshold could represent a majority of (or in the pathological case, exceed) the number of general members. You could eliminate that corner case by putting an upper bound on the petition threshold, such as 20%, so it reads something like: "The number of signatures required for petition nominations shall be at least two percent (2%) of, but no less than the greater of one hundred (100) or 20% of, eligible General Members as of the established opening date of the nomination period."

In Section 5. Unfulfilled Positions and Partial Terms, it might be worth specifying whether the next-highest vote-getter assuming the unfilled position serves for the entire term or just the first year (as with appointed vacancies).

-Scott

On Fri, Nov 5, 2021 at 3:33 PM John Curran <mailto:jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

Alan - 

 Pretty much correct - if you are a general member and did not vote in any of the past three elections, you will become a service member for the coming year.   We intend to conduct that review annually after each election starting after the ARIN 2023 election. 

 FYI,
 /John

 John Curran
 President and CEO
 American Registry for Internet Numbers

 > On 5 Nov 2021, at 11:59 AM, Alan Batie <mailto:alan at peak.org> wrote:
 > 
 > On 11/5/21 9:48 AM, ARIN wrote:
 >> Due to the level of interest in the topic, we have extended the Consultation on ARIN’s Membership Structure for an additional two weeks. It will now close on 29 November. The purpose of this consultation is to provide our customers ARIN’s plan for membership going forward and to seek feedback on planned changes to ARIN’s membership structure for 2022.
 >> 
 >> The full text of the consultation is available at:
 >> 
 >> https://www.arin.net/participate/community/acsp/consultations/2021/2021-5/
 > 
 > If I read this right, it basically says "if you don't vote, we're not
 > going to let you vote" (which seems to be the only difference between
 > Service and General members)?
 > 
 > 
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