[arin-discuss] voting

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: vixie at vix.com [mailto:vixie at vix.com]On Behalf Of Paul Vixie
>Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 2:52 PM
>To: Ted Mittelstaedt
>Cc: arin-discuss at arin.net
>Subject: Re: [arin-discuss] voting
>
>
>> I guess maybe it was proven to me - although perhaps the
>information is too
>> scattered for the general public?  I honestly didn't know that there were
>> still people out there who were seriously entertaining an
>IPv6-less scenario
>> on the Internet.
>
>there were, and there are.  i had breakfast with a guy today who
>works for a
>big router vendor and has been around the internet since early
>days who still
>thinks NAT (which he and i both despise) has won and that IPv6 is
>doomed since
>it has no backwards compatibility to IPv4.  (for the record, we disagreed.)
>

Well, your both right you know.  NAT won a battle - but it's not the
battle he was thinking it won.  Where NAT won is that without it
we wouldn't have the Internet at all today.  NAT allowed the Internet
to get past the tipping point without having to shread everything and
start all over again.

The tipping point was the point at which the Internet stopped being
a toy and started being a necessity.

I remember long enough ago that the argument "we don't need no steenking
Internet" had some validity.  I heard it often enough when working
with our sales people back in the late 90's trying to sell businesses
on Internet connectivity.  If we had had to go back to our customers in
2002 or some such and tell them that this new Internet thing we had
just sold them a couple years earlier was no good anymore and they had
to change everything again, they would have tossed us out along with
all the other ISP's.

Today of course, they are screwed and cannot do this or their competitors
will eat them alive.  Customers now are demanding their vendors have
e-mail and online websites and all that and so in 5 or 6 years from now
when I tell them they have to toss everything and put in IPv6, they
will accept it without question.

NAT basically took the entire IPv4 vs IPv6 argument and moved it
into the purvue of a bunch of techs who don't really have anything
to say about it in any case.  When the last IPv4 assignment is out
the door those techs will be told by their CEO's to implement
IPv6 and shut up about it.

You just watch North America and the conversion to High Def TV next
February.  I have hardly heard a peep from friends of mine along the
lines of "why are we doing this"  Every last one of them has swallowed
the line that they need to do it because Someone Who Knows More Than
They Do has told them to do it, and all of them are running out and
spending their income tax refund on big TV sets.  Maybe one or two
of them has made the observation that there's no better programming
on Hi Def than on the old formats, you would think that might prompt the
question of why are we doing this - but no it hasn't.

Consumers are getting used to the idea in high tech that things
change and your old stuff isn't going to work forever.  Hell, a
1960's rotary dial handset telephone still works perfectly fine
on the telephone network - when was the last time you saw one of
those?  There's a case of a technical upgrade made when one was
not even required.

>
>> ... would it not be of interest for board candidates to state
>their support
>> or not for [IPv6 advancement] in advance of the election?  I
>would think if
>> it's controversal for some people that doing so would increase voting
>> participation.
>
>i guess, when you put it that way, it sounds like a fine idea.  john curran
>has said repeatedly here in recent days that ARIN Denver is where he hopes
>this community will discuss ways to improve the election process.
>since our
>elections are governed by bylaws rather than by the NRPM, the
>policy process
>is not really the right way to change our election process.  i think that a
>well reasoned proposal here (arin-discuss@) ideally to be followed up by an
>in-person proposal during the friday membership meeting, is the
>way to share
>your wisdom about getting candidates to answer some hot-button questions in
>advance of an election.
>

OK, I'll see what I can put together.  However, keep in mind this
is just my opinion on what would increase voting.  I've operated from
the premise that controversy during an election increases turnout.
I haven't seen much posted to this thread.  I don't know if this is
because everyone else kind of agrees with me or if no one else has
any different ideas.  My experience - in following US politics for
the last 27 years, and in reading much about politics in history
of the US - is that people are attracted to elections that are
controversal, they want to vote in them, and as a result the vote
count increases.  Thus, if you want to increase participation - be
more controversal.

Now the key is, though, that the controversy must affect the voters
you want participating.  Candidates arguing over the best color scheme
to use on the arin website likly won't increase participation, bikeshed
theory nonwithstanding.

>
>> ... I would rather favor the style of a moderated debate where
>there would
>> be a question submittal period where folks (including the
>candidates) could
>> submit questions to a moderator in advance, then the moderator
>would combine
>> like questions and add a synthesis of issues off the mailing list, plus
>> issues that the prior Boards had deferred, and create a master
>list of open
>> ended questions.  Each candidate would respond to the moderator
>how they saw
>> fit, the questions and responses would then be posted.
>
>sounds good so far.  will need more flesh.  could the moderator be
>drawn from
>the membership or staff, or should it be an outside consultant?
>

Ideally it should be someone from ARIN staff who I believe is
forbidden to vote in these elections.  Ideally, that person should
be assisted by any outgoing board members NOT running for re-election,
along with board members who are not up for re-election during
that election.  Ideally, the moderators involvement in the entire voting
process should be confined to this task only.

If the process is an open one (ie: the raw
questions are available, the board minutes are available, the
list postings used are available) then it really does not matter
that much who the moderator is.

Ted