[arin-discuss] voting

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 12:07:57PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Other controversial issues are fees charged to address holders (or the
> lack thereof) the privacy vs societies need to know on whois records,
> what constitutes utilization, etc. etc.  In most instances ARIN simply
> punts on these issues back to the membership.  Well the membership is
> arguing amongst themselves over these issues, and nobody is even putting
> up some signs as to what the arguments are - so people waste endless time
> redefining things, and nobody gets anywhere.

While I like the idea of finding out more about the candidates this
paragraph gives me cause for concern.

To pick a concern from your paragraph of examples: whois privacy.
In the current ARIN structure that is a policy decision.  What is
and is not in whois is specified in the Number Resource Policy
Manual (NRPM), which is changed via the Internet Resources Policy
Evaluation Process (IRPEP).

The Articles of Incorporation
(http://www.arin.net/about_us/corp_docs/artic_incorp.html) of ARIN
provide a foundation for the IRPEP, Seventh Paragraph, Point 3:

  to secure united action and to represent the Internet community
  nationally and internationally;

"to secure united action", which further shows up in the "principal"
section of the IRPEP (and other places)
(http://www.arin.net/policy/irpep.html):

                              Policies are ratified by the ARIN Board
  of Trustees only after a full public discussion is held, review and
  recommendation by the ARIN Advisory Council is made, and there is
  evidence that a consensus for the policy has been reached among the
  community, in accordance with the process described in this document.

Now, as an example.  Let's assume there were six Board candidates
who were all for changing the whois policy in the same way (actual
direction unimportant).  Let's further assume they were all voted
into office, perhaps because of their whois views, perhaps for
totally unrelated reasons.  Under both the IRPEP and the articles
of incorporation those six board members would be unable to make a
change to the policy unless there was evidence it was "united
action".  If the membership is 90% against, but all 6 board members
are for the action that is not good enough to act (in my view).

That's not to say I think the Board or AC members views are
unimportant.  By virtue of their position their options may carry
weight.  They may be able to help "fast track" or "slow down"
proposals through action or inaction.

By contrast, the Board has a direct role in setting fees.  Knowing
a candidate's position on fees seems completely on point.

After going down that long path, we can get to my real concern.  I
would feel bad if people voted for a candidate due to their views
on a policy topic only to find the candidate unable to do anything
about those views due to the policy process and a lack of community
support.  I would also be worried if a candidate was elected to the
AC or Board because of their views chose to bend the rules on "united
action" in an attempt to satisfy those who voted for them.  Because
of this I think debates need to be approached very carefully; in
particularly for the AC (who's only purview is policy, in general)
but also for the Board.

Of course, if you don't like the restrictions of the Articles of
Incorporation or the IRPEP, there are ways to change both of those
as well.  It would not be impossible to change to a more representative
democracy sort of model for policy if that's what the membership
really wanted.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/