[arin-discuss] [arin-ppml] Advisory Council Position Petitions?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

John Curran wrote:
> On Sep 23, 2009, at 1:51 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> ...
>> ARIN is in a unique position here compared to your
>> run-of-the-mill Internet organization, because
>> dissatisfied individuals simply cannot run away; ARIN is the
>> only org that does what it does.  ARIN therefore lacks the
>> self-selecting safety valve that another org
>> does which uses an opaque selection process.  People cannot
>> "vote with their feet" with ARIN. ...
> 
> Ted - As presently envisioned in the Bylaws, the safety value is the  
> petition process.  This replaced the process in the original Bylaws  
> whereby the Board and AC replacements were simply appointed by the  
> Board.
> 
>> ..
>> I would recommend that it's imperative that the NomCom
>> produce an objective summary of what they feel constitutes a qualified
>> candidate.  It is also important to keep in mind that these are
>> only candidates - the NomCom needs to trust that the membership
>> doing the voting has the wisdom to select the most qualified
>> candidates during the election.
> 
> I have received suggestions that the NomCom should simply express a  
> public opinion of support/no support for each candidate, but move all  
> nominees to the ballot for sake of transparency.  This would still  
> allow the membership to have the final judgement, but allow some  
> deliberation of stated qualifications by a NomCom with a cross-section  
> of views on the organization's needs.  Would this provide a reasonable  
> balance between these needs?
> 

My preference would be that the NomCom either justify why they didn't
place someone on the ballot, or provide a criteria set and reject
candidates that didn't reasonably meet the criteria set.

I wouldn't favor removing veto power of the NomCom over a candidate.
Even in the United States political system, the various secretary of
states of different states have the authority to deny a prospective
candidate.  Typical criteria used is if the candidate isn't a citizen of
the country, doesn't have a residence in the area they are trying to
represent, etc.

The problem isn't in disqualifying a would-be candidate, the problem is
doing so using opaque criteria since there's no way for the NomCom to 
defend opaque criteria against charges of favoritism.

Ted