[arin-discuss] [arin-ppml] Term Limit Proposal

[Scott Leibrand]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 3:12 AM, Chris Grundemann <cgrundemann at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:05 AM, Scott Leibrand <scottleibrand at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> IMO the problem (for the AC, not the BoT) is that all turnover comes from
>> resignations and people deciding not to run again.  It's very rare that an
>> incumbent fails to get re-elected.  Given what I've observed as an AC
>> member of the large diversity in contribution levels from my colleagues on
>> the AC,
>>
>
> That is an observation, perhaps even a situation, but not by itself a
> problem. From my perspective it simply indicates that the community does a
> great job selecting winning candidates initially, those candidates go on to
> be solid AC members, and therefor continue to win elections...
>

That is a valid interpretation, but my perspective is slightly different.
 I would say it indicates that the community *likes* the people it elects
to the AC.  I think that personal popularity has a disproportionate impact
in re-electing AC members.  It would be better if more information were
readily available to the membership, so they could base their choices on
things like accomplishments and voting records.


> both new and old, that's evidence to me that the membership is re-electing
>> members who are less effective, and we're therefore not getting the benefit
>> of
>>
>
> How is it evidence that the membership is re-electing members who are less
> effective? Are you saying that YOU are less effective now then in your
> first two terms? If not you, than who?
>

Yes, I actually am saying that.  I still believe I am highly effective, but
I found myself "coasting" a bit over the fall/winter, and putting in a lot
less effort than I had in my first few years.  I believe I have mostly
corrected that now, but I definitely see the tendency to start coasting
after a certain amount of time, both in myself and other AC members.


>
>
>> new ideas and approaches, and the higher willingness to take on difficult
>> work, that new AC members tend to provide.
>>
>> Reviewing the results of all the elections since 2007, when I was
>> elected, I see:
>>
>>     Year Re-elected Newly Elected Newly appointed NOT Re-elected Notes
>> 2013 4 1 1   2012 4 1 1   2011 4 1 1 3-year incumbent not re-elected
>> 2010 3 2 1 1-year appointed incumbent not re-elected  2009 3 2 1   2008 2
>> 3   2007 3 2
>> As you can see, there has only been a single full-term incumbent who was
>> not re-elected, and that was in a year when there were 5 incumbents on the
>> ballot.
>>
>
> I see that at least one new person joins the AC EVERY YEAR. Out of five
> open positions a minimum 20% turnover is actually pretty fantastic.
>

Closer to 13% on average (2 AC members out of 15) each year (with a range
of 7-20%), almost all from attrition.  If we had even 3% of full-term
incumbents getting replaced by challengers (1 every 2 years), I would be
quite happy.  But it's actually less than 1%.  IMO that's too low.


>> I think term limits (1 year off after 2 terms) would help get more new
>> people, with new ideas, approaches, and energy, onto the AC, without unduly
>> sacrificing experience and continuity.
>>
>> Of course, there may be other better ways to accomplish the same thing,
>> so I'd love to hear other ideas for how we can get more fresh faces onto
>> the AC.  Maybe we could tweak the election process somehow?  One idea I
>> just had would be to allow advisory input (some sort of straw poll) from
>> PPML participants that is published for the ARIN membership to review when
>> casting their votes?
>>
>
> As others have asked, and you have failed to answer - what is the
> _problem_ we are trying to solve here? Capable AC members being re-elected
> is NOT a problem.
>

Here are some of the problems I see with the AC.  I think term limits would
help with all of them, though it wouldn't be a panacea, and it may be
possible to come up with better solutions to each one of them:

IMO the AC tends to be a little bit slow to incorporate new ideas and
approaches.  More new faces would help with that.  We also tend a little
bit toward becoming a social and travel club.  I don't think that is a
serious problem, yet, but I definitely worry about how many of us stay on
the AC because we like our colleagues and because we like to travel, rather
than because we like to talk about, write, and improve ARIN policy.  I
definitely see that most new AC members are more inclined to spend our time
together talking about policy than most AC members with longer tenures.

Maybe another solution would be to reconsider whether we really need a
15-member AC in the first place.  In all of the other RIRs, they simply
have a policy working group chair and co-chair, and then interested members
of the community do all of the heavy lifting on policy, and on getting a
consensus in the community.  An alternative to think about (and maybe
discuss in Chicago) might be to have proposal authors and wg chairs select
one or more shepherds for each policy proposal, and assign the shepherd the
role of working with the author and community to try to actively forge a
consensus?   I'm not sure if that's a good solution or not, but it's food
for thought, anyway...

-Scott
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