[ppml] composition of and representation on the BoT

[william(at)elan.net]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, John Brown CT wrote:

> You mean like an "Annual Report" ala what RIPE has done in the past ??
> I think this would be a GREAT THING!!!

I'm not familiar with what RIPE does but "Annual Report" sounds just
about right for what I was talking about. And if its publication is
done at about the time of election it should cause more ARIN members
to get involved.

> Getting people to participate is difficult.  There has to be "value" for 
> them to participate.  THis is either prevention of a bad thing ,or 
> promotion of a good thing, either have value.

Not everything is about immediatly value, there is such as thing as
civil duty and many people who vote in elections do it because they
believe its the basis of democracy and not necessarily because they
have extremely strong view one way or the other. 
 
> I think the first thing ARIN should do is to actively have a survey of 
> the membership.  Not some web form thingy, but hire a company that will 
> call each and every member and ask them a series of short and specific 
> questions. THen report those results to the membership and to the public.

Its somewhat difficult to word the survey appropriatly, short and specific 
questions (especially multiple-choice and yes/no) do produce results but 
they may not allow to ask questions that will help to understand what 
needs to be done for membership to be more involved in ARIN activities 
and if you ask direct question like "What arin need to do to get more 
participation of membership in the election process and in other ARIN 
activities?" then the answers will vary greatly from one person to the 
other and it would be difficult to summarize them. Nevertheless doing 
survey is good idea and at the very least is better then not doing it
and making a guess on what membership wants based on few people who
are active on this list.

-- 
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william at elan.net