[ppml] Proposed Change to AC Initial Review Period

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> Michael, do you think this would constrain authors of policy proposals 
to
> timeframes that are less convenient for them?

Yes it would. But that is a good thing. Too often we
see proposals which are convenient for the authors,
i.e. knee jerk reactions to some perceived need. This
tends to create poorly thought out proposals and also
leads to disorganized discussions on PPML that end up
somewhere in left field rather than focussing on 
a real solution to a real issue.

I believe that the AC review step was put in place
to improve the quality of proposals under discussion.

Now, obviously, having a fixed publication date twice
a year for new proposals doesn't prevent authors from
dashing off a proposal on a moments notice. But it does
provide some time for them to reflect and withdraw the
proposal for further editing before PPML ends up losing
the plot in its discussions. It also allows the ARIN
policy editor to have some two-way discussions with the
author without time pressure in order to address things
like fitting the new policy into the NPRM, making sure
that all the implications of the change are covered in
the proposal, etc.

--Michael Dillon