[ppml] Policy Proposal 2006-7 - Staff Assessment

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> Thinking twice on this, I believe that 3 out of 4 of the 
> staff comments are
> referring to issues with the existing policy (not the new 
> proposed text).

However, regardless of the policy proposal being discussed, staff issues
in the existing policy are still VERY welcome. All too often, the
writers of a policy proposal focus on a narrow section of the existing
policy when proposing changes. They fail to check their proposal against
the entire set of existing policies and therefore, over time, we have
more and more awkward areas in the existing policies. The rewrite that
resulted in the NPRM with numbered paragraphs, did not attempt to
rationalize all known issues since they were trying to *NOT* change the
meaning of the existing policies. That means we still have all sorts of
oddities that could be fixed up in a new policy proposal if we take the
time to check them against the entire set.

If staff comments can help us reach this goal, then we should encourage
them.

Basically, I think that any issue with existing policy is also an issue
with the new proposed text because the new proposed text failed to
identify and fix the issues with existing policy.

--Michael Dillon