[ppml] Understanding the ARIN lawsuit

[Edward Lewis]

At 20:16 +0100 3/19/07, Randy Bush wrote:
>Daniel Corbe wrote:
>>  What exactly brought the lawsuit on to begin with?  What did ARIN
>>  deny Kreman from doing that Kreman thought it appropriate to take
>>  legal action?
>
>and what requirements does folk's not keeping up with old news place on
>arin policy?

The reason I am responding to this openly is because I think there is 
a requirement placed upon the policy process because folks don't 
always have the capability of knowing the history of what happens at 
ARIN.

My first response to this was in the vein of - someone who is new to 
the process is asking for some orientation to "what's going on?" 
After seeing a detailed message on the topic, it's perfectly alright 
to seek further background instead of leaping to conclusions.

If there were an "all things ARIN wiki" page, seeking detailed 
information would be a breeze.  During my efforts to just say "the 
best information on this topic is from the ARIN legal council" I 
found that it was quite hard to find the information on this on the 
web site.

For instance - without some assistance off-list, I would have never 
thought to look until the "Media" link for a press release. I looked 
for "Press Release" or "Announcements" which were either absent or 
led nowhere.

Second I tried the ARIN web site search for "press release" "lawsuit" 
and "law suit" and got no document hits.  Cutting further to the 
chase, it wasn't until I asked a few folks in person (at the IETF) 
and got the answer from Member Services that I found the links to the 
data I wanted to supply as the answer to the above question.

This is one case - but - the requirement is that for ARIN to maintain 
a knowledgeable audience of policy input providers (the folks on 
PPML) there has to be a way for newcomers to be able to ramp up 
quickly.  Yes, part of ramping up that is question asking is a burden 
on those of us who already know but that's life.  If we don't like 
it, we have to put more emphasis on having a document store or 
library or web site that has information at the ready.

I want to emphasize that the data I wanted was on the web site, there 
was no hiding of it.  The problem was mine - I couldn't locate it 
efficiently (meaning, in my "spare" time that I dedicate to 
performing my duties as a designated member representative).  I 
figure if I, someone with a history of working for and with ARIN has 
a hard time, either I'm dim-witted or the data isn't all that 
obvious.  Sarcasm aside, I leave it to the reader to decide what the 
cause may be - but at least you know what my motivation is for saying:

The public policy process requires a means for any person to find the 
data they need to make a judgement on any policy proposal in an 
efficient manner to the extent that is reasonable.

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Sarcasm doesn't scale.