[arin-ppml] REMINDER: Proposed PDP Community Review Request

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> Right now, the policy development process starts with an 
> idea, a complaint, a hypothetical that comes as often as not 
> from someone who has little or no experience with ARIN. The 
> notion finds its way to PPML in one form or another where it 
> gets informally bounced back and forth and eventually 
> coalesces into a proposal.
> 
> This is a very healthy, very bottom-up process. It 
> contributes heavily to ARIN's relative reputation for 
> trustworthiness (as opposed to say, ICANN), even though ARIN 
> is placed in the unfortunate position of blocking and 
> rejecting IP address requests from organizations too small to 
> play (which is almost everybody).
> 
> This proposed change cuts or at best ignores that vital first 
> step in the policy development process. The proposed process 
> -starts- with the formal proposal.

I tend to agree with this critique. In general, the new PDP is
OK, but I think it is unfair at the very beginning. It should
still be possible for people to write and submit proposals
just as they do today. However, unlike today, these proposals
are not guaranteed to progress through the PDP. They can be
discussed on the PPML and by the AC, and eventually, the AC
may decide to create a formal proposal based on the submitted
proposal(s) and the discussion.

This solves the problem of overlapping proposals because they
don't ever go through the formal process. The AC has the power
to combine all the overlapping proposals and other input to
create a formal proposal. Or they can ignore all of them if
they wish.

--Michael Dillon