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

[Owen DeLong]

On May 8, 2008, at 12:42 AM, <michael.dillon at bt.com> wrote:

>
>> 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.
>
I think you need to re-examine the current IRPEP.  There's very
little modification to the initial part other than adding interaction
with ARIN staff and an earlier legal review to assist the author
in crafting a policy which can actually be implemented and really
meets the author's intent.

The proposed PDP does not prevent people from writing and
submitting proposals just as they do today.  The current IRPEP
does not guarantee that proposals move through the process.

See the IRPEP under the heading "Initial Review" and you
will notice that at that early point, the AC does have the option
of abandoning policies.  There is a petition process in this case.
The proposed PDP provides pretty much the same options.


> 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.
>
Yes.. The ability to edit, combine, etc. is the major change in
the new proposal.

The ability to abandon a proposal is not new.  The ability to
discuss potential proposals informally on PPML does not go
away with the new process.

The petition process details still need to be defined, but, assuming
a similarly low threshold for petition success in the new proposed
process, I don't see a significant difference in the bottom-up
nature.

Owen