[arin-ppml] Draft Policy 2009-1: Transfer Policy (Using theEmergency PDP)

[Leo Bicknell]

While I value your opinion, the Board has provided no official
evidence that it matches their thinking.  That in and of itself is
a huge problem.  When the Board uses their emergency powers to pass a
policy the community should not have to speculate as to why it happened.

In a message written on Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 03:52:40PM -0400, Alexander, Daniel wrote:
> It appears that the BoT has reservations about the language of 2008-6,
> and rather than waiting another couple years for us to hash this out on
> the mailing list, created 2009-1 to provide a proposal that would
> clarify their concerns. In the interest of expediency, they would like
> to use their emergency powers to offer 2009-1 as an alternative, and are
> looking for feedback.

I'm going to speak here specifically as an AC member, but of course
only for myself and not as the entire AC.

The AC goes around begging for people to provide input on policy
decisions.  We do from time to time get input from the Board, either
in the form of briefings during our meetings or in the form of policies
being returned to us by the Board.

Nowhere in the passage of 2008-6 did I get any input from any Board
members that the sunset provision would sink this policy.  That concern
could have been raised at the last face to face meeting, privately to
the AC in any of our monthly meetings since then, or by returning the
policy to the AC.  It makes no sense for the Board to wait until the
11th hour and turn the policy back with something that should have been
out in the open from the start if it was such a major problem.

Also, if the problem is as you describe, and it wouldn't occur for
"another couple years" then why do we have an emergency policy on
the docket?  This should have been returned to the AC, and/or the
Board should have submitted a normal policy proposal.

> The one item that was removed was the sunset clause. This always seemed
> redundant to me anyways, since all policies are only valid until changed
> by a subsequent policy. Every policy really has a sunset clause
> implicitly built into them. 
> 
> It would be helpful if people could reply and point out how the text of
> 2009-1 would fundamentally change the current policy and what was
> accepted in 2008-6.

This policy was sold as a backstop.  The Board had repeatedly told
the AC they did not want to use their emergency powers if at all
possible and would prefer a policy to be passed via the policy
process.  The marketing on this policy was that it was the community
providing approval to the board /if nothing else happened/ between
now and exhaustion and that it had a sunset clause to continue to
motivate work on additional policies.

The message was quite clear to me in the last meeting, the community
wanted to continue work hammering out a better policy, but if for some
reason we couldn't wanted to provide the authorization for a last ditch
effort.

What the board has done here though is to turn "last ditch effort"
into "right now" with 2009-1.  Note it has no implementation
time frame, but since the Board saw fit to use their emergency powers
and it couldn't even wait for the meeting next month I can only
assume the Board hopes to have this up and running prior to the
meeting.  Further, by removing the sunset they have removed a
significant further motivator to continue discussing this policy.

As to the effect, I can point to 2009-4.  Based on the community
input at the last meeting I and others continued to work on
alternatives trying to provide options and to keep the discussion
going on the best way to do this.  If the Board unilaterally decides
to implement a transfer policy of its liking prior to the meeting
then what is the motivation to discuss an alternative?

Even if you wanted to argue there is still room to pass some
alternative, because we board has not disclosed why it took the
action it did one has to wonder if they would even accept it.  The Board
had the opportunity here to craft what they felt was the "right" policy,
and it included no elements of other things on the table.  Without
knowing the justification it is impossible to know if it would be
possible to change their minds.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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