[arin-ppml] Staff proposing policy.

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:22 AM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell at ufp.org> wrote:
> Since ARIN's inception Staff has been prevented from making any
> policy proposals.  The problem with this is that Staff often sees
> aspects of the policy that the community will never see.
>
> To me the answer is simple.  ARIN Staff should be able to propose
> policy.

Hi Leo,

You've identified a real problem, but bear in mind that staff is
prevented from proposing policy for good reason: such participation
would inevitably drive the policymaking process further from the hands
of the public they serve. The eventual destination is an FCC-like
process in which the Regulator privately engages the monolithic
Stakeholders, drafts intricate policies and, briefly towards the tail
end of the process, solicits public comment.

Let me suggest a more nuanced solution with a potentially smaller downside:

Wargames.

Ask staff to periodically create a corner-case resource request, game
it through the registration process and then publish a report on what
happened to the PPML. Was the request for 80 /8's approved? Was the
request for a critical multihomed /24 rejected? How was the decision
reached and what were the key factors? There are no confidentiality
issues since the data and registrant are fictional from start to
finish. And with well selected scenarios, the results could provide
great insight into where the policies could stand improvement.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



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