[arin-ppml] "whole community" (PPM versus PPML)

[Owen DeLong]

On Nov 8, 2011, at 1:17 PM, Benson Schliesser wrote:

> 
> On Nov 8, 2011, at 2:46 PM, William Herrin wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Benson Schliesser <bensons at queuefull.net> wrote:
>>> I can't speak for Bill.  But from my perspective, neither
>>> of these categories (PPML members and/or PPM
>>> attendees) represent the "whole community".
>> ...
>> I think there's a case to be made that between attendance at a
>> semi-annual meeting and participation on a public discussion list,
>> anyone who cares to make his or her voice heard on matters of ARIN
>> number policy has ample means to do so. We aren't the whole community,
>> but we're all of it who choose to speak up and be heard.
> 
> That's a fair statement.  (Except, I note: there are people who "care" and still don't invest the energy needed to make themselves "heard". This is true for various reasons, that I won't bother to expand at this time because they distract from the main point.)
> 

If they choose not to participate given the very low bar required for participation (join
a free mailing list and post something to it), I would say that they don't appear to actually
care very much.

> But my intended meaning is that the AC is not representative of the "whole community". ARIN does a good job at allowing the community to provide input, agreed. But of that community, only a subset are members. And of those members, an even smaller self-selected subset bother to vote. When the AC makes decisions, those decisions represent the self-interest, bias, and ideology of a small part of the whole community. (Not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily to the same extent for all AC members.)
> 

While I agree with the first part of your statement, I do not think your characterization of
our voting tendencies fits your statement. For example, the self-interest, bias, and
ideology of the portion of the community you claim our decisions represent would
never have opted for a 3-month allocation/assignment window, would not have put
IPv6 end-user assignments into the policy, certainly would not have supported the
new more liberal IPv6 end-user assignment policy, etc.

I would like to see the AC elected by more of the community and I've encouraged
the board to look for ways to do so on several occasions.

> For what it's worth, I don't know how to improve the situation - if I did, I'd make a recommendation to ARIN.  But in the meantime I think ARIN should be honest with itself; it's inappropriate to claim a "whole community" mandate for the AC.
> 

I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but, while I recognize I am elected
by the members, frankly, I consider that it is my duty to represent the entire
community and not merely the electorate in discharging my duties as a
member of the AC.

I believe that the public record shows that I have done so consistently.

Owen