[arin-ppml] Suggestions for PDP improvement

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 3:42 PM, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> p.s.  Also, we have just had a consultation on the proposed update
>      to the Policy Development Process, and while it has closed, I
>      will take directly any suggestions for changes to that process
>      that folks feel are necessary for improvement.

John,

Ditch it and start over using the IRPEP as the base model. The PDP was
a bad idea from the start.

The whole point of separating number policy development from the board
was to create adequate checks and balances: an ISP member elected
board (ISPs having such a huge financial stake in the results) gets
the final say over policy adoption, but only after policy bubbles up
from the wider community (everybody using addresses who cares to
speak) and gains that community's consensus.

Charging a second member-elected body not with shepherding policy
ideas through the process but instead actively developing it created a
CONFLICT OF INTEREST which has WRECKED THE CHECKS AND BALANCES. This
past couple weeks' sorry mess is just the latest example.

I don't care how good you are. How honorable. How pure. Conflicts of
interest erode and eventually destroy your good judgment. I've watched
up close and personal as it happened to individuals far nobler than
any current member of the AC. The only working solution is to break
one of the links in the loop which forms the conflict of interest.

AC members can't "not be" ISP industry experts. And we wouldn't want
them to if they could. The alternative is what we found in the IRPEP:
they don't write ARIN policy as a group. Instead, they help
individuals (including themselves) write and bring forward those
individual's policy proposals.

The IRPEP had its problems, but they were at the edge of the process.
The PDP is rotten at the core.

So dust off the IRPEP and find the minimalist changes which mitigate
its few problems. And let the PDP become a bad memory.

Regards,
Bill Herrin




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William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
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