[arin-ppml] AC structure (was AC candidates)

[Fernando Frediani]

Hi John

Thanks for your input. It is great to have it and enhance this discussion
further.
I would imagine you would stand for this structure as would imagine you
contributed to create it originally at a previous context.

I get your point about the "litigious nature of the region" and I do
understand how dificult it can be for those in charge of the legal and the
orgamization to have to deal with certain questioning and as such having
this more concentrated power model helps to avoid it in certain ocasions.
But in the other hand it can also create discrepancies and an unbalanced
process weighting too much one part of the stakeholders and little the
others. This can work for good or for bad.

To start with one unbalanced point of AC structure is the fact that AC
members are elected by a vote of ARIN membership which represents
membership only. Membership is already represented by ARIN Board which has
a high level of power in the process able to not ractify proposals and that
should be good enough. Having AC members elected by ARIN membership just
concentrates power almost all in the hands of membership.

Other regions, chairs are elected by community and should they commit any
mistakes or abuses the RIR Board still have the power to not ractify an
approved proposal or in certain cases even to dismiss them.
Having community members in a new structure can be a good start.

In ICP-2 on its second part it talks about bottomp-up development which
means a balance between membership and community, therefore all
stakeholders.
The third part which talks about the bottom-up self governance also
mentions "*These procedures must be open and transparent, be accessible to
all interested parties, and ensure fair representation of all
constituencies within the region*."

That's why I mentioned previously the center of any proposal should be the
author, and not an AC sheperd. AC sheperds should not be in charge of any
text changes as no AC members would be able to accuratelly know what goes
on authors mind and his/her original idea.

Of course AC sheperds can continue to exist and play an important role, to
advise the author about certain formalities, about the process and to bring
his/her input to AC meeting, but never to take part on editing the proposal.

AC function should be centered on making sure the policy developement
process is followed, to advance proposals and mainly to state if there was
consensus or not based on community discussion.

That is an important thing. When determining consensus AC members should
always ensure to focus on what the community discussion output was, never
on their personal prefefences. I undertand that is not always an easy thing
as it may look like, but that's how it should work in my point of view.

And nothing wrong with the appeal process. That has been used in other RIRs
I have seen and worked well.
The fact that it has been used in just few times in ARIN is not a reason
for this unbalanced structure not to change.
The change is positive to balance stakeholders better, keeping all the
weights and conterweights the seriousness of this process must have.

Yes I would like to see some adjustments in this structure at some point,
but before submitting any proposal I think is good and necessary to have
this discussion here with community input to try to gather what could be
the consensus and the main points that others wish to see as well.

Best regards
Fernando

On Fri, 9 Aug 2024, 17:39 John Curran, <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

>
>
> On Aug 9, 2024, at 4:11 PM, Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> The center of any proposal should always be on the author(s) and shepherds
> should only facilitate discussion both within the AC and with the
> community, but have very little input into modifying the text. Above all
> what should always prevail is the author's idea. If his/her idea is too
> much out of what the community understands or believe is good and the
> author is not willing to make any adjustments than it shall not reach
> consensus and life follows normally.
>
>
> Fernando -
>
>
> You are, of course, welcome to your views regarding the merits of various
> approaches to the Internet number policy development.
>
> I will note that the member-elected ARIN AC works predominately to
> administer the policy development process, and to do so in a highly uniform
> and consistent manner.   Some of the merits of such an approach is to make
> perfectly clear the development and status of each number resource policy
> proposal (and if there is any question about the overall AC’s
> administration, there is a clear and timely appeal process.)
>
> I understand other regions rely on methods such as having policy working
> groups and their chairs make such considerations, but ARIN must follow
> something much closer to a formal standards development process due to the
> litigious nature of the region in which we operate.
>
>
> I also have a feeling that sometimes AC members personal view end up
> overcoming the author's original idea (maybe not intentionally I reckon)
> which should never happen and there should be a high level of attention
> from each one to try to eliminate anything related to their personal view
> when dealing with advancing that proposal or not.
>
>
> This is the case - I have found the individual AC members to be exemplary
> in avoiding any conflict with their own personal views when shepherding a
> policy proposal; as far as I can tell, the biggest conflicts have occurred
> when folks try to ignore the actual ARIN policy development process as
> written – for example, by proposing policy text (something not required at
> all) rather than describing the purported problem with present policy
> (something which is definitely required.)  The ARIN AC - and shepherds in
> particular - end up carrying the brunt of the ire of the authors in such
> cases, but again, it’s often due to failure of the authors to actually
> follow the policy development process in this region.
>
>
> In short, AC should not ever act as a mini parliament to analyze merit of
> any proposals, but merely evaluate if there has been consensus from
> community about a proposal and of course if it matches whatever minimum
> necessary for a proposal to go through the whole policy development process.
>
>
> The AC should administer the ARIN Policy Development Process, and that
> requires certain steps at each stage.   If you wish to change the
> requirements, please submit a suggestion via the ARIN ACSP detailing the
> changes that you’d like to see.
>
>
> For that reason I also don't see ARIN PDP as a proper PDP compared to all
> others and suggest all involved parties to think of modifications of the
> current structure to make it more centered on both author proposal idea and
> community as sovereign, of course along with ARIN Board to ratify proposals
> that may not bring any legal damage to the organization.
>
>
> I do agree that there are some significant differences in the policy
> development processes between the regions, and can only presume that there
> is good reasons for the policy development processes of the other regions
> just as there is in the ARIN region for its particular structure.  The
> member-elected ARIN Board of Trustees have fiduciary duty to the
> organization and as such must insure that ARIN’s policy development process
> is faithful to ARIN’s mission and its membership; that is potentially a
> higher bar at times that the popular view of the community at any given
> moment.
>
>
> Maybe there was a reason to have such a tight and concentrated power in
> the past when it was created, but now a days it doesn't seem the best in
> terms of balance between community and members interest.
>
>
> I suspect that "balancing issue" will enjoy deep consideration during the
> upcoming update of ICP-2, and it’s likely premature to anticipate the
> outcome of such discussions in advance.
>
>
> Thanks,
> /John
>
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> American Registry for Internet Numbers
>
>
>
>
>
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