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

[John Curran]

Fernando -

You have some fundamental misunderstandings of the workings of the ARIN Policy Development Process - please see below for specific comments.

On Aug 13, 2024, at 11:01, Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com> wrote:

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.

You seem to be under the impression that the both the ARIN AC and the ARIN Board simply do as they please and exercise “a high level of power” when it comes to the ARIN Policy Development Process (ARIN PDP), and nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, the ARIN Board of Trustees ultimately approves policy changed to the number resource policy manual, so there is enormous potential power in their hands.

However,  the reality is that the ARIN PDP charges the Board with very clear criteria to be used in its evaluation of recommended draft policies – specifically, that the PDP was properly followed and that the resulting policy satisfies the principles of required of number resource policy specified in the PDP.   It is extremely rare that the ARIN Board of Trustees does not ratify policy recommended by the ARIN AC, and when it does not, it’s generally because it is acting on behalf of the community to make sure that the policy writeup of compliance is clear and complete, or that there are not concerns about adherence to the PDP (such as those raised in petition.)

It is true that both the ARIN AC and the Board are elected by the membership, but at this point membership is open to anyone with as much a single IP address block or one AS #, so it is rather low threshold at that.
Furthermore, the actual policy development process itself is open to input from any/all participants, just you are doing so now by participating on the arin-ppml mailing list.

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.

See above - ARIN currently has an open policy development p rocess that takes input from the entire community.  If you believe that your input as a community member wasn’t given fair consideration, then you can raise this with ARIN AC or the ARIN Board – as with the scenario you describe in the other regions, the ARIN Board already has the ability to intervene if the PDP is not properly followed.

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.

It is incumbent upon the author to clearly communicate the problem with current policy that warrants a change.  The community should not be expected to make changes to number resource policy based on what an author might be thinking but seemingly cannot communicate.   The ARIN AC actually serves to help the authors with this very process, as the assigned sheperds are tasking with working with the author to achieve this clarity.

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.

It should be noted that many authors often are unaware of the policy development process or the requirements for a policy at each stage, and simply want to “change some text” - we actually don’t work that way in the ARIN region - the PDP provides a clear and structured process that can be administrated fairly and provides the same criteria to all proposals at each phase of the process.  It is indeed more detailed than many folks expect, but such formalism is not a random occurrence but natural evolution of the PDP baed on lessons learned from its use in the region over the decades.

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.

Indeed, they do all that, and also serve to encourage discussion on relevant points, consider how the draft policy may intersect other policies, weigh the staff and legal review to consider possible changes, and make sure that viewpoints held contrary to the original author get fair consideration.   It’s not as easy job being policy shepard, and it’s far more about getting good policy output than asserting one’s own views.

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.

That is almost certainly what we see in the vast majority of cases…  you’ll even find ARIN AC members occasionally saying “I’m against this proposal, but it’s clear that it meets the criteria and the community supports it, so I vote ‘In Favor’’

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.

You assert unbalanced, but I will claim the opposite - the structure in the ARIN region, while more formal at times, actually helps ensure that community input gets fair consideration – particularly in the case of a recalcitrant or non-cooperative author.

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.

See above - as noted, superficial comparisons of the differences between regions doesn’t really provide any meaningful insight here –  while there have been minor issues with specific policy proposals from time to time, they have all be raised and resolved easily though the petition process – the more formal and mature process in this region has allowed us to avoid having cases where the recalcitrant authors end up tangling for months with the policy group chairs and/or the governing board over questions of matters of fairness, consensus, etc. all to the detriment of the community.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers








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