[arin-ppml] AC candidates

[Cj Aronson]

Bill,

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 12:34 PM William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 12, 2024 at 12:41 PM Cj Aronson <cja at daydream.com> wrote:
> > My question for you is what's the real issue you're trying to solve?
>
> Howdy!
>
> There are three things that concern me.
>
> 1. Policy-related activity from people other than the AC seems a lot
> more sparse now than in the IRPEP days. I've felt it myself. There was
> a typo correction a couple months back. In the IRPEP days I'd have
> written a proposal and followed it through. Under the PDP I said,
> here's a typo, have at it. Why would I bother writing it when the AC
> will rewrite it anyway?
>

There is nothing to stop you from writing that proposal and following it
through.  Original draft policies (if they are in scope etc) go directly to
the community unedited as far as I know (that was my experience on the AC).
  Again I can only speak for the 18 years I was on the AC but AC members
always preferred to work with the author if the author was responsive.


>
> To be blunt: ARIN had a far stronger claim to being a bottom-up
> community driven operation under the 2008 IRPEP than it does under the
> 2024 PDP. The character of 2024 participation, well, it's more like
> FCC participation which isn't bottom-up at all.
>
> 2. Death by committee. Clever or provocative proposals never really
> get a fair shake before the community at large because each AC member
> tinkers with it a little bit to "improve" it, making it more broadly
> palatable. Which tends to be more like the comfortable, known policy
> the proposal was written to change from. Carefully reshaped to fit in
> the box.
>

I cannot speak to the AC since I left but for the 18 years I was on the AC
I do not know of a policy proposal that was submitted by an author and that
was edited before it went to the community.  The AC would read the
proposal, decide if it was in scope and some minimum requirements and then
it went to the community as a draft proposal as it was originally written.



> 3. Poor writing. ARIN staff have to interpret policy text
> permissively, lest they be accused of making up rules which are
> arbitrary, capricious and hence unlawful. Too many times I've seen
> proposals with ambiguously written requirements defended with
> statements to the effect that ARIN staff will interpret them in a
> subjectively reasonable way. Which they are not allowed to do because
> such behavior is inherently capricious.
>

> When the authors were in control of the text, it was the AC shepherd's
> job to stand up and say: Hey, you have some ambiguity to fix here.
> What do you really want this to mean? What do you want to happen under
> this policy if a registrant comes along and does X? Now that the AC
> writes the text and advocates for the proposal, no one's really doing
> that job. After all, if you didn't already know it was technically
> sound, you wouldn't have written it that way. You see the mental trap,
> right? When it's really bad you get some pushback from staff and
> legal, but for the stuff that's just moderately bad it doesn't get
> fixed until sure enough, someone out there finds the loophole and
> makes an address grab.
>

I am not sure what to say here Bill.   Perhaps you should run to be on the
AC so you can help fix the problems that you see.  I think you have a very
rosy view of how the policy process was under the IRPEP and before.  The AC
very rarely got ANY participation from the authors of proposals as their
day job always took priority.  In my experience the AC always tries to get
information from the author regarding what they are trying to achieve.   If
there are policies and proposals that are "really bad" then folks like you
should be speaking up at the time so that they can be made better.  Again I
see that you're very unhappy with the policy process but I think real
examples of policies that are "really bad" would be helpful to the AC.

I do know that a lot of new and good policy changes come out of the policy
experience report that ARIN staff makes for the AC and the community.
Often the consequences and corner cases of a policy aren't always obvious
at the time and the staff does a great job of highlighting problems and the
AC has done an excellent job of fixing them.

Thanks!
-----Cathy
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