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

[John Curran]

On Aug 14, 2024, at 11:57 AM, Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the comments John.

On 13/08/2024 13:11, John Curran wrote:


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.
I trust that happens in many occasions, but be opened to input may not be enough sometimes. Having fair representation of all constituencies - as ICP-2 states - may mean more, as an active representation of all stakeholders and as we all know, membership differs from community to certain subjects. I am not suggesting simply the entire AC to start being elected by community, but as it is now doesn't sound reasonable it being elected solely by membership either. I compared to similar scenarios and suggested something different that weight things better which deserves further thought.

Fernando –

You extract only a portion of ICP-2 that discusses the requirements for an RIR’s Policy Development Process, and then generalize it inappropriately.

Here’s the ICP-2 text in full.

"The new RIR needs to have and to clearly document defined procedures for the development of resource management policies which may be implemented regionally, as well as those that may be recommended to the Address Council for consideration as global policies. These procedures must be open and transparent, be accessible to all interested parties, and ensure fair representation of all constituencies within the region.”

Note - It does not state that "Having fair representation of all constituencies - as ICP-2 states - may mean more, as an active representation of all stakeholders”, nor was that ever intended.

The ICP-2 requirement states that _process_ for policy development must be "be open and transparent, be accessible to all interested parties, and ensure fair representation of all constituencies within the region.”

Ensuring that all constituencies have the ability to be represented _in policy development_ is very different than a general statement about active representation of all stakeholders, and this is evidenced by the different form taken by each of the various Internet multistakeholder organizations.   In ICANN, the input from various constituencies gets provided via formalized channels through their AC/SO model, and that has various strengths and weaknesses associated.   In the IETF, participation in the development of standards is completely open to any/all members of any given community and each participates openly as individuals in the process.   ARIN’s policy development process is similar to the latter - we ask everyone to come and participate in policy development and provide their input to be evaluated on its own merits.   In the IETF, there are governing bodies (IESG/IAB) composed of those selected from the community, and in general these governing bodies lack formal allocations for specific constituencies and instead must administer their processes on behalf of the entire community.

ARIN, again, is quite similar - our ARIN AC and ARIN Board of Trustees are open to all (save for some enumerated conflicts of interest - https://www.arin.net/participate/oversight/elections/processes/conflicts/) and that includes having non-members serve on these bodies.  If you believe that the ARIN AC needs more folks who are not ARIN members upon it, you should encourage such candidates or run yourself as desired.   You seem to presume that the ARIN AC and ARIN Board must be composed of people from the ARIN membership, but indeed both are open to any member of the community that wishes to run for election and meets the basic requirements.   The fact that these bodies (Board and ARIN AC) are elected by the members is not any different than occurs in other regions - the only difference is the ARIN Board has delegated primary administration of the policy development process to the ARIN AC.

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.
Well, if the author has the knowledge to do and know well what he/she is proposing what is the issue with that ? Overall there must be consensus from community, in order for a proposal to advance, so if the author makes up something that doesn't make any sense and doesn't follow AC shepherds advice hardly that proposal will progress anyway. Nothing stops the AC to keep helping authors in that sense, but decision about what the text should is should remain with the author.

As other on this list have pointed out, the ARIN AC shepherds do try to work with the author to get the proposal into reasonable shape, and the author retains the the editors pen in that process.   It is only once it is accepted as a draft policy that the ARIN AC handes subsequent edits based the input on this list and from the public policy consultations held at ARIN meetings.

Thanks,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers

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