[General-members] TIMELY - Use of general-members list for campaigning (Re: election communications challenges)

[John Curran]

Ron -

We are working on ARIN Candidate communication guidelines that would cover your questions below - including appropriate use of the general members list in elections, but that’s obviously something the Board needs to consider and finalize and thus would apply to future elections.

However, given that we already have some candidates who have send a message to the list, there is a need to immediately clarify the use of this list in the present election.

In order to maintain equity and fairness to all candidates, I would ask that each candidate for the ARIN Board of Trustees feel free to send one (1) message to this mailing list seeking the support of the general members (if they so desire) – and otherwise please avoid campaign advocacy on ARIN mailing lists at this time.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers

On Oct 24, 2024, at 1:56 PM, Ron da Silva via General-members <general-members at arin.net> wrote:

All,

I’m just listening to John Sweeting talking at ARIN54 about the purpose of this mailing list as a vehicle for candidates to communicate with members’ voting contacts.  But, I think there are some general challenges with this approach.  I have a few questions for discussion:

- Are the candidates expected to exclusively advocate here, sharing their comments not only with members of the mailing list but also the other candidates?
- Are members of this list only the voting contacts?  Or broadly open to any member representative?
- It seems like some members appreciate being contacted to offer motivations and asking of support, but others seem to strongly take offense to any contact.  If the goal is to communicate with the voting contacts, do voting contacts prefer that to be done only here or also welcome direct communication via POC info?  Or both?
- POC info very is challenging for communications (even if just admin contacts) as they are not necessarily the voting contact and may or may not appreciate candidates reaching out.  (And voting contacts are obfuscated to the general public.)

PS: I remember seeing previous candidates sending out support solicitations to this list and were chastised for doing so.  Thus, perhaps the hesitation candidates might have using this mailing list for that purpose.

So, this email is less about asking for your support (which is welcomed of course!) but more about how to make the process as effective as possible.

Thoughts?
-ron

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