[Community-Discuss] Accountability assessment - PDP review?

Wed Oct 26 09:29:34 UTC 2016

On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 10:01 AM, Marcus K. G. Adomey <madomey at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Seun,
>
>
> You wrote,
>
>
> *SO: This is indeed one of the challenges that Co-Chairs have had to
> wrestle with, while the PDP indicated events that will happen before
> consensus (+rough) is observed, the actual gauging was left to the
> Co-Chairs and while it has been a difficult task, I believe the Co-Chairs
> have all made effort to uphold the principles highlighted in section 4 of
> the PDP in determining  consensus. That said, during my time as Co-Chair,
> myself and my colleagues (yeah colleagues because I welcomed at least 2
> co-chair while I was still Co-Chair) and the Policy manager did put up a
> draft consensus building document which we also presented to the community
> a couple of times. It may be good to revisit and refine that document...
> Nevertheless, I believe this may indeed be a point to consider in other to
> better assist the Co-Chairs in their voluntary work.*
>
> *Thanks for acknowledging the issues and your challenges as former
> Co-chair. *
>

SO: I hope you also *READ* my comment within context and i quote the
relevant sections below: "...the actual gauging was left to the Co-Chairs
and while it has been a difficult task, I believe the Co-Chairs have all
made effort to uphold the principles highlighted in section 4 of the PDP in
determining consensus..." The point is that because consensus building is
not documented, it makes some parts of the community (or a community
member) often cry foul on the decision of the Co-Chair and that is the
challenge. Perhaps, I should note that AFRINIC is not the only RIR that
doesn't have a consensus building document and while consensus building
isn't really documented within AFRINIC the Co-Chairs do make attempt to
gauge consensus(+rough)  in a manner similar to that of the IETF.
Nevertheless, due to the uniqueness of our community I think it may be a
good thing to document even though irrespective of what we finally put on
paper, we still require that the community have faith and trust in their
elected Co-Chairs as that can't be documented.

> * Can you please provide links to the document or discussion in archive?*
>

SO:  I do not know what the current status of the document is but here is
the url to the version on my drive which may/may not be the latest
version.:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wOQTSXAr_HzKP8jqrOYKESzyubA680JUsV57yBmfBNU/edit?usp=sharing

Regards

>
> *Thank you,*
>
>
> Marcus
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 25, 2016 12:36:36 PM
> *To:* Omo Oaiya
> *Cc:* General Discussions of AFRINIC; AfriNIC RPD MList.
> *Subject:* Re: [Community-Discuss] Accountability assessment - PDP review?
>
> Hello,
>
> Speaking on my personal behalf and as a former Co-Chair of PDWG, do find a
> few comments inline:
>
> On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 8:05 AM, Omo Oaiya <Omo.Oaiya at wacren.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> While the new PDP succeeded in addressing #1 and #2, it has not addressed
>> #3 and #4.
>>
>> The current PDP introduced the PDWG with co-chairs to perform the
>> "administrative functions” of the group.
>>
>> - It did not describe what these administrative functions were.
>>
> SO: The overall "administrative" roles and responsibilities of the
> co-chairs can be found at the PDWG homepage. Does it need to be further
> broken down than it currently is or does it need to be expanded? I will
> leave that to the community to discuss and determine. I put the current
> roles below:
>
> *Roles and Responsibilities of the PDWG Chairs*
>
>    - Determining whether there is consensus during open policy
>    discussions.
>    - Publishing minutes of the proceedings of public policy meetings.
>    - Initiation and termination of final review of proposals (Last Call).
>    - Sending a report of the outcomes of policy discussions at public
>    policy meetings to the Board of Directors.
>
> ref: http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/pdwg
>
>
>> - It did not prescribe criteria for co-chairs selection or an election
>> mechanism.
>>
> SO: Hmm...for every election/selection, there has always been
> election/selection criteria[1].  Although the nomcom leads this process, a
> quick look at the Bylaw seem to imply that nomcom scope is within
> Board/Board related elections alone[2] (that may also be something to fix).
> However the Bylaw was clear on the fact that the Election committee
> coordinates all election processes[3] which I believe includes that of the
> Co-Chairs.
>
> The question I think the community may need to address is whether the
> current criteria set is sufficient, if not, should the community recommend
> more criteria to nomcom or an AFRINIC member propose hard-coding a
> requirement into the Bylaw which must then be adhered to by nomcom in
> addition to their own criteria.
>
>> - It also did not describe the process for determining “rough consensus”.
>>
>>
> SO: This is indeed one of the challenges that Co-Chairs have had to
> wrestle with, while the PDP indicated events that will happen before
> consensus (+rough) is observed, the actual gauging was left to the
> Co-Chairs and while it has been a difficult task, I believe the Co-Chairs
> have all made effort to uphold the principles highlighted in section 4 of
> the PDP in determining  consensus. That said, during my time as Co-Chair,
> myself and my colleagues (yeah colleagues because I welcomed at least 2
> co-chair while I was still Co-Chair) and the Policy manager did put up a
> draft consensus building document which we also presented to the community
> a couple of times. It may be good to revisit and refine that document...
> Nevertheless, I believe this may indeed be a point to consider in other to
> better assist the Co-Chairs in their voluntary work.
>
>> As a result, we have seen:
>>
>> - co-chairs candidates who could be more familiar with PDP and Internet
>> Number Resource management.
>>
>> - insufficient moderation of policy proposal discussions on the mailing
>> list and at face to face meetings leading to endless repetitive discussions.
>>
> SO: This is indeed one of the things Co-Chairs find challenging; the
> current PDP requires that comments on the list and that of the face 2 face
> should be the basis for checking consensus to last call. It would indeed be
> helpful if all comments that comes in on the list are addressed (as much as
> possible) by the author(s) and it will also be good if people use the
> mailing list to raise their concerns as much as possible. However that is
> usually not the case, hence the challenge. While the Co-Chairs moderation
> may not have been perfect (depending on our individual standards). I think
> it would also be good to recognise that we are in a very unique community
> and environment where effective moderation is not just by skills alone but
> also by Grace ;-)
>
> - inability of co-chairs to determine consensus encouraging abuse of the
>> process with some people persistently opposing proposals and stalling
>> progress with insubstantial arguments causing unnecessary delay and
>> frustration
>>
> SO: I am not sure what the above means but I believe "draft policies"
> always have a consensus status declared at the end of the PPM. Though yes i
> understand the frustration it could cause if the expectation is different
> from what the co-chairs declared. That said, I believe that is why we have
> section 7 of the PDP which can be used to resolve these issues when they
> arise.
>
>> The policy discussions at AFRINIC-24 is a perfect illustration.  Another
>> easy example is that since AFRINIC-24, there has been little discussion on
>> proposals which were sent back on mailing list for further discussions as
>> per meeting minutes (http://www.afrinic.net/en/lib
>> rary/policies/archive/ppm-minutes/1847-afrinic-24-pdwgpdp-minutes) and
>> no action from the working group co-chairs.
>>
> SO: The current PDP "DOES NOT"  permit the co-chairs to discard a proposed
> policy within 12months of the proposal/edits of such policy, irrespective
> of whether there is comment or not. However Co-Chairs makes effort to
> encourage the author(s) to voluntarily withdraw their proposals having
> observed the community's stand/direction about it.
>
>
> Regards
> 1. http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/elections/pdwg-election?start=3
> 2. http://www.afrinic.net/en/about/bylaws?start=8
> 3. http://www.afrinic.net/en/about/bylaws?start=9
>
>> **Some questions for the community and co-chairs**
>>
>> - How do we fix issues #3 and #4?
>>
>> - Will the proposals returned to the list be presented in AFRINIC-25? if
>> yes, what will be the discussion points be and for which expected outcomes?
>>
>> -Omo
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Community-Discuss mailing list
>> Community-Discuss at afrinic.net
>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
> *Seun Ojedeji, Federal University Oye-Ekiti web:
> http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535 **alt
> email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng
> <seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng>*
>
> Bringing another down does not take you up - think about your action!
>
>
>

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb:      http://www.fuoye.edu.ng
<http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt email:
<http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng
<seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng>*

Bringing another down does not take you up - think about your action!
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