[AfriNIC-rpd] About the policy BOF

[Bill Woodcock]

      On Tue, 8 May 2007, Leo Vegoda wrote:
    > Who is able to vote and how many votes do they each have?

Leo: Are you asking this as a rhetorical question, as in "if you were to 
switch from consensus to voting, who _would be_ able to vote...?"

As a point of reference, in the ARIN region, the consensus-assessment 
process is done by a show of hands which is counted:

  - The meeting chair restates or summarizes the issue at hand and the
    policy or related policies which are being considered.

  - The meeting chair says that consensus is going to be assessed.

  - The meeting chair says the format of the way the question will
    be called, how many alternate questions will be called, and 
    exactly what the questions will be:

   "I'll now call for consensus on three questions: First, should a
    new IPv7 minimum allocation size of /23-and-a-half apply to
    organizations with a Z in their name.  Second, should a new IPv7
    minimum allocation size of /23-and-a-half apply to organizations
    with either a Y or a Z in their name.  Third, should there be no
    change to existing policy."

  - The ARIN staff count the number of people in the room.

  - The meeting chair asks the first question.

  - The meeting chair asks how many people in the room are in favor
    of the proposition made by the first question, and hands are 
    counted by staff.

  - The meeting chair asks the second question.

  - The meeting chair asks how many people in the room are in favor
    of the proposition made by the second question, and hands are counted 
    by staff.

  - The meeting chair asks the Nth question.

  - The meeting chair asks how many people in the room are in favor 
    of the proposition made by the Nth question, and hands are counted
    by staff.

  - Staff report the numbers to the meeting chair.

  - The meeting chair announces how many people were in the room, how
    many people were in favor of each proposition, how many people did
    not vote.

  - The meeting chair announces that the results will be conveyed to the 
    Policy Advisory Council, to help them in assessing consensus.  (Which
    they will do by considering both the number of hands counted in the 
    room, and the opinions expressed on the mailing list.)

It sounds long and tedious, but it can be done very quickly, if 
everybody's used to the process.

It's not a vote, but it is counted and documented.  Everyone understands 
that it's not sufficient by itself to guarantee the outcome of a policy 
decision, because there's also mailing list discussion, by people who 
couldn't be present in the room.

There are other ways of doing it, as seen in other RIRs.  This is just a 
recounting of how it's done in the ARIN region.

                                -Bill