community - Re: [AfriNIC-rpd] About AFPUB-2010-GEN-001

[Dr Paulos Nyirenda]

I would like to mention that the use of the word "community" in the AfriNic PDP caused 
intensive debate in one or two meetings of the current PDP-MG and mention was made of 
refering this back to the "community" to resolve.

In some cases the current PDP uses the wider Internet community as "anyone on the 
Internet" as described below but in others it seems to refer to the "African Internet 
community".

Some clarification on this as well would help the PDP-MG.

Regards.

Dr Paulos B Nyirenda
Malawi SDNP Coordinator
http://www.sdnp.org.mw 
&
Member - PDP-MG

On 29 Mar 2010 at 23:21, sm+afrinic at elandsys.com wrote:

> Hi Adiel,
> 
> Thanks for the feedback.
> 
> At 11:26 29-03-10, Adiel A. Akplogan wrote:
> >Let me clarify few points and try to re-focus the discussion
> >about this policy proposal:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >3) The role of the PDP-MG as a group and suggested by the current
> >    PDP is not to discuss nor to alter or make any jugement on
> >    policy proposals. Their role is to MODERATE the discussions on
> >    the public mailing list, during public face to face meetings
> >    and to present policy discussion report to the community and the
> >    Bord for ratification (after consensus is reached). So the PDP-MG
> >    is not a closed group that discusses policies. They do have a
> >    mailing where they discuss matter related to their work (draft
> >    report, action to take etc .... The AfriNIC-RPD (Resource Policy
> >    Discussion) list is the only electronic and open channel for
> >    policy discussions which in its current setup allows anyone to join
> >    and contribute to a discussions. The public policy meetings are
> >    the twice a year face to face meetings where literally _anyone_
> >    can discuss a policy (have they been on the mailing list before
> >    or not - a reason why providing a summary of the online discussion
> >    is important).
> 
> There seems to be a confusion about the PDP-MG in relation to the 
> current proposal.  As you mentioned above, they facilitate the 
> discussion.  The role is not that different in the current 
> proposal.  However, the PDP-MG cannot be compared to the WG as WG 
> encompasses all the people, on the mailing list and during the meeting.
> 
> >    As a brief history, the current discussion forum was called Policy
> >    Working Group in the first PDP (2004). This has changed because of
> >    misconception of people about the term "Working Group" as a closed
> >    group to "work" on policies. We may want to take that into
> >    consideration while discussing this new PDP proposal.
> 
> Thanks for explaining that.  I'll elaborate on this as there seems to 
> be a misunderstanding about what the proposal attempts to 
> describe.  BTW, I do not disagree with what Adiel suggested.
> 
> The PDP is the mechanism through which policies are developed in this 
> region by the Internet community.  The community is anyone on the 
> Internet.  The term is as large as possible.  We need a venue where 
> the community can have discussions.  That venue is the mailing list 
> and the meetings.  In practice, it is only people that show an 
> interest, either by subscribing to the mailing list or coming to the 
> meeting that participate in the discussion.  The group, or WG as used 
> in the proposal, is a representation of the community.  I don't have 
> any strong feelings about what the name should be as my focus is to 
> explain the way the process works.  The proposal introduces the group 
> in Section 4 and the name is used in Section 5 to provide an overview 
> of the PDP.
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> rpd mailing list
> rpd at afrinic.net
> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rpd