[AfriNIC-rpd] Policy Development Process in the AfriNIC service region (draft version 3)

[sm+afrinic at elandsys.com]

Hi Scott,
At 10:25 AM 5/14/2010, Scott Leibrand wrote:
>This document looks good, and I believe it captures all of the 
>essentials of an RIR PDP.

Thanks for the feedback.

>It may be worthwhile under 5.1 to explicitly mention that draft 
>policy documents are also posted to the RPD list in addition to 
>being posted on the website.  Something like "During the development 
>of a policy, draft versions of the document are made available for 
>review and comment by publishing them on the AfriNIC website and 
>posting them to the Resource Policy Discussion mailing list."  This 
>follows existing practice, but I believe it's important to require 
>mailing list posting to ensure that the community is aware of 
>proposed drafts, without having to closely monitor the website.

That's a good argument for posting the draft policy to the mailing 
list.  The other argument is that it provides a better record, i.e. 
there are other archives for the mailing list.

I'll add the change you proposed in the next version of the document 
if there aren't any objections.

>Your Incentive section states that, under the current PDP, "The 
>steps used to determine consensus leads to a situation where 
>comments provided during online discussions do not bear the same 
>weight as those made during the public policy meeting."  However, as 
>I read 5.2-5.4, the new PDP only bases consensus on feedback 
>received during the PPM and during last call, and ignores comments 
>made on the RPD list prior to the PPM.
>
>If that is how you (and more importantly, the AfriNIC community) 
>want it to work, that's fine, but my experience with the PDP in the 
>ARIN region is that it's important to also consider mailing list 
>comments in determining whether to send a proposal to last 
>call.  The last call period can then be used to raise any remaining 
>objections that were not adequately addressed on the mailing list 
>discussion or at the PPM.

It is important that the proposal reflects what the AfriNIC community 
wants and not what I want.

Let's view the path a proposal takes:

  1. The author write a proposal

  2. The proposal is discussed on the mailing list and refined to 
taking into account the views of the community.

  3. The proposal is discussed at the public policy meeting.  We 
should take into account the arguments brought up on the mailing list 
during the discussion and try to achieve rough consensus.

  4. There is a Last Call following the public policy meeting, i.e. 
the final review.  If there are any further changes proposed, we take 
them into account, then determine whether there is consensus.  For 
example, if a change is proposed during the public policy meeting, 
the author can address is at this stage.

  5. If there is consensus, the draft policy is sent to the AfriNIC 
Board of Directors for approval.

With the current PDP, a proposal cannot move to Step 4 if there isn't 
consensus at the public policy meeting (see Section 2.6 of 
AFPUB-2008-GEN-001).  Step 3 uses the notion of rough consensus so 
that we can take both the feedback received during the public policy 
meeting and on the RPD mailing list.  If an issue was raised and 
resolved prior to the meeting, the argument (comments) can still 
hold.  Section 5.2 to 5.4 does not say that the it should be ignored.

I agree that it is important to consider mailing list comments in 
determining whether to send a proposal to Last Call.  I'll phrase it 
differently.  It is important for the author to consider whether 
there can be consensus before going for the Last Call.  The final 
review is somewhat about addressing any remaining objections.

>In section 7, I think you meant "waiving" instead of "waving".

I'll fix that typo.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy