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

[sm+afrinic at elandsys.com]

At 17:45 16-05-10, ALAIN AINA wrote:
>The chairs determine  based on discussions from the mailing list  if 
>a policy should be placed on the agenda for the public policy meeting.

That sounds sensible.

Section 5.1 of the draft has the following text:

   "The draft policy is placed on the agenda of the next open public
    policy meeting."

This could be interpreted as saying that the draft policy should 
automatically be considered at the next public policy meeting.

At 13:56 17-05-10, Scott Leibrand wrote:
>Ah, ok.  Perhaps SM could capture that in the PDP document?

I could use the following text:

   "The draft policy is placed on the agenda of an open public
    policy meeting."

I'll revisit some points mentioned by Scott in the message he posted last week.

In general, the author would like to see the proposal approved as a 
policy.  It is up to the Working Group Chair to see that the proposal 
is in good shape so that it can be discussed at a public policy 
meeting.  There are times when there may be disagreements which could 
be resolved through a public policy meeting.  It may happen that a 
proposal needs more work before it can be discussed at a meeting.

If you read "The draft policy is placed on the agenda of an open 
public policy meeting" as meaning that the Chair and author work out 
whether the proposal should be on the agenda, there shouldn't be any 
problem.  In case of disagreement, the Chair can always leave it to 
the author to decide whether to move the proposal to the meeting stage.

Then we have the Last Call.  You may have noticed that the deadlines 
in the proposal are there to provide ample time for a proposal to be 
reviewed.  There are only three time limits (maximum) specified.  The 
Last Call does not have to be immediately after the meeting if there 
are ongoing discussions on the proposal.  That's the final review stage.

It is important to assess the discussions about a proposal.  The 
decision-making process is based on consensus building.  The Chair 
should have a good understanding of the principles mentioned in Section 3.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy