[AfriNIC-rpd] NomCom at AFRINIC-16

[Owen DeLong]

On May 18, 2012, at 11:13 AM, Andrew Alston wrote:

> Hi Alan,
> 
> While I agreed with certain people who provided me the evidence not to name the companies concerned, I do have an agreement that if anyone wishes to query with them directly, said people are free to contact me for their contact details.

Apologies if I am speaking out of turn, but, this is highly inappropriate and, frankly, a silly and childish game.

Go back to the people who provided the evidence and encourage them either to make all of the evidence available to AfriNIC staff in charge of the elections or drop the accusations.

This kind of campaign of innuendo and whispers with hush-hush side conversations is not in the interests of open and transparent elections, it is contrary to them.

At this point, I do not know whether any candidate has or has not committed any form of misconduct or not. I am inclined to accept that they have not until such time as clear publicly documented evidence is presented to the community with a proper chain of custody.

> With regards to the candidates not being given an opportunity to respond, it is my opinion that they had the option to fight for their right to say something, in the same way you objected at the microphone.  The silence spoke volumes

Silence is silence. It does not speak and should never be interpreted as consent if there is any doubt. To interpret silence as evidence is contrary to a just and fair process. In my opinion, silence only demonstrated that the candidates had a better sense of decorum than their accusers.

> With regards to the conduct of the NomCom, I am quite frankly nothing short of disgusted.  We are electing a board that has to represent this community, is 15 minutes to much to ask to make sure the right decision is made?  To tell someone "Thanks for wasting our time" when they want to be heard?  I have no words... and I always have something to say :)

This is the one point where I must agree with Andrew. That one comment was most definitely out of line.

I believe that a general Q&A of the candidates by the community should be a regular part of the electoral process, but, currently it is not. I am not sure it is something that should be added on the fly, since some of the candidates would have been disadvantaged by being unable to participate since they were not present.

Owen