[AfriNIC-rpd] NomCom at AFRINIC-16

[Alan Barrett]

On Sun, 20 May 2012, gift wrote:
> 2. Regarding the lobbying for for votes, the very essence of 
> election implies lobbying for votes. I was a candidate in the 
> recent election and apart from being limited to one proxy I 
> am not ware of any other limitations. If I phoned or emailed 
> a member in the community (irrespective of how I obtained 
> the contact details) to give them my profile (even my video 
> tape) and ask for them to vote for me would I have broken any 
> community rule?

It would depend on how you obtained the contact address, and 
the reason that the contact address was published.  Any time a 
contact address is published, it goes with an explicit or implicit 
restriction on the use that may legitimately be made of the 
address.  If it's an address for reporting abuse, then using it 
for anything else is wrong.  If it's an address for discussion 
peering, then using it for anything else is wrong.  If it's a 
personal address for somebody that you know personally, then using 
it for just about anything is OK.

> Who would prove how I obtained the contact details as there are 
> surely many ways of doing this?

Something can be wrong even if it's impossible to prove.

> Is it not fair to assume that most of the information on the 
> AfriNIC website is public unless otherwise protected or stated.

No!  It's explicitly restricted.  "The information in the AfriNIC 
Database is available to the public for agreed Internet operation 
purposes, but is under copyright."  If you want to use an email 
address from WHOIS to talk about a problem with the operation of 
the Internet, that's OK.  If you want to use it to send marketing 
material, vote solicitations, or almost anything else, that's not 
OK.

> How are members supposed to communicate for peering and 
> otherwise?

Using contact addresses published for the purpose.  For example, 
sending a peering query to an address from WHOIS would be OK, 
because peering is an Internet operational issue.

> As the organization and its profile grows, there will definitely 
> be more interest and stiffer contest for positions. I think 
> we need to come up with a code of conduct for electioneering 
> which clearly shows unethical conduct and why it is so.  What is 
> coming up in the absence of clear rules can easily be dismissed 
> as innuendos, suspicions and even jealous.

Yes.

--apb (Alan Barrett)