[AFRINIC-rpd] AfriNIC and SLA's

[Owen DeLong]

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 15, 2013, at 10:47 AM, "Andrew Alston" <alston.networks at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Sunday,
>  
> I am not sure I agree with that at all.
>  
> We all saw what happened at the last board elections for one thing.  For another, silence from the community is *NOT* indicative of a lack of agreement.  If the community disagree with my positions and believe the service currently being delivered is adequate, and believe there is no need for the reporting mechanisms and SLA’s, then I am quite prepared to hear such disagreement.  However, at the moment as it stands, I see Owen saying he does not disagree with the proposal, merely that it is not a policy issue.  I see Gift who seems to be advocating for an expansion of this.  Beyond this, I see silence, which is something that directly contradicts what I see in direct messages to myself from various members of the community.
>  

I think there's a middle ground here. Yes, voting out the board is an option in the case of extreme dissatisfaction with their actions. However, well before that, there is the possibility of requesting that they act differently and that's what I believe this thread is about.

I support Andrew's request for AfriNIC staff to make metrics available to the community so that the community can have a more informed understanding of the performance of the staff, the level of staffing, etc. so that the community can provide better input to the board about their desires and needs.

> I do not see the harm in opening the discussions on this list about introducing accountability to the membership base, in the form of SLA’s or other such mechanisms, and since AfriNIC has NOT provided us another forum beyond this list to introduce such ideas, this is all we have.  Let the community voice be heard, and if they disagree with me, let it be said and I will happily accept it (just as I happily withdrew my proposal in Tanzania that the community rejected).  But as I said then, when I withdrew it, silence is not a voice, it does not indicate agreement or disagreement, and in fact, can be attributed to one of two things, either people simply don’t care enough to comment (which I pray is not the case, because that would indicate an even greater problem considering the criticality of AfriNIC to all of our business), or people are reluctant to have their voices heard for some other reason (and I would love to know that reason).

Indeed, my comment that this was not a policy matter was not intended to discourage the present discussion. I'm sorry if I was not clear. The intent was, instead, to suggest that the outcome of this thread should serve as advice to the board and not be turned into a policy proposal as such proposal would be out of scope for the policy development process IMHO.

Owen

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