[AFRINIC-rpd] Academic IPv4 Allocation Policy Second Draft (AFPUB-2013-GEN-001-DRAFT-02)

[ari]

Dear All,

Allow me to pitch in here. I want to tell members and community that we are taking all complaints seriously. And all of us at staff level have been following the debate carefully.


First though, I would like to remind all that not everyone on this continent is an English speaker. A few of our members do take time to read, understand and respond to questions on their requests. Becoming a member for some is a marathon yes, not because AFRINIC is not responsive but because dealing with an all English institution is a hurdle for them as AFRINIC material is not in their language. 

Because of that, people take time to find and provide the information requested. The team manages not only resources requests but also any other queries relating to resource management, recording assignments, utilisation of WHOIS, MYAFRINIC, Reverse DNS etc. As a result Member Services staff do spend time responding to and asking questions because of documentation provided in other languages also. They spend time explaining what the bylaws and RSA wording mean, they spend time checking into authenticity of material provided in English and other languages. 
And believe me you; I have seen cases of blatant fraud for the past 5 months that I have been around or simple manufacturing of bad stories about AFRINIC’s work. The work behind is not as simple as people think and rambling and complaining are counterproductive when people think only of themselves and isolated cases. AFRINIC is a community and members driven organisation and we are here, committed to serve you all.  

Granted, there were issues of material that was asked for in particular cases that was perceived as intrusion and waste of time. Let me say that I actually support our RS team as this was a pattern of the same person asking resources for several different institutions and not providing what our RS team thought should be asked for. This has been taken care of and strict adherence to what policies ask for has been implemented.

One way to deal with timeliness of responses may be to devise a ticket number that is also a queue number. We are looking into that. This will mean that all know that they will be responded to in the order their request came in. I do believe we have to stop the constant interference I have been seeing from all places on AFRINIC staff that results on RS team lack of concentration and
loss of productivity often.

Even before the complaints, we were reviewing processes internally and have corrected some of the perceived and actual issues, without jeopardising our adherence to policies. AFRINIC shall do what we have to do, be it SLAs or other things needed to make sure our processes are of help to our membership. 

We reiterate our commitment to make the registration process as smooth and as easy as it can get considering our policies. We are putting processes in place for that and I am here pleading for members and community’s help in telling us what they believe should be in place for the work that we do to be of help to them. For that to happen, we also plead for objective and non-passionate escalation of ‘issues’ given that we have a mechanism for that (and not privately talk to staff because people personally know them) if people perceive they are being treated unfairly/untimely by staff.


Cheers,
ar inne



________________________________
From: Douglas Onyango <ondouglas at gmail.com>
To: Andrew Alston <alston.networks at gmail.com> 
Cc: AfriNIC Resource Policy <rpd at afrinic.net> 
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2013 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: [AFRINIC-rpd] Academic IPv4 Allocation Policy Second Draft (AFPUB-2013-GEN-001-DRAFT-02)

All,
Sorry I am late to this party, but I would like to voice my principle
objection to this policy because it reads more like an
operational/implementation document rather than a policy. My feeling
is that inconsistent treatment of resource applications is at the
centre of this policy. If I am right then I would posit that this is
not the first time we see some attempt to resolve administrative
issues with policy, so for me it would be important to put in
place/fix a mechanism for AfriNIc and the community to resolve these
kind of issues.

More specifically 3.1 of this policy:
>3.1) To qualify for address space, Academic institutions will need to apply as end users and provide the following >documentation:
>3.1.1) Proof of Institution's registration/accreditation
>3.1.2) Proof of the number of registered full time students
>3.1.3) Proof of staff head count.

I am averse to the idea of hardcoding requirements here as it will
constrain staff from doing any extra due dilligence --- applications
can refer them to #3.1 when probed :-). imagine how abused this
scripted process can be --- we should allow some discretion to staff –
unless offcourse we have a problem with the way they are  doing their
job, in which case we should try and fix that, only I am doubtful that
this would fall under the purview of the PDP

Also 3.5:
>3.5) Under the policy, HEI shall be eligible to receive IPv4 resources
>at a ratio not less than 5 IPv4 addresses per campus user,
>where campus user is defined in 3.2).
It would appear that from the thread 3:1 would be something members
see as pragmatic and are able to agree to, although some numbers have
been advanced to demonstrate a  5:1 situation. My take on this
particular discussion is that I would agree with the demonstrated 3:1
that most of the people on the list seem to lean toward, albeit, if we
accounted for the future growth of the Internet (stats by Andrew :-)),
you will agree that a 5:1 is wise as it would support scalability in
the near future. For this reason I would be in support of a 5:1. So I
feel the following would be a reasable compromise :-
1.    No minimum ratio
2.    > 3:1 screening begins
3.    5:1 is the max
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