[rpd] Report of the Soft Landing isuue

[Dewole Ajao]

Not to add to or take away from the validity or otherwise of your 
arguments, but so that we don't confuse RPD newcomers, SM:

The decision for a policy proposal to become a ratified policy only gets 
into the hands of the board, *after* (some revision of) it has 
successfully reached rough consensus with this PDWG community in online 
discussions, a public policy meeting, and the final proposal draft has 
gone through a period of last call for comments. If there is no 
community consensus to proceed, the board has no decision to make.

See 
http://www.afrinic.net/library/policies/1829-afrinic-consolidated-policy-manual#PolicyDevelopmentProcess 
or if you like, 
http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/251-policy-development-process-in-the-afrinic-service-region-afpub-2010-gen-005

Regards,

Dewole.


On 20/04/2017 21:56, sm+afrinic at elandsys.com wrote:
> Hi Owen,
> At 11:24 20-04-2017, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> I disagree.
>
> I'll comment below.
>
>> Let us examine the difference in roles here:
>>
>> The PDWG Cochairs are charged with determining whether or not the 
>> policy has consensus of the community. An interest or attachment to 
>> the policy (such as actually drafting it, having a commercial stake 
>> in the outcome, etc.) is a clear conflict with that role.
>>
>> The Board ratification process does not focus on whether the policy 
>> is supported by the community or whether or not it is a good policy. 
>> The board is tasked not with any such value judgment, but with the 
>> following very limited mandate:
>>
>>         +       Would ratification violate the board's fiduciary 
>> responsibilities?
>>                 (Would the policy be clearly financially or legally 
>> ruinous to the organization)
>>         +       Was the PDP followed in delivering the policy to the 
>> board?
>>
>> While I suppose you could argue that a board member with an interest 
>> in the policy outcome might ignore his responsibilities in the first 
>> question, the reality is that if the community has come to consensus 
>> around such a policy, there are bigger problems than the COI involved 
>> here.
>
> My comment was about avoiding a technicality.  The decision for a 
> proposal to become a policy is taken by the Board.  It is easier for 
> the director not to participate in the decision if he/she wrote the 
> proposal instead of figuring out whether there is a strong case for 
> conflict of interest.
>
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
>
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