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[rpd] [Community-Discuss] Sami's status as a co-chair
Mark Elkins
mje at posix.co.za
Thu Dec 6 12:39:55 UTC 2018
Sunday, you were not there, I was. You are providing incorrect information.
I quote:
The minutes(*) of the PPM of AFRINIC-28 was published by co-chairs as
mandated by the PDP.
The cochair election sections (6.1) read:
[....]
"The Elections Committee asked for a show of hands for those in favor,
and those not in favor of Mark Elkins’ candidature. After a show of
hands, there were 22 in favor and 56 not in favor of Mark’s candidature.
NomCom Chair called for nominations from the floor to fill the empty
PDWG co-chair seat.
There were suggestions that the position be filled by a temporary
co-chair until there’s another nominations process to find a replacement
co-chair.
Sami Salih (the outgoing co-chair) offered to continue as co-chair till
there is a process in future to find a new co-chair.
Delegates were asked if there is support for Sami to continue as
co-chair till the next scheduled nominations period. There was strong
support to have Sami continue – and he was therefore tasked to serve as
temporary co-chair until the next scheduled nominations season."
(The last part of the minutes are wrong when compared with the video
recording - as explained elsewhere)
*I was the only person who went through the complete Election Process
for the PDP Co-Chair - beginning to end.* In Dakar (Yes, I was present),
I found myself as the ONLY person who was standing for the seat.
However, the Elections Committee asked for a show of hands from people
in the room and the room voted for me not to stand - as per above. One
of the most interesting aspects of the Dakar meeting was the number of
well dressed local people who attended the meetings around midday and
who had lunch at the hotel, then left. One lady whom I spoke to was a
Hair Dresser - or rather studying to be one from the local college. She
had no clue why she was voting - but she did get a good (free) lunch.
She was not part of our community and there were many, many like her
present at the time of voting.
Consequently - for the future - I believe the community should be at
least only people in or directly related to the Internet Industry. This
would reduce the hotels food bill from a meeting expenses point of view
- that is - *members money*. I'm also in agreement that there should be
a meeting attendance fee - to reduce the potential for these meetings to
be used and abused in this manner. I would though like to see a small
quote of free tickets to member organisations - e.g. a minimum of one
ticket per member organisation, and more for larger member organisations
(non-transferable - etc)
In conclusion, the Vote for PDP Co-Chair was abused by a small number of
people present at the meeting. Sami should never have been "elected" to
begin with. He never intended to stand.
I also consider Sami to be a friend and I have worked with him on other
projects (e.g. DNS African Study). I wish him no ill. He has perhaps
though ended up in the wrong place.
On 12/6/18 11:39 AM, Sunday Folayan wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> This should resolve the issues around the legitimacy of an
> hard-working volunteer, for the job no one else wants to do, so that
> the community can move on.
>
> Moving on, is without prejudice to the rights and intention of other
> parties to appeal or not appeal if and when the last call is made by
> the legitimate callers - the Co-Chairs.
>
> Apologies for the cross-posting.
>
> Kind Regards ..
>
> R.SF.
>
> On 06/12/2018 09:01, Ernest Byaruhanga wrote:
>> Colleagues,
>>
>> Here is some background information on the matter of Sami’s term as
>> co-chair of the Policy Development Working Group.
>>
>> On the 07 of June 2018, minutes of the AFRINIC28 public policy
>> meeting were published on the AFRINIC website and shared with the
>> co-chairs.
>>
>> The minutes are published at
>> https://www.afrinic.net/policy/development-working-group/ppm-afrinic-28
>>
>> The last two bullets of minute 6.1 read as follows:
>>
>> ----------
>> • Sami Salih (the outgoing co-chair) offered to continue as co-chair
>> till there is a process in future to find a new co-chair.
>> • Delegates were asked if there is support for Sami to continue as
>> co-chair till the next scheduled nominations period. There was strong
>> support to have Sami continue – and he was therefore tasked to serve
>> as temporary co-chair until the next scheduled nominations season.
>> —————
>>
>> The above is what guided Sami (and AFRINIC) to believe that his
>> tenure would run "until the next scheduled nominations season”, which
>> is next year at AIS/AFRINIC30 (2019).
>>
>> Looking at the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWTApl4QHfY,
>> it’s clear that the recorded minute above did not accurately reflect
>> what was discussed.
>>
>> Apologies for the confusion.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ernest.
>>
>>
>>> On 6 Dec 2018, at 10:38, Andrew Alston
>>> <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Arnaud,
>>> My motivation – when I found this situation and duly acted on it –
>>> was simple – to gather the evidence required to prove that the
>>> process had not been followed in the passing of this policy – the
>>> fact that while looking for other evidence to document all the
>>> objections that made this policy fail in Dakar, I came across this –
>>> is immaterial sometimes when you are documenting evidence to form
>>> solid and legitimate groundwork for an appeal when you know for a
>>> fact that process has not been followed, you come across things that
>>> you hadn’t seen before – that require action.
>>> If by “Is this what we can expect from Liquid” you refer to me
>>> personally insisting on adherence to process and adherence to the
>>> bylaws – then yes – that is what you can expect, please remember –
>>> in the context of the PDP – companies typically do not take the
>>> floor – individuals from the community do. When and if I am
>>> speaking on behalf of my employer – I have always made this
>>> extremely clear.
>>> As for the vague insinuations about cross-checked data – yes – my
>>> data was wrong – it happens and I’ve admitted that – it happened
>>> because I relied on published data that I downloaded from a source
>>> that I believed to be trusted and didn’t verify it – my mistake and
>>> I apologise for that – however, that is not really relevant to the
>>> discussion at hand and is, in my opinion, you doing exactly what you
>>> are accusing me of doing, conflating issues to try and discredit
>>> something legitimate. I refer to my previous email about members of
>>> this community engaging in “whataboutism”
>>> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism) – this is case in point.
>>> Andrew
>>> From: Arnaud AMELINA <amelnaud at gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 06 December 2018 09:07
>>> To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
>>> Cc: abel ELITCHA <kmw.elitcha at gmail.com>; rpd >> AfriNIC Resource
>>> Policy <rpd at afrinic.net>; General Discussions of AFRINIC
>>> <community-discuss at afrinic.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [rpd] Sami's status as a co-chair
>>> Andrew,
>>> Why do you always react following your ego and pursuing personal
>>> interest and not community interest? When you started this palaver
>>> on last call and Sami tenure, you tried on community-discuss to use
>>> data you have not cross checked to discredit the organization
>>> performance. What is your real motive? Is this what we should expect
>>> from Liquid telecom all along ?
>>> Arnaud
>>> Le mer. 5 déc. 2018 20:10, Andrew Alston
>>> <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> a écrit :
>>> Komi,
>>> You cannot rewrite the mandate granted by the community in the
>>> minutes.
>>> Fact – the reality is – the community voted – clearly – on a 6
>>> month mandate – that is indisputable fact.
>>> Fact – that mandate expired
>>> What the *minutes* say does not change the reality of a video
>>> recorded meeting.
>>> When the issue was raised – is immaterial – the context of the
>>> issue being raised – is immaterial – fact – is fact – the mandate
>>> was granted – the mandate expired.
>>> Andrew
>>> From: Komi Elitcha <kmw.elitcha at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Wednesday, 5 December 2018 at 21:30
>>> To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
>>> Cc: "AfriNIC RPD MList." <rpd at afrinic.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [rpd] Sami's status as a co-chair
>>> Hello Andrew,
>>> The minutes(*) of the PPM of AFRINIC-28 was published by
>>> co-chairs as mandated by the PDP.
>>> The cochair election sections (6.1) read:
>>> [....]
>>> "The Elections Committee asked for a show of hands for those in
>>> favor, and those not in favor of Mark Elkins’ candidature. After a
>>> show of hands, there were 22 in favor and 56 not in favor of Mark’s
>>> candidature.
>>> NomCom Chair called for nominations from the floor to fill the empty
>>> PDWG co-chair seat.
>>> There were suggestions that the position be filled by a temporary
>>> co-chair until there’s another nominations process to find a
>>> replacement co-chair.
>>> Sami Salih (the outgoing co-chair) offered to continue as co-chair
>>> till there is a process in future to find a new co-chair.
>>> Delegates were asked if there is support for Sami to continue as
>>> co-chair till the next scheduled nominations period. There was
>>> strong support to have Sami continue – and he was therefore tasked
>>> to serve as temporary co-chair until the next scheduled nominations
>>> season."
>>> Practices at AFRINIC is that Elections are held mostly during the
>>> community meeting coupled with AGMM. So it is not surprising to see
>>> that the PDWG admin page(**) lists Sami as cochair with term
>>> June2016 - June2019.
>>> This probably explains why an election process was not triggered
>>> for the AFRINIC-29.
>>> Nobody raised an alarm when the 77 days before election day passed
>>> (15 September 2018) and there was no nomination process.Furthermore,
>>> at the beginning of the PPM in Hammamet, there was no objection to
>>> Sami chairing the meeting.
>>> Making all these noises, and challenging Sami right to operate at
>>> the meeting and moving on, just because Co-chairs made a decision
>>> one does not like is not responsible.
>>> Decency would have required the separation of issues
>>> appropriately handling them through other mechanisms, which would
>>> normally be more consensual with interest in conflict resolution an
>>> in an appealing manner .
>>> Hope this helps
>>> -Komi
>>> (*)
>>> https://www.afrinic.net/policy/development-working-group/ppm-afrinic-28
>>> (**)https://www.afrinic.net/policy/development-working-group#admin
>>> Le mar. 4 déc. 2018 à 4:52 PM, Andrew Alston
>>> <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> a écrit :
>>> Hi All,
>>> I want to clarify something – to be very sure.
>>> If I am correct – there was no election of a PDP co-chair in
>>> Tunisia. Can someone please confirm that? Because if there was no
>>> election – we only have ONE chair at the moment – and Sami’s status
>>> as a co-chair has lapsed and he cannot adjudicate on consensus.
>>> I say this – because in Dakar – and for those of you that were not
>>> there, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWTApl4QHfY at
>>> about 13 minutes in, Sami’s position was granted as interim only –
>>> and only for the following 6 months until the next PDP.
>>> So – unless there was an election called – and video evidence of
>>> this – Sami is no longer eligible to act in the position of co-chair
>>> – since his mandate was not granted by this community on the floor
>>> of a meeting, and as per the legal counsel at the Dakar meeting –
>>> any position into which Sami entered – was only valid until the
>>> November meeting, and the co-chair goes on, on record on the
>>> microphone to further state that Sami was only appointed “Until the
>>> next PDP meeting”
>>> Sami – on that note, thank you for your service as the interim
>>> co-chair over the preceeding 6 months.
>>> Andrew
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Community-Discuss mailing list
>> Community-Discuss at afrinic.net
>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss
>
--
Mark James ELKINS - Posix Systems - (South) Africa
mje at posix.co.za Tel: +27.128070590 Cell: +27.826010496
For fast, reliable, low cost Internet in ZA: https://ftth.posix.co.za
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