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[rpd] [Community-Discuss] Sami's status as a co-chair

Sunday Folayan sfolayan at skannet.com
Thu Dec 6 13:43:12 UTC 2018


Mark,

My apologies once again.

Sunday.


On 06/12/2018 13:39, Mark Elkins wrote:
>
> 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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>>>
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>>
> -- 
> 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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