[rpd] Changing existing policies

Thu Dec 20 10:21:07 UTC 2018

Noah,

I have a simple view on this – if there is no consensus on a policy – then one of two things.

Either the Authors have not done enough to justify the ideas – or – the status quo is actually generally considered better.  Who is to say who is right or wrong?  This is the nature of democracy – and we live with the choices we make – we don’t destroy democracy in an effort to impose our beliefs on others – that leads down a very dangerous path.

*shrug* I still believe the academic ipv4 policy was the right thing to do – the community opposed it – I accepted that outcome.
I still believe that the alternative soft landing was the right thing to do – the community requested both policies be withdrawn – I respected the community enough to do that.
I still believe there are many positive aspects to the anti-shutdown policy – the community didn’t like it – I withdrew and accepted the outcome.

That is democracy – those who refuse to back down in the face of community opposition though – that is a problem.  People would be far more willing to pass sane policy – if they weren’t faced with people who point blank refused to back away from ideas that the community had rejected.  The acceptance of a policies demise actually leads to more trust when you DO have a good idea – the dogged chasing of things the community has rejected time and again – builds an environment of resistance.

Andrew

From: Noah <noah at neo.co.tz>
Sent: 20 December 2018 13:04
To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
Cc: S Moonesamy <sm+af at afrinic.net>; rpd at afrinic.net
Subject: Re: [rpd] Changing existing policies

Andrew,

But how can policies be improved and/or amended when some folk consider the status quo as specifically beneficial to them while strongly opposing any ideas by all means?

Noah

On Thu, Dec 20, 2018 at 7:20 AM Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com<mailto:Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>> wrote:
SM I know what the process to change things is - and nowhere did I suggest we do change anything - the soft landing changed a bunch of things as it is - and I'm not convinced for better - but irrespective of what you change - changing things in a retro-active manner in a way that would suddenly invalidate a use for space already assigned would almost certainly result in big issues and create large scale risk for AFRINIC itself.

My point was - the review policy aint gonna help anyone if an allocation was legitimately made under current policies - and the policies that were in play when most of the bigger allocations were made allow for a whole bunch of things that people on this list are crying about - well - for right or wrong - the ship sailed.

What this community should have been trying to do for the last few years is improve the current policies around allocations - rather than writing policies designed to go on witch hunts against our own members and give specific people the power to harass, target, and screw with those they don’t like. But - with the allocation policies being what they were *shrug* too late to cry tears and start trying to rebuild the logs that are already ashes.

But hey - if people wanna keep fighting over v4 and wasting everyone's time while we have to oppose policies which create risk, which divide this community and which ignore the clearly stated will of the people on the lists and on the floor - that is their choice - the PDP allows for it - but let it be written in history - that instead of attempting to raise the continent by helping it move forward into the future - instead of attempting to build the future - there were those that held the continent back because of their need to fight over the scraps of yesterday.

Andrew

On 19/12/2018, 20:21, "S Moonesamy" <sm+af at afrinic.net<mailto:sm%2Baf at afrinic.net>> wrote:

    Hello,

    {Thread moved as it is related to number resources policies]

    At 01:01 AM 19-12-2018, Andrew Alston wrote:
    >What the policy *does* say is that space must be
    >used in the manner described in the initial
    >application. Now – that's wherre things get
    >real interesting. Firstly – there iss no
    >guidance as to how strictly AFRINIC could
    >enforce this – and it's kinda bizarre – because
    >people who ao applied for space back years ago
    >in the dial up era that want to use the space
    >today for GPON – if their applicattion stated
    >they wanted it to number dial up users –
    >tecchnically – they would be in violation and subject to space reclamation.
    >
    >There is also *NO* method in the policies that I
    >could find to change the stated purpose of use –
    >that creates a very dangerous situationn should
    >someone choose to be stupid and malicious.

    If I understood the above correctly, it is about
compliance with existing policies. The "original
    criteria" seems applicable in at least three of
the five RIRs. The "method" to change existing
    polices is by getting Working Group agreement on the changes being proposed.

    Regards,
    S. Moonesamy

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