[rpd] Was - Prolicy proposal "Internet Number Resources review by AFRINIC" informations update

Mon May 13 15:29:01 UTC 2019

Hi Mark,

While I don’t agree with this policy proposal, I think it is really dangerous to stick in the PDP a way to avoid a policy to be submitted “again” during so much time.

In addition to that, either same or different authors, may re-think a given policy proposal, and sometimes, something that didn’t reached consensus, despite different versions, can be accommodated, or just a short period of time (example, 6 months, between two consecutive meetings), either because market, technical, or “happenings”, may change the view of the community.

Let me give you one example.

LACNIC has been discussing inter-RIR transfers for several years. THREE different policy proposals have failed, even with different authors, small differences among those proposals, etc.

I was never part of the co-authors of those 3 proposals.

About six months ago, noticing that NOT having this policy in the region is damaging the region, I decided to propose it, asked for other co-authors to participate in the list and in fact I proposed it also in AFRINIC.

Last Tuesday this policy proposal was presented for a first time in the LACNIC meeting, and it reached consensus, after a very successful discussion in the list, which allowed to update the text in several versions.

I think this is the perfect example of why I will not avoid a proposal to be submmited even if the discussions don’t draw a succesful discussion. I may be as dangerous for the region as not getting progress in something that may become an emergency.

However, the chairs can decide to give a very short discussion time in the meeting (for example just 10 minutes), to a policy proposal that despite not reaching consensus, the authors are not bein able to evolve with the inputs from the community. This is possible with the actual PDP, nothing to be changed for that.

Regards,

Jordi

El 13/5/19 16:52, "Mark Elkins" <mje at posix.co.za> escribió:

I think there should be a policy that states that any Policy that has not gone to last call (successfully unchallenged) and is older than two years must be withdrawn after the next meeting from the Policy Development Process and can only be brought back after two years.

This particular policy would be a great candidate!

On 2019/05/12 23:42, Owen DeLong wrote:

On May 12, 2019, at 12:30 , Benjamin Ledoh <benjamin.ledoh at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Community, 

Marcus asked simple questions to Melvin. I was expecting Melvin to respond but as usual, Owen jumped with his blablabla. We all know that Owen has no company in the Africa Region; he has no interest in this policy and every time he is defend or support policy that could destroy Afrinic. It is not a secret that he hates Afrinic and now is on mission (for a pay master -- I stand to be corrected). The less I say, the better for this community.

This is very very interesting…

It’s true that I’m no longer associated with a company that has any operations in the AfriNIC region.

I agree with you that the less you say, the better for this community.

That’s pretty much where the truth of your statements ends.

I have tremendous interest in this policy for the good of the region and the good of the internet, both of which stand to be substantially harmed by the policy for the multiple reasons I have previously outlined.

I have never defended or supported policy which I believed could destroy AfriNIC. Indeed, I am opposing this policy because I believe it would be harmful to AfriNIC.

I’m actually quite fond of AfriNIC and many of the people who work there. I count much of the AfriNIC staff and many members of the community as friends. I have no idea where you have come up with this idea that I hate AfriNIC. I assure you that if I hated AfriNIC, the easiest thing for me to do would be to turn a blind eye to this policy and walk away allowing it to do the damage it will surely do if it is adopted. Indeed, I think if you review my history, you will find I do not spend anywhere near this level of effort to try and improve things that I hate.

I also am not sure what you mean by “on a mission for a pay master”. Nobody is paying me to do this. It is true that I have received partial expense sponsorship to attend some AfriNIC meetings from various sources. It is true that I have done other consulting work for a variety of organizations that are AfriNIC members. It is also true that no organization or employer has ever been able to dictate the opinions I express in any public policy forum. I’m quite certain that if you check with any of my former employers, you’ll be easily able to confirm this fact.

The pathetic aspect in this is the submission of Daniel. Brother Dan, in Yoruba, there is a say: "You don't team up with opponents to vandalize your family's property". To a wise, a word is enough.

Are you accusing me of vandalism, sir? If so, I would like to see you back up that claim with some evidence or facts. Otherwise, it is an inappropriate ad hominem attack which is not permitted by the list AUP. If not, please explain yourself more clearly or make an appropriate apology.

By the way, I am looking for sponsorship to travel to Kampala to attend AIS. Can you be of help? Can you direct me to any foundation? I hope you will take it cool. (LOL)

I am not sure if the Larus foundation is still taking applications for Kampala or not. You could try there. I believe AfriNIC also has a fellowship program, but I’m not sure when their application period closes, either. I don’t know if there are other foundations out there offering grants.

Owen

Cheers

Benjiloh

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 6:03 PM Daniel Yakmut via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net> wrote:

Owen, 

Indeed you gave the point blank solution to what I personally have been advocating.

Cheers

Daniel

On Sun, May 12, 2019, 6:14 PM Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

On May 12, 2019, at 08:37 , Marcus K. G. Adomey <madomey at hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Melvin

I can see you suddenly  have interests for the review policy proposal. Please review  RPD  and PPMs  archives as it is not  productive to replay old discussions.

Please could you provide answers to the following questions 

> This policy has a lot of problems.

It is not constructive in a working group to just say policy has a lot of problems without listing the problems you see. Please list all the problems and propose texts to address them?

It is not legitimate to insist that those who feel your proposal is flawed must provide text to address those problems. However, let me propose text which would solve all of the problems with this policy so that it cannot be said that I did not do so…

Please replace the entire proposal with the what is between the BEGIN and END tags below. That will solve all of the problems:

—— BEGIN ——

—— END ——

I think you must agree that this text is very succinct and does not create any new policy problems like the current proposal.

While it may not solve all of the problems you intend with your current problem statement, I believe it does, in fact, solve all of the material defects of this proposal and offers a vastly superior policy alternative. (In other words: current policy is a vastly superior policy alternative to the current proposal).

> The other is the potential of end-users being disconnected due to the review. I think we have to bear in mind that, end-users have no clue about the review.

Please show which part of policy proposal requires disconnecting end users?  The numbers are requested and allocated to serve end-users and I don't see how review will lead to disconnecting these users.

Marcus, are you truly so divorced from reality that you do not understand that if you successfully and effectively revoke the resources of an ISP that by definition, you have disconnected the customers of said ISP that were using those resources?

If not, then I can only assume that you believe that any such revocation will be without actual effect on the internet. If you truly believe that, then you believe that it is OK to render the AfriNIC registration process meaningless compared to operational practice and you wish to create a separation between the two. I realize that currently the two are joined only through the voluntary cooperation of ISPs, but I think it is irresponsible at best to attempt to end that cooperation.

Owen

Thanks

From: Melvin Cheng <melvinc0730 at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2019 9:15 AM
To: rpd at afrinic.net
Subject: [rpd] RPD : Prolicy proposal "Internet Number Resources review by AFRINIC" informations update 

Hi

The debate over this policy has been for ages. I really think that if an issue has been discussed over and over again, there must be something fundamentally wrong about it. It’s quite obvious that this proposal draws way more controversy than the others - its own existence in a way seems to be a source of extreme disputes among the community, as we have seen in Tunisia. I was in fact there myself. 

This policy has a lot of problems. Intrinsically, as a policy itself, it is not well defined. A lot of terms remain unclear. For example, as Owen has also pointed out earlier, the term “annual meaningful report” is an ambiguous term. What is a “meaningful” report? To whom? What are the factors? How is “meaningful” defined? 100 people can have 100 definitions of “meaningful”. If the report is deemed as something crucial to this proposal, then the author shall better define and address it. Honestly speaking, although this proposal has been “re-proposed” over and over, I do not see any improvements in it. More precisely, I barely see any changes made in the new proposal when comparing to the previous one. I would expect the authors to make some adjustments when so many issues have not been addressed in previous meetings before they posted them again, even just as gesture of their sincerity. You can’t just post something that’s almost identical by pretending your audience were blind. 

On the other hand, this policy is not realistic at all. Afrinic does not have the financial power to conduct such a big quantity of reviews within its regions. It’s quiet easy to imagine that because of this lack of financial backup, reviews are done unfairly and unjustly. For example, some users are screened while the others are not because Afrinic runs out of money during the process of review. This may, at the worst, can lead to Afrinic’s bankruptcy, which I am sure none of us would wish that to happen. 

The other is the potential of end-users being disconnected due to the review. I think we have to bear in mind that, end-users have no clue about the review. However, according to this proposal, if an ISP is found to have violated the rule (ie, inefficient utilisation of resources), their IPs will be taken back by Afrinic and re-allocate to others. End-user will lost connectivity to the Internet during this process even they have no idea what is going on. This is unfair to them. After all, connectivity to the Internet shall come as the priority over any other things. What this policy will bring is quiet the opposite. 

Having said so much, I think my stand is quite clear. This proposal is not well drafted and the authors haven’t well considered its potential problems. It’s impractical when considering Afrinic’s current situation. 

Let’s not forget about this. if something has been doubted by people over and over again, there must be something wrong about it. 

Cheers 

Melvin  

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