[rpd] Policy Development Process and Elections

[JORDI PALET MARTINEZ]

Hi Daniel,

 

Regarding to your point 2 below.

 

Do you really think that it is wise for anyone to participate in the meeting, support or object to policy proposals that you didn’t read (as you’re not in the list), or ignoring all the discussion in the list ?

 

I think it is a very bad idea. It means re-discussing in the meeting (where time is short), issues that may have been sufficiently clarified in the list.

 

But on top of that, if you come to the meeting, I understand that you come to help to improve the CPM, right ?

 

Consensus is based in community participation. Forget about who is the author, that’s not the important point. What is relevant is “we have a problem or something that can be improved for the good of the community, let’s do that”.

 

In IETF meetings, we ask “who has read the document?”. As you can guess I don’t expect anyone not having read the document, to provide good inputs. In fact, I personally will feel very embarrassed if I participate in any WG meeting and have not read the documents and followed the discussion, because not only I’m wasting my time, but also wasting the time of the other participants.

 

If I participate in IETF (or any RIR meeting) is because I want to contribute, I do that with the same level of seriousness and commitment as if it an obligation, even if is self-imposed. If I’m being funded by anyone (sponsor or employer), that’s even more a real obligation.

 

 

Regards,

Jordi

@jordipalet

 

 

 

El 16/8/20 20:27, "Daniel Yakmut" <yakmutd at googlemail.com> escribió:

 

I want to State as follows:

 

1. I am very disturb with the action the CEO and the board are about to take. If the CEO and the Board had an opinion on the elections, why did they disturb us by asking an opinion. Subjecting us to sheer exercise that is fruitless was a bad precedent and can have adverse effects in future. The attempt to hijack the process of the election by the board regardless of what the bylaw (which is flawed) says, is not right.

 

2. The attempt to gag and manipulate the process is more shocking, as it is being attempted through closing the doors on who is qualify to vote. In the face to face meeting I can register and attend and vote without being subscribed to the rpd. So why will we say some people cannot vote if they are not in mailing list fors six. I will rather suggest voter register closes a week before voting.

 

3. However, I am still of the opinion that conducting an online voting is not expedient this year. Hence, the one year old and extension is still worth considering.

 

4. What could possibly be the legal implications of the board hijacking the responsibility of the PDWG and going against good advise to postpone and make things right first.

 

5. Finally, I feel unhappy with how I was played.

 

Simply,

Daniel

 

 

On Aug 16, 2020 9:06 AM, "JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via RPD" <rpd at afrinic.net> wrote:

Hi Benjamin,

 

I think you raise very interesting points and many people don’t know about it:

 

1.       If you need a break on the RPD, you don’t need to cancel your registration, you can manage your registration, to pause the reception of emails.

2.       The opinions of the people in the list are as community, so individuals, not organizations. You could perfectly have a different opinion as “employee” and “individual”. You could even state that and show the arguments on both sides.

3.       Policies are for the good and fairnes of resource distribution for the community, which this may be some times against interest of private organizations. That’s perfectly normal.

 

Regards,

Jordi

@jordipalet

 

 

 

El 16/8/20 8:12, "Benjamin Investor" <investor0189 at gmail.com> escribió:

 

Dear Noah,

Thanks for pointing out what I said. Having a cut off date would not solve the problem at hand Infact it would only complicate issues. At the same time not having a cut off date would also be a problem. We need to find a way of electing  a new chair hence my suggestion.   Therefore  what is necessary now is having a reform via a poicy. We need to make rules that would guide against things we have noticed. But before then can we agree on my suggestion on how to solve the problem?

By the way am not new on the the rpd. I was on and left because I needed a break from the mailing list tuggle and I couldn't to comment then cos I always needed the permission of my employer to comment. But decided to join back as part of the July statistics as my new employer dose not care about my comment on the AFRINIC issues.

Dear Co- Chairs no one seams to disagree with my suggested way forward. Can you please seek for consensus on my proposal?

 

On Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 12:45 PM Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:

Hi Benjamin

 

Pleased to see your recent posts as a new member on the list.

 

I would like to respond to your long email (reminds me of AA) but I want to make sure its a real person.

 

Please could you introduce yourself.

 

Noah

 

On Sat, 15 Aug 2020, 08:16 Benjamin Investor, <investor0189 at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear CEO/ AFRINIC Board and Jordi,

Thank you for your mail. I disagree with your mail, and I would like you to take some time to study the history of the RIRs and why we have them. The entire work that is carried out by AFRINIC and others today was previously done by ONE man and I can tell you that the work all the RIRs are doing in terms of Internet number registration and record-keeping can be carried out by a few individuals. However, we agreed that RIRs should be set up because the internet should be managed as a community resource where all stakeholders would be able to contribute and as mentioned by Jordi in a bottom-up process. It can never be a top-down process. I have also just read the sections that Jordi mentioned in the ICANN bylaw and I totally agree with him in some aspect and I disagree with him on the fact that the board has a role to play when it comes to the process of electing the PDP chair or in the PDP process itself apart from the final ratification. All ICANN communities appoint their chair by themself in a process agreed by the community and not dictated by ICANN.   

 

Yes, I can see the reasons for the 6 months rule that the board is trying to impose on us but two wrongs can never make a right. All process within the PDP must be open, transparent and fair. 

Please let me ask you what process has been used in previous elections? As AFRINIC ever received a formal petition against any PDP election apart from a few rumbling on the mailing list? As you can see clearly that month before a public meeting we always witness an increase in number? Yes, the number doubled this year, but this year again something happened that has never happened before which is COVID and everyone was at home and Do you know that the number of internet users all over the world grew cos we now all work from home?. I am not trying to say this is the case here but clearly, you cant also say this is not the case. We are only making a guess here and an assumption.  What you have done here lack fairness and would create more division within the community and might even lead to accusation of wrongdoing against the CEO and the board who knows we might also have litigation by those we are trying to disenfranchise. Let me start by saying why did you ask the community about the chair election process? You got the community input and it went back to the board. Was there a consensus by the community? No there was no clear consensus but you and the board decided to go with a suggestion only supported by a few? is that fair? Is that not suspicious that some people are working behind the scene?  The fact that what was suggested by a few was adopted is a clear indication of wrongdoing here.  

 

 I believe the community needs to find a permanent solution if we have a problem, but my humble question to you and the board is that the people that have joined the mailing list in the last six month are they not stakeholders in this community? Even if they have joined to vote as you and the board are suggesting are they still not stakeholders. And according to the rpm "anyone" can contribute and at any time. What makes the person who joined 6 years ago more and has never said a word more qualified than the person who joined 6 days ago? Yes, I think there is a problem there but it is not for you or the board to solve this problem as rightly mentioned by Jordi.  What problem are you trying to solve with the 6 months and other rules set? During the next election, next year are we going to have an 18 months rule?. who says that we would be able to have a face to face meeting next year even if we have a face to face meeting how do we prevent hairdressers from coming in to vote? Or are we going to be changing the process all the time? is that a fair way of dealing with the issue.  Let us be realistic here. is your intention genuine or are we acting a script? Yes, Jordi has a policy proposal but what assurance do we have that the proposal would pass and be implemented before next year.  As far as I am concerned, we need to follow the rules in whatever we do fI not we have giving room for anarchy. The rule you are trying here is divisive and as seen it was rejected by a sizable number of people even thou it might be questionable but we say responses  If we agree to use this rule this time what stops the board from interfering in future elections. We are not looking at the future implication we are only trying to solve a short term problem and leaving behind a long term problem. The problem at hand must be solved by the community using the laid down process and not imposed by the CEO or the board. 

 

The community is matured enough to deal with this issue and there is what we call expedited PDP process that is allowed in case we have this type of difficulty.  The co-chair is just a guide for the PDP process and the process is dictated by the community so why making a fuss out of nothing?

NOW  my humble suggestion to you and the Board

1. We have a problem at hand but we don't have a solution that is fair and transparent at the moment.

2. We need to have a process in place that would solve our problems not complicate them

3. The problem cannot be solved before we have an election fo fill one of the vacancies 

4. We have those that have signified interest to become the chair,

5. One of them would become the chair even if we have an election 

6. As things stand now, the community cannot agree on who are the members that should vote for the chair. Therefore if we have 1 candidate then no need for an election but if we have more than 1 candidate.  Then ONLY THE CANDIDATES who have signified their intention to be chair should vote among themself and whoever has the highest number of the vote among the candidates is elected by acclamation by the community.  They can have two types of election 

A) let each of them rank their choices among themself if no one has the highest number of the first-choice vote then we add the second choice vote then the third choice if needed. That way even if they all vote for themself as 1st choice candidate there would still be a winner at the end of the day depending on ranking done by all the candidate. Therefore we still have the most prefered among them being selected. 

B) Have an elimination based election the candidate with the lowest number is  eliminated, and another round is conducted by all of them until there is a clear winner alternatively if we have two candidates have a tie then we toss a coin to chose one

 

    In these cases, we have solved the entire problem because what has happened is that we have a consensus candidate. This would not create any rancour between old and new members and the community would now have the time to put in place the necessary policy before the next election.  Let the candidates among themself convince the other candidate to either stepdown or vote for them. This to me is the best way to move forward so that we do not create more problem within the community. At the moment no one knows the slate for the election but I have a strong suspicion about the motive behind the 6 months rule and the July registration might just be a smokescreen.  

 

I think this is the best way forward and because as you know and this can be confirmed by Jordi, we have a case of an anonymous person in Uganda (before you became the CEO) posting on the mailing list and this person was traced by Jordi to be a community member using an anonymous account such person has two accounts older than 6 months and automatically you are handing such person two votes. Is that not the case Jordi?

We also have others like that who for one reason or the other registered two emails on the mailing list. Are we now going to give them an advantage? then how do we verify the vote. The vote would be verified by the same board and CEO who made the rules. How do we know that they are not enforcing the 6 moths rule for some and not for some? How do we verify that? Are you going to publish the votes so that we all can verify those who voted if they are actual people?. This seals like an attempt to impose someone on the community.  The PDP election has always been like an open ballot like a show of hand and I believe that is why the election has never been disputed. 

On the other hand, as your statistics have shown by your statistics, there is no month since January 2019 where you don't have at least one person joining. Yes in July 2020 the number was ridiculous but we can't say all of them joined just to vote.

 Finally, I would like to formally put forward my proposal to the community as I think this is the best way forward such that we don't allow the board or CEO to interfere in what should be a community driving process. This way, we would also prevent any litigation at the end of the election process because the community would only be endorsing the winner based on the choice of candidates only. 

  I do not want the CEO or the board to be the one to endorse my humble suggestion is that the community should take my suggestion as formal policy and the chairs ask for a consensus around it and judge the consensus as we previously do. This way, we pass it as an expedited policy with a varied process with the clause that it would only be applicable this year because of the problem at hand. I, therefore, ask the chairs to seek consensus around this proposal.   

 

Thank you.

 

On Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 1:43 PM AFRINIC Communication <comms at afrinic.net> wrote:

[Version en français ci-dessous]

 

Dear colleagues,

Further to its communique issued on 5 August 2020, AFRINIC wishes to inform its community that following its announcement regarding the holding of the Policy Development Working Group (“PDWG”) Co-Chair and NRO ASO-AC elections for the year 2020, it has considered all responses obtained in respect thereof.

Consequently, AFRINIC considers it appropriate to clarify, for the benefits of its community, the following:

(a)   That the Public Policy Meeting (“PPM”) is convened by the AFRINIC Board of Directors pursuant to the provisions of articles 11.2 and 11.3 of the Bylaws;

(b)  That in regard to the election of the PDWG Co-Chair and notwithstanding the fact same is held during the PPM, section 3.1 of the Consolidated Policy Manual (“CPM”) clearly and in no uncertain terms provides as follows: - “Internet number resource policies are distinctly separate from AFRINIC general business practices and procedures. General business practices and procedures are not within the purview of the Policy Development Process. 

(c)   That in light of para (b) above, the election process applicable to the PDWG Co-Chair election does not form an integral part of the CPM and is thus a matter for the Board of Directors to determine;

(d)  That, consistent with the above and having considered the exceptional context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Board of Directors recently resolved, inter-alia, that the forthcoming PPM will be held virtually and has even caused an Election Process 2020 to be published applicable to all elections to be held during the year 2020;

(e)   That in so far as the role of the PDWG is concerned, the core responsibility of the latter is to discuss policy proposals via the Internet (mailing list) or in person (during face-to-face PPM). Hence, since time restrictions are prevalent for the policy discussions during the PPM, rough consensus of policy proposals is determined during the PPM by considering both online and on-site contributions. Final consensus is decided upon after consideration of the discussions in the Last Call period;

(f)   That the right attributed to its community to contribute to policy discussions by either subscribing to the rpd mailing list or participating in the discussions in the upcoming PPM by registering for and attending the online meeting is sacrosanct and AFRINIC hereby renews its commitment that it will continue to give full effect to the principles of Policy Development as stipulated in section 3.2 of the CPM;

(g)   That, for the purposes of para (e) above, subscription to the AFRINIC rpd mailing list is considered as a step towards participation in the PDWG and AFRINIC undertakes to preserve this right so that no one who has recently subscribed to the rpd mail list will be debarred and/or ‘disenfranchised’ from participating in the Policy Development Process.

(h)  For purposes of clarity, below are subscription numbers from January 2019 to 13 August 2020.

 

2019Number
January3
February8
March3
April9
May30
June53
July8
August11
September3
October4
November11
December18
2020
January1
February 13
March7
April2
May5
June9
July177
August 13th 12:50 UTC27
Current number of list subscribers986

On this note, AFRINIC encourages the PDWG to increase its engagement in the Policy Development Process through their active, substantial and constructive participation in developing resource policies that will help AFRINIC in its mission of managing Internet Number Resources for the African region.

Furthermore, AFRINIC would like to take this opportunity to renew its invitation to the AIS’20 meeting and recommend that the community follows all procedures put in place for their online registration in respect thereof.

 

Eddy Kayihura

CEO

 

……………………

 

 

Chers collègues,

 

Suite à son communiqué publié le 5 août 2020, l'AFRINIC souhaite informer sa communauté que suite à son annonce concernant la tenue des élections du co-président du groupe de travail sur l'élaboration des politiques ("PDWG") et de l'ASO-AC du NRO pour l'année 2020, elle a examiné toutes les réponses obtenues à cet égard.

 

En conséquence, AFRINIC considère qu'il convient de clarifier, pour le bénéfice de sa communauté, ce qui suit :

 

(a) Que la réunion de politique publique ("PPM") est convoquée par le Conseil d'administration de l'AFRINIC conformément aux dispositions des articles 11.2 et 11.3 des statuts ;

 

(b) En ce qui concerne l'élection du co-président du PDWG, et bien qu'elle ait lieu pendant la Réunion de politique publique, la section 3.1 du Consolidated Policy Manual ("CPM") prévoit clairement et sans ambiguïté ce qui suit : - "Les politiques en matière de ressources de numéros Internet se distinguent clairement des pratiques opérationnelles et des procédures générales d'AFRINIC, qui ne sont pas du resort du processus d'élaboration des politiques''. 

 

c) Qu'à la lumière du paragraphe b) ci-dessus, le processus d'élection applicable à l'élection du coprésident du PDWG ne fait pas partie intégrante du CPM et donc est du ressort du conseil d'administration ;

 

(d) Que, conformément à ce qui précède et après avoir pris en compte le contexte exceptionnel de la pandémie COVID-19, le Conseil d'administration a récemment décidé, entre autres, que la prochaine réunion de politiques publiques se tiendra virtuellement et a même fait publier un processus pour les élections pour l'année 2020 applicable à toutes les élections devant se tenir en 2020 ;

 

e) Que, en ce qui concerne le rôle du PDWG, la responsabilité principale de ce dernier est de discuter des propositions politiques via Internet (liste de diffusion) ou en personne (lors de la réunion en face-à-face). Par conséquent, étant donné que le temps imparti aux discussions politiques pendant la réunion est limité, un consensus approximatif sur les propositions politiques sera déterminé pendant la réunion en tenant compte des contributions en ligne et sur place. Le consensus final sera décidé après examen des discussions durant la période du dernier appel ;

 

(f) que le droit attribué à sa communauté de contribuer aux discussions politiques, soit en s'inscrivant à la liste de diffusion rpd, soit en participant aux discussions de la prochaine Réunion de politiques publiques en s'inscrivant et en assistant à la réunion en ligne est sacro-saint et que l'AFRINIC renouvelle par la présente son engagement à continuer à donner plein effet aux principes d'élaboration des politiques comme stipulé dans la section 3.2 de la CPM ;

 

(g) Que, aux fins du paragraphe (e) ci-dessus, l'inscription à la liste de diffusion rpd d'AFRINIC est considérée comme une étape vers la participation au PDWG et AFRINIC s'engage à préserver ce droit afin qu'aucune personne qui s'est récemment inscrite à la liste de diffusion rpd ne soit exclue et/ou "privée" de sa participation au processus d'élaboration des politiques.

 

(h) Par souci de clarté, voici le nombre d'abonnement de janvier 2019 au 13 août 2020.

 

 

2019Nombres
Janvier3
Février8
Mars3
Avril9
Mai30
Juin53
Juillet8
Août11
Septembre3
Octobre4
Novembre11
December18
2020
Janvier1
Février 13
Mars7
Avril2
Mai5
Juin9
Juillet177
Août 13 12:50 UTC27
Nombre d'abonnements actuels986
 

 

Sur cette note, AFRINIC encourage le PDWG à accroître son engagement dans le processus d'élaboration des politiques à travers leur participation active, substantielle et constructive dans l'élaboration des politiques de ressources qui contribueront à aider AFRINIC dans sa mission de gestion des ressources numériques Internet pour la région africaine.

 

En outre, AFRINIC voudrait saisir cette occasion pour renouveler son invitation à la réunion de l'AIS'20 et recommander que la communauté suive toutes les procédures mises en place pour leur inscription en ligne à cet égard.

 

Eddy Kayihura

CEO

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