[rpd] REQUEST TO RECALL THE AFRINIC PDWG CO-CHAIRS

[Owen DeLong]

Speaking strictly as myself, not representing any organization or company:

I couldn’t agree more. This recall petition is entirely specious and without merit.

As to the supposed reasons and evidence supporting the removal of the co-chairs, the following problems exist with the PDF provided to the community (this may not be a comprehensive list, but it certainly covers enough to indicate that the PDF is not a basis for removal of the co-chairs):

A:	There is nothing prohibiting the recruitment of people to participate in AfriNIC, in fact
	it is encouraged.

	I fail to understand what bearing the resignation of the co-chair and failure to elect a
	co-chair in Dakar has on the legitimacy of the current chairs. Indeed, the supposed
	controversial election refers to Kampala which really only applies to one of the two
	current serving co-chairs as the other was recently re-elected in the AfriNIC virtual
	meeting.

	While I agree that singing a national anthem of one of the co-chairs in celebration of
	the election result is a bit uncouth, I see no relevance here. It occurred after the
	election was over and therefore could not have altered the outcome of the election.

	The “protests” were the sour grapes of a small (but vocal) minority of the community.

	As to “Finding 1”, this is outside of the control of the co-chairs that were elected
	in Kampala and thus has no bearing on the discussion here.

	As such, I submit that section A is wholly without merit and is a blatant attempt to
	malign the current co-chairs without substance.

B:	Paragraph 1 is nearly impossible to parse, but if I understand the authors’ intended
	meaning, they are claiming that the co-chairs were somehow taken to a hotel for
	some form of improper ex-parte communication. Further, they appear to be claiming that
	they asked the board to investigate this allegation, but the board didn’t do so and
	they therefor have no evidence to support this claim.

	There is so much wrong with this that it is difficult to dignify it with a response,
	nonetheless, I will do so here. First, merely taking the co-chairs to a hotel hardly
	seems like a nefarious act. I, myself have been known to enjoy a meal or a drink or two
	with co-chairs of various RIRs. Surely the co-chairs are not denied a social life merely
	because of their position.

	There is no evidence that any sort of undue influence was exerted through any ex-parte
	communication that may have occurred during this alleged outing as indicated by the
	authors’ own words “The board did not act as nothing was reported back.”

	Paragraph 2 I reviewed the video referenced.

	I did not see evidence of bias. I did not see evidence of incapability or incompetence.

	I saw a good faith effort to be courteous and collegial with the authors of two competing
	policies and an effort to see if the authors were willing to work together to consolidate
	their policies. I saw a lack of cooperation by the both policy authors which the chairs
	attempted to navigate.

	I will admit that the chairs may have pushed a little harder than I think was appropriate
	towards encouraging the authors to work together, but that’s a difficult judgment call
	in the circumstance and it’s quite clear that the chairs stopped well short of the point
	of overcoming any intransigence by the authors. As such, I see no harm to the PDP in their
	conduct.

	While I don’t agree with all of the decisions made by the co-chairs, especially the AS0
	ROA proposal, as I stated on the list at the time, I recognize the legitimacy of their
	decision and the fact that people of good conscience can view the same set of facts and/or
	the same issues differently. The default position should be no consensus. A co-chair that
	is not confident that there is strong community consensus for a proposal should absolutely
	declare no-consensus and that is exactly what happened here. No consensus is not fatal or
	even really harmful to a proposal. It just means that the authors need to continue their
	efforts to build consensus among the community either through further discussion on the
	mailing list or by modifying the proposal to address the objections. In some cases, it may
	be that a proposal simply isn’t something the community wants. I don’t think that applies
	to AS0 ROAs, but in such a case, the rejection of the proposal is a perfectly valid outcome.

	I believe the failure of the AfriNIC community to include a mechanism for the community to
	express that a proposal should not be recycled or further discussed because it is simply
	not wanted by the community is one of the biggest problems in the AfriNIC PDP. That failure
	is the main reason that proposals like Resource Review plagued the community for so long.

	The authors of this so-called recall petition admit that their appeal of the co-chairs
	decision was unsuccessful because they failed to file a properly formed appeal, yet they
	mention this as if it is somehow an indictment of the co-chairs.

	Time spent discussing proposals is not wasted, even if the proposals aren’t advanced.
	Such a claim is contrary to the spirit and intent of the PDP and the values of the RIR
	system. From what I saw, the major obstacle to the resolution of objections was more about
	the intransigence of the authors than anything under the control of the co-chairs.
	Notably, the group filing this petition contains many of the most intransigent proposal
	authors in the region.

	While I do not believe it appropriate for co-chairs to tell someone to “retire” or “go away”,
	and as such won’t defend the general tone of either of the messages referenced, I think they
	stopped short of such an outright suggestion as the text in the PDF would indicate. I also
	think that the repeated attacks on the co-chairs by a vocal minority including (perhaps even
	led by) the so-called “senior members of the community” in question leading up to it makes the
	somewhat visceral response understandable, though still not ideal. Taking the messages out of
	context is disingenuous at best.

	Finding 2 is utterly specious. The co-chairs are gaining experience with the PDP and WG
	procedures and I see no evidence that they’ve done any worse running the WG than many of
	their far less controversial predecessors. If their supposed “lack of neutrality” rises
	only to the level of “suspicion” and you cannot present actual evidence or even a solid
	claim that it exists in fact, then that is hardly a basis for removal. You’ve shown
	no evidence that bias exists and therefor no basis for your claim that said bias impacted
	the meeting. I fail to see how the concerns of some or the fears of others are relevant
	here. We should be seeking facts and evidence regarding any suspected wrongdoing, not
	concerns and fears.

C:	Was there more that the co-chairs could have done in the time before AfriNIC-32? Almost
	certainly yes. OTOH, nearly everyone has dropped some balls in one way or another during
	that time. The world was on tilt most of that time period as a result of a virus which
	is still running rampant in many parts of the world. Many of us have lost friends and/or
	loved ones and almost all of us at least know someone who has lost a friend or a loved one.
	There is nobody who can say they remain untouched by this current circumstance and to
	expect perfect execution of even the most experienced and capable of co-chairs would be
	an unreasonable request under the circumstances.

	The PDF authors present no evidence to support their claim that the co-chairs had selected
	a particular proposal to push forward and their supposed reference to some form of demonstration
	at AfriNIC-31 is without foundation or evidence.

	Their further claim (1) that the co-chairs did nothing is also presented without evidence.
	The email cited is a message from Eddy describing the plan of record. It provides no information
	about any action or inaction in the preceding process by the co-chairs.

	Claim (2) that staff took the lead ignores any interactions which may have occurred
	off list between the co-chairs, staff, and/or the board regarding coordination and
	planning for the possibility of a virtual AfriNIC meeting possibly including a PDWG
	meeting. The larger questions of the AfriNIC meeting were out of scope for the co-chairs
	and expecting them to solve the PDWG meeting questions prior to obtaining answers from
	staff regarding the questions around the larger meeting (which are the questions authors
	refer to when claiming staff took the lead) is absurd.

	Regarding claim (3), the incumbent co-chair is not responsible for the behavior of other
	candidates and any such expectation that the co-chair would perform his/her duties in a
	manner more to the liking of the authors or candidates in question would be inappropriate
	in the extreme. So far, I have seen little evidence of poor or improper performance of
	their duties by the co-chairs in question. Certainly nothing that rises to the level of
	any legitimacy for an attempt to remove them from office. Neither of the emails cited
	indicates any sort of expected change in behavior by the co-chairs.

	Claim (4) that the decisions made by the co-chairs at AfriNIC-32 were “all rejected and
	appealed” is interesting to note that all of those appeals were submitted by a single
	proposal author. Further, since the Appeals committee has given themselves until
	February 18, 2021 to conclude and publish the last appeal result and has not provided
	any conclusions as yet (In fact, one of the dates suggested for publication was
	December 22, 2021, but I suspect that’s a typo for December 22, 2020), it’s really
	hard to know whether these appeals are simply a concerted effort by a vocal minority
	to discredit the co-chairs or whether they have actual merit. As such, using this fact
	as a basis for removal of the co-chairs is premature at best and potentially manipulative
	and dishonest at worst.

	Claim (5) is not supported by the email referenced (or authors need to be more specific
	about where in the email they see evidence supporting their claim as I do not see it
	in reviewing that email). The video shows a co-chair struggling a bit with language, but
	overall delivering a concise and well reasoned description of the situation with each
	policy and reasonable determinations of consensus or not based on the record available.
	Disagreeing with the co-chairs judgment of consensus alone is not justification for a
	recall. Each issue that I heard the co-chair mentioned was an issue that had been brought
	up in the discussion either in person or on the mailing list. Poor memory on the part of
	the PDF authors should not be grounds for removal of a co-chair.

	Claim (6) mostly reiterates claim (4) and offers nothing novel or useful to the record.

	Claim (7) does not provide sufficient information and should be clarified by the PDF authors
	prior to being evaluated for merit (or lack there of).

	Claim (8) is not accurate. The amendments proposed by the co-chairs had been previously
	requested by multiple members of the community and directly addressed objections raised
	by the community. The co-chairs asked the proposal authors if they were amenable to the
	amendments requested in order to achieve consensus and authors agreed. There is little
	actual and no effective difference between this and the co-chairs determining
	non-consensus based on the objections rectified by the amendments followed by authors
	making the amendments in question, followed by a determination of consensus (which is
	entirely within the PDP). It is interesting that the authors of this accusatory PDF
	argue on one hand that co-chairs wasted time by not moving things forward and then here
	complain that authors made efficient use of time by getting author consent for amendments
	requested by the community and declaring consensus on the proposal with those amendments.

	Claim (9) This appears to be a generally factual claim, but I’m not sure how it is relevant
	as a claim of malfeasance or incompetence on the part of the co-chairs.

	Claim (10) lacks foundation or evidence. I’m not sure how "objections forcing the authors
	to make a lot of substantial changes” is in violation of the PDP… It’s my belief that the
	PDP is intended to allow the community to insist upon needed changes in a proposal throughout
	the process.

	Claim (11) also lacks foundation or evidence. If there is a basis to a claim that the
	so-called editorial changes were not, in fact, editorial in nature, then that basis
	should be explained in the document and supporting evidence should be provided. The
	mere filing of an appeal (or even two appeals) is proof of nothing other than the
	fact that someone didn’t like the outcome.

	Claim (12) It’s unclear what “submission” to whom is expected in Claim (12), nor do I see
	anything in the PDP that requires the co-chairs to await the decision of the appeal
	committee prior to defending their decisions to the community. One one hand, PDF authors
	are claiming that the co-chairs ignore community input and on the other they are now
	complaining that the co-chairs decided to solicit additional community feedback given
	the apparent controversy over their decision. It’s unclear to me which provisions of
	the PDP this is alleged to violate and authors make no citations of the relevant PDP
	sections to which they vaguely refer in the phrase “more violations of the PDP”.
	Further, co-chairs are elected to implement and manage the PDP. They are not responsible
	for defending the PDP (nor do I believe that the PDP is under attack except possibly by
	the proposal to modify it which did not achieve consensus). In fact, defending the
	PDP against that proposal would be a violation of the PDP in my opinion, so once again,
	authors of the PDF have erred.

	Because virtually the entire basis for Finding 3 is refuted above, it is also my considered
	opinion that Finding 3 is entirely specious and without merit. There is no evidence presented
	that the co-chairs violated the PDP, nor is there any indication that they made “unilateral”
	decisions inconsistent with the record of community input. They have not demonstrated a lack
	of fairness. The question of neutrality is subjective at best and there’s no clear evidence
	of bias presented. The policy preferences expressed by the co-chairs are consistent with the
	community feedback received in the record overall and do not provide any clear indication
	of bias. Yes, they are contrary to the opinions of the PDF authors, but so is much of the
	feedback received from the community on a variety of issues.

Conclusion:

	The vast majority of the claims made in this document are entirely specious and without
	merit. I hope that the board will dismiss this action as the frivolous and baseless
	attack on the PDP that it represents and I hope that we can all move forward on a more
	collegial basis. I hope that the PDF authors will stop using Donald Trump as a role model
	and recognize that bullying is ultimately a losing strategy.

Owen

	
> On Nov 17, 2020, at 1:54 PM, Ekaterina Kalugina <kay.k.prof at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear community,
> 
> It is my firm belief that the current request to recall the co-chairs is not only incredibly unfounded, biased and generally done in bad faith but is, in fact, in violation of some of the basic values AFRINIC stands for.

[snip]