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

[Taiwo Oyewande]

Sent from my iPhone


> On 18 Nov 2020, at 07:31, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

> 

> 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]

> 

> 

> 

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