[rpd] Report from Recall Committee

[JORDI PALET MARTINEZ]

Hi Marcus,

 

There is a substantial difference between ARIN and the other RIRs, for historical reasons.

 

In “short”, even at risk of misleading anyone, ARIN PDP is a “gift” from the membership to the community, and with that gift, they decided to keep the elections for their membership.

 

The other RIRs, and specially the last ones (LACNIC and AFRINIC), can’t do that because they are bound to the term of their constitution under ICANN ICP-2, which enforces to keep the open bottom-up consensus process.

 

That means that in order to restrict the voting to the membership, the community will need to *decide that* as a policy proposal that reach consensus and it is ratified, and a single voice against that from the community, will count in that situation as a valid objection, sufficient to avoid the consensus.

 

Also, the APNIC comparison is broken in many details:
There are flaws and violations of the process in APNIC PDP. On-going discussion.
LACNIC. It is key to mention that *most* of the chairs that LACNIC has got across the history, weren’t members. I think the requirement to nominate anyone but with the support of a member is a good sanity check. It allows that “unknown” community members are nominated, so somehow, they have someone that shows they are really involved in the operation of networks, etc. There is also a proposal to change the process. It has been already clearly recognized in that proposal discussions, that the electors must have been in the list for at least 6 months, even if the proposal has not yet reached consensus (there have been no objections to that, as I can recall).
RIPE, not RIPE NCC! RIPE NCC is the organization, NOT related at all to the PDP! The PDP is handled only by the community. There are many WGs. All them can make policies, following the same PDP. Addressing is a minor part. We have WG for routing, DNS, database, services, IPv6, IoT, etc. Most of the time, the same co-chairs have been re-elected, not offering opportunity to new people and the chairs don’t have a term. Even worst, each WG has a different election system, really crazy!. All this is precisely an open discussion right now.
AFRINIC: Even this summary is incorrect, because the PDP doesn’t state most of the things mention here …
 

Please don’t confuse consensus wich “lack of candidates”, such as it happens in RIPE NCC, or it happened last time in AFRINIC, because the candidates step-down in favor of a single one. I pushed for that, which I regret now.

 

Regards,

Jordi

@jordipalet

 

 

 

El 15/2/21 14:05, "Marcus K. G. Adomey" <madomey at hotmail.com> escribió:

 

Hi Owen,

 

You wrote (in italics)

 

Yes, and I’m quite certain numerous people, including John Curran himself could verify that I have long sought to change that fact and open the election of the AC to the broader community. I do not hold ARIN up as an example of perfection. It is a well functioning RIR with a vibrant and active community and a generally well functioning and collegial policy development process and community, but that does not mean that I necessarily agree with everything or feel that everything there is an ideal way to function. 

 

Are you arguing that because I come from a region where the election of the leadership is flawed in the way you propose that I’m somehow expected to think that AFRINIC should embrace the same flawed process?

 

 

 

The current AC election mechanism is flawed according to you and I am sure there are others with different opinion on this. It has not been changed so far, does not prevent ARIN  from being a well functioning RIR as you described. 

 

You have not succeeded in convincing the ARIN community to change the AC election process, but you lived with it and accepted to be elected by this flawed process to serve as AC member.

 

There is no perfect solution and each region is supposed to adopt what suits the best its context and obligation as RIR and adapt as it goes.

 

As you can see from this comparison 

 

https://www.apnic.net/community/participate/sigs/sig-guidelines/chair-elections/rir-comparison-table/

RIR Comparison Table – APNIC
ARIN Advisory Council. Documentation (NOTE: The ARIN AC is a substantially different body than the SIG/WG Chairs in other regions.); Term: The 15 members of the ARIN AC serve three-year terms. Nomination: A NomCom of seven representatives guides the nomination process.
www.apnic.net
 

 

 

 ⁃ One RIR elects AC members by general membership

 ⁃ One RIR appoints co-chairs by consensus 

 ⁃ One RIR selects cochairs by voting of the policy working group and approves the election results via consensus and if failed to reach consensus, fallback to board...

 

What I am suggesting is that you give chance for this region to adopt something which has not created a drama at ARIN and is considered as possible solution to a recurrent problem this region is having.

 

 

 

Marcus

 

 

 

 

From: Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2021 9:56 PM
To: Marcus K. G. Adomey <madomey at hotmail.com>
Cc: rpd at afrinic.net <rpd at afrinic.net>; Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Report from Recall Committee 

 

 



On Feb 12, 2021, at 11:22 AM, Marcus K. G. Adomey <madomey at hotmail.com> wrote:

 

Owen, 

 

For some reason, you got me wrong…. see below Bold and Italics 

 

From: Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2021 11:37 AM
To: Marcus K. G. Adomey <madomey at hotmail.com>
Cc: rpd at afrinic.net <rpd at afrinic.net>; Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Report from Recall Committee 

 

 



On Feb 11, 2021, at 03:20 , Marcus K. G. Adomey <madomey at hotmail.com> wrote:

 

Dear PDWG, 

The Co-chairs appointment mechanism was by show of hands of those attending the face to face  meeting where the elections were held  until this got abused by filling the room with fake participants for the sake of voting. 

Using the rpd list as a voter register was never an option since the mailing list is open to anyone to participate in policy discussions and decisions are made by consensus. 

 

The room is supposed to be open to anyone as well, Marcus, so I don’t see how that’s different.

 

 

The PDP is fully open for anyone to participate in both Online discussion and face to face. 

 

Filling the room with people for just the sake of voting made the appointment of cochairs by voting at the face as face infeasible, as well as with RPD list.

 

Apparently not. We succeeded at electing co-chairs in Senegal despite this behavior.

 

While there were multiple accusations in the opposite direction claiming that happened in Uganda, nobody

has presented any hard evidence, so those are questionable at best. Despite this, we still managed to elect

co-chairs there.

 

We also managed to elect co-chairs on-line.

 

So history suggests that your statement above is not accurate.

 

 

The Co-chair role is just a voluntary administrative role which requires a certain level of experience and most importantly acceptance by the working group. 

 

And?

 

What is needed here is simply a volunteer with the adequate experience known and accepted by the WG to take on this administrative role. 

 

This should not be too hard to address. We are not the first or the only one appointing WG chair in the world.

 

PDWG has been appointing cochairs since the inception of AFRINIC We face a certain evolution of things and must respond to.

 

Not disagreeing with you, just not understanding how this is relevant or what evolution you are referring to.

 

We simply need to proceed with the election of co-chairs, ideally by first coming to consensus around a process for a free and fair election

that is acceptable to all parties.

 

If you are worried about stacking the room, then as others have suggested, those subscribed to the mailing list prior to the previous election

is a perfectly fine mechanism to prevent room stacking… You cannot retroactively subscribe to the list prior to that date in order to manipulate

the election.

 

Please let us discourage this notion of “everything must be elections and voting” and give a chance to appointment of cochair by acclamation or consensus. 

 

Marcus, a show of hands in the room is not acclamation or consensus, it is a vote.

 

Please read me again. I said let stop this " everything by elections and voting" and give chance to consensus and acclamation

 

In different words, please stop "show of hands in the room" and "voting with RPD as voter register.”

 

If you think that the community would support such a change, then the way to do so is by amending the CPM to call for co-chair election

by acclamation or consensus. I will point out that the chairs that were just recalled were re-elected by acclamation/consensus in the

last election, as the opposition dropped out of the race and there was no call for a vote of no-confidence or for alternative candidates

from the community.

 

Currently, the CPM calls for an election and we should follow that rule until such time as it is amended by the will of the community.

 

Certainly, we should not be choosing this time of crises as an opportunity to make up the rules as we go along. Now more than ever is a time

to stick to the remaining structure of the institution to protect the rights of community members and minimize confusion and suspicion.

 

If by miracle consensus can’t be reached on a candidate to serve, we defer to the membership to vote and select co-chair. 

 

It is not a miracle if we cannot reach consensus. It is an unfortunate fact of where we are today.

 

If by membership, you mean the membership of the PDWG, then a vote is exactly what most people are proposing.

 

There is no membership defined for the PDWG and once again, there are better approach than the PDWG voting…

 

If you think that’s true, then submit a proposal to amend the CPM in that direction and let’s see if the community agrees with you.

 

Until that time, the rules don’t align with what you are asking for here.

 

If you think we need a defined membership of the PDWG, then again, I say put forth an amendment to the CPM to accomplish that goal

and let’s see if the community supports it.



If by membership you mean (as you state below) AfriNIC membership, then no… That’s not an acceptable alternative because…

 

 

You have the right to disagree…

 

I’m not the only one who disagrees with you on this… The CPM disagrees with you and that is the rules by which this body is supposed

to operate. We just recalled two co-chairs allegedly in part because of their failure to follow the PDP as defined in the CPM and

now as a result your suggestion is to diverge further from the defined processes and policies to make up new rules for how we

appoint co-chairs? I think that’s not only a bad idea, it’s an act of mob rule instead of an orderly transition.



Either through registered members ( the board ) or resources members or  by the full membership. 

 

Membership in AfriNIC is open to those that have resources, those that are elected to the board, and those that pay some significant annual fee.

 

Membership in the PDWG is open to all who have an interest in participating.

 

The PDP calls for the co-chairs to be selected by the PDWG, not the AfriNIC membership and there is good reason for this.

 

 

Oh yes. as there many good reasons for why the PDP does not prescribe or prohibit a selection mechanism. 

 

So the WG may decide to defer the selection to any other bodies including the AFRINIC membership, which a key stakeholder in AFRINIC Community.

 

PS: Actually the PDP calls for the co-chairs to be selected by AFRINIC community.

 

Yes… The AFRINIC community. How would you define the AFRINIC community to have a more expansive scope than the PDWG? What definition would you apply here?

 

Or is it your intent to claim that there are members of the PDWG who are not members of the AFRINIC community and should be disenfranchised from the election of the co-chairs of the committee?

 

My argument would be that the PDWG and AFRINIC community are nearly synonymous, but that by definition, the AFRINIC community is most certainly a superset of the PDWG participants.

 

Are not ARIN AC members elected by ARIN general membership?

 

Yes, and I’m quite certain numerous people, including John Curran himself could verify that I have long sought to change that fact and open the election of the AC to the broader community. I do not hold ARIN up as an example of perfection. It is a well functioning RIR with a vibrant and active community and a generally well functioning and collegial policy development process and community, but that does not mean that I necessarily agree with everything or feel that everything there is an ideal way to function.

 

Are you arguing that because I come from a region where the election of the leadership is flawed in the way you propose that I’m somehow expected to think that AFRINIC should embrace the same flawed process?

 

Please do not disenfranchise so much of the community so arbitrarily.

 

Owen 

 

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