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Kofi and Al,<br>
<br>
Thank you for taking your time and adding your comments on this
policy.<br>
<br>
<br>
> 1. What are some of the specific challenges facing AfriNIC that
this policy seeks to address other than<br>
> the general problem of outdated POC NOT responding to
correspondences?<br>
> Is it challenges to communication of annual membership fees
renewal invoices?<br>
<br>
RH. I am not aware of any issue related to communication of annual
membership fees renewal invoices. I leave this to AfriNIC’s
operations.<br>
Everyone who has tried to contact a resource owner in the AfriNIC
Service Region for different reason will tell you how difficult it
is. As far as I am concerned, less than 1/4 is successful. We ended
up using “best effort” talking to friends and trusted contacts to
have access to the right person.<br>
FYI this issue has been reported since May 2007 at the AfriNIC-6
meeting in Abuja, mentioned in June 2008 by the Afrispam Working
group and reported at different meetings. We would like to give
AfriNIC the mandate to act on this issue and to hold someone
accountable.<br>
<br>
> 2. I will like to see "may" in all the clauses changed to
"shall" or "will" to leave no room for ambiguity or
misinterpretation. <br>
> In other words to be explicit as to action to be taken.<br>
<br>
RH. May, Shall, Will is indeed a challenge. Understood. Pending
more comment from the community in order to update.<br>
Note: Andrew has also made a point for .2.4 from “may publish” to
“will publish”<br>
<br>
>3. I believe policies when ratified are guidelines we all agree
to. Let us not leave anything to AfriNIC or staff of AfriNIC be it
"at their<br>
> discretion" or "internal process" where these may become
subjective to flaws and personal interpretation or double standards.
<br>
> What are the current methods of communication used to reach
members? E-mail? Phone call? SMS? Snail mail? Perhaps a policy in
this > direction to be referenced by all other communication
processes.<br>
<br>
RH. Thank you for this good point. There a few reasons for opening
the room to AfriNIC Staff to use any methods of communication:<br>
<br>
a. With the portal myAfriNIC we guess (but I am not AfriNIC Staff)
that it will be easier to write a script that reminds users at login
the need to update their information.<br>
Questions raised:<br>
*** are all the members using effectively myAfriNIC ?<br>
*** how often a member connect to myAfriNIC in a year time frame ?<br>
*** are the current contacts in myAfriNIC accurate ? (How many are
accurate ?).<br>
<br>
b. if we ask AfriNIC to use email knowing there are inaccurate
information. What are the chances to reach people ?<br>
<br>
c. if we ask AfriNIC to use phone calls, for trying unsuccessfully
to call few people to remove issues in their network, I am not sure
if this will work better and also it involves costs.<br>
<br>
d. Which methods of communication should we choose as efficient ?<br>
<br>
e. If we make it inflexible, could AfriNIC use a combination of
methods and/or other methods like 1:1 interaction with members
present at different meetings as an example ?<br>
<br>
We understand that a policy like this one, impacts business
operations and requires resources alignment. We don’t have the
numbers to make mandatory any suggestions about the communication
methods. Also we believe that AfriNIC's staff know their business
and we ask them to find innovative ways to engage members. <br>
<br>
In addition we may not want while trying to be too perfect to open
the door for further justification that the policy was not
applicable because the communication methods were not efficient. I
trust AfriNIC’s staff, BOD and Elders (the Group of 6) for choosing
the best communication methods and actions if this policy is
accepted. AfriNIC holds two meetings a year (May/June and Last week
of October), it is our understanding that the community will be
updated at least twice a year on this matter. <br>
<br>
> Let's endeavour to make standard Policies (thorough) that will
leave little decisions disguised as "AfriNIC staff discretion" or
"internal<br>
> process" that can make interpretation of the policies biased.<br>
<br>
RH. Agreed. Let's not be too rigid when it comes to business
operations. Let’s also be flexible and leave the room opened to
trust and innovation and avoid going back to the starting box
because we would have been too restrictive. AfriNIC is a young ORG
learning from its mistakes. <br>
<br>
Best Regards.<br>
<br>
Jean Robert.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/18/14, 9:29 AM, Kofi ansa akufo
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAOR+LwBoXkVgpHW0+U4D210BByc6XxUq=faCCDv2nryaHzp3DQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<p dir="ltr">Hello Seun and All</p>
<p dir="ltr">1. What are some of the specific challenges facing
AfriNIC that this policy seeks to address other than the general
problem of outdated POC NOT responding to correspondences?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Is it challenges to communication of annual
membership fees renewal invoices?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Is it challenges of no response to ABUSE request
information?</p>
<p dir="ltr">I believe the current specifics should be stated to
see how best the policy can be discussed / debated to tackle the
issues.</p>
<p dir="ltr">2. I will like to see "may" in all the clauses
changed to "shall" or "will" to leave no room for ambiguity or
misinterpretation. In other words to be explicit as to action to
be taken.</p>
<p dir="ltr">3. I believe policies when ratified are guidelines we
all agree to. Let us not leave anything to AfriNIC or staff of
AfriNIC be it "at their discretion" or "internal process" where
these may become subjective to flaws and personal interpretation
or double standards. What are the current methods of
communication used to reach members? E-mail? Phone call? SMS?
Snail mail? Perhaps a policy in this direction to be referenced
by all other communication processes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Again I site an example of a "90 day application
expiry" as a so called "internal process" which is contrary to
what is defined in RSA and staff of AfriNIC fail to communicate
to applicant. This the applicant had to threaten with legal
address before changes to decision was made recently.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Let's endeavour to make standard Policies (thorough)
that will leave little decisions disguised as "AfriNIC staff
discretion" or "internal process" that can make interpretation
of the policies biased.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Cheers</p>
<p dir="ltr">Kofi</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On May 18, 2014 3:57 PM, "Seun Ojedeji"
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:seun.ojedeji@gmail.com">seun.ojedeji@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Dear members,</p>
<p dir="ltr">We have received a new policy - "AfriNIC Whois
Database Update Process" (AFPUB-2014-GEN-001-DRAFT-01)<br>
</p>
<p dir="ltr">While this may not be on the agenda of the next
public policy meeting, we encourage the community to
discuss this on the list and at the upcoming face to face
meeting. Public url to the "draft" policy will soon be
made available. However the content is pasted below for
comments and discussion from the PDWG/community.</p>
<p dir="ltr">____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<br>
</p>
<p dir="ltr">Draft Policy name: AfriNIC Whois Database
Update Process<br>
Unique identifier: AFPUB-2014-GEN-001-DRAFT-01<br>
Status: New<br>
Submission Date 15 MAY 2014<br>
Author:Jean Robert Hountomey <br>
</p>
<br>
<div> 1.Summary of the Problem Being Addressed by this
Policy Proposal<br>
<br>
The African network infrastructure is growing with changes
and extensions. This growth has brought changes in
telecommunication and Internet infrastructure. With the
emergence of new operators, mergers and acquisitions, the
dynamism brought by the penetration of Internet technology
has required organizational changes with job rotation. The
need for accurate whois data has been in the news for
years all over the world.<br>
<br>
Inaccurate data is still present in the AfriNIC whois
database because changes have occurred in organizations
(point of contact, contact information etc.) and object
owners have not updated their records. The result is a “No
response” from “whois” contacts listed in the AfriNIC
Database.<br>
<br>
The goal of the proposal is setting a process towards
ensuring that AfriNIC whois database is updated. A
previous policy (AFPUB-2012-GEN-001-DRAFT-02 : AfriNIC
Whois Database Clean-up ) was withdrawn by the Author
after AfriNIC advised that there was already an internal
process to handle the cleanup of whois data and do general
contact update. However it has been noticed that objects
in AfriNIC database are not accurate.<br>
<br>
2. Summary of How this Proposal Addresses the Problem<br>
<br>
This proposal asks AfriNIC to maintain accuracy through a
periodical database clean up. Furthermore, at least <br>
once a year or at the renewal of resources, AFRINIC staff
should conduct a whois database information validation.<br>
<br>
3. The Proposal<br>
<br>
AfriNIC members are committed through the RSA to maintain
their data and keep it accurate. AfriNIC will then <br>
maintain accuracy of whois information through periodical
database clean up or update. AfriNIC will periodically ask
object <br>
owners in the Whois Database to actively check and update
the accuracy of data in AfriNIC whois database.<br>
<br>
3.1 Cleanup<br>
<br>
3.1.1 - General Database Cleanup: At the ratification of
this policy, AfriNIC staff will conduct a first cleanup by
asking all POC present except those who received their
objects in less than a year to confirm their POC
information. We leave to AfriNIC staff the discretion to
use any communication tool they find useful for this
action.<br>
<br>
3.1.2 - Annual Clean up: After the first cleanup, AfriNIC
will conduct a cleanup once a year. We leave to AfriNIC's
staff to define the period.<br>
<br>
3.1.3 - At the request of additional resources or
services, AfriNIC staff will ask the organization to
update its records.<br>
<br>
3.2. If a change is requested by another policy.<br>
<br>
In case another AfriNIC policy made mandatory a change or
introduce another object, the object owner is required to
make this update.<br>
<br>
3.2 Steps<br>
<br>
3.2.1 - AfriNIC staff will ask members to confirm accuracy
of their records in the Whois database in a month’s <br>
timeframe when contacted by email.<br>
<br>
3.2.2 - After one month, AfriNIC Staff will use any
communication tools at their discretion to contact <br>
those who have not answered or those whose email has
bounced back.<br>
<br>
3.2.3 - After another month of unresponsive response, the
record will be marked invalid.<br>
<br>
3.2.4 - AfriNIC may publish publicly a report about
number resources with invalid POC.<br>
<br>
3.2.5 - One year after the first contact initiation, if
the data is still not accurate and the organization has
failed to respond to the call to resolve the
data inconsistency, AfriNIC may
claim the number resources back.<br>
<br>
4. Situation within other RIRs<br>
<br>
- ARIN conducts an annual POC (point of contact)
validation process: <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.arin.net/resources/services/poc_validation.html"
target="_blank">https://www.arin.net/resources/services/poc_validation.html</a><br>
- At APNIC, there was a similar policy proposed that did
not reach consensus and was withdrawn by the author. <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.apnic.net/__data/assets/file/0006/22857/prop-084-v002.txt"
target="_blank">http://www.apnic.net/__data/assets/file/0006/22857/prop-084-v002.txt</a>
<br>
- RIPE NCC<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/support/clean-up-of-unreferenced-data"
target="_blank">http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/support/clean-up-of-unreferenced-data</a><br>
- LACNIC obligates the resources holders contractually
throught their RSA and reviews whois data when resources
are requested and updates accordingly<br>
<br>
<p style="text-align:justify"><b>History</b></p>
</div>
<ul style="text-align:justify">
<li>02 Oct. 2012 - AFPUB-2012-GEN-001-DRAFT-02 was
withdrawn by the Author.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify"><b>Previous Versions </b></p>
None<br>
<br clear="all">
Kind Regards,<br>
<br>
Seun Ojedeji, Emile Milandou<br>
PDWG Co-Chairs<br>
</div>
<br>
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