Hi Borg Knight,
At 23:13 18-01-10, Borg Knight wrote:
My concern here is this "...to create a policy development process
..." implies there is none in existence. I think it will be more
effective if the new proposal makes it explicitly clear that it is
trying to build and modify an existing policy. Sometimes, a
structure is so bad the only remedy is to tear it down and rebuild
it, but this is not one of those situations.
I see your point now. I'll change the first paragraph as follows:
The objective of this proposal is to define the principles on which the
policy development process in the AfriNIC service region are based and
its procedures. This proposal obsoletes the Policy Development Process
in the AfriNIC service region specified in AFPUB-2008-GEN-001.
I left in the "define" as there isn't any mention of the principles
in the existing policy.
And linking them to what specific parts of the existing policy are
being improved.
It is better to have a comprehensive document instead of having to
refer to two documents as there are significant changes in the
proposal. I'll quote parts of the two documents side by side so that
you can make a comparison. By the way, there are some differences in
the document I wrote and what has been posted on the AfriNIC website
as some of the section numbering is missing.
AFPUB-2008-GEN-001 - Section 2:
2.1. A PDP Moderator Group (MG) will be set-up to moderate and
coordinate the policy
development process and discussions. It will consist of three(3)
members of the
community. One AfriNIC staff will also be providing support to the MG
AFPUB-2009-GEN-001 - Section 4:
The Policy Development Working Group may have two or more Chairs
to perform the
administrative functions of the group.
AFPUB-2008-GEN-001 - Section 2:
Note: The three(3) Moderator Group (MG) members will be nominated
by the community
during a face-to-face (f2f) open public policy meeting for a
defined period.
The three (3) MG members shall be nominated for a 3-year term. The first for
1 year, the second for 2 years and the third for 3 years. AfriNIC
will nominate
one of it's staff members to the MG.
AFPUB-2009-GEN-001 - Section 4:
The Working Group Chairs will be chosen by the community during
the Public Policy
Meeting for a two-year term. The term ends during the first
Public Policy Meeting
meeting corresponding to the end of the term for which they were
appointed. At the
time this policy is adopted, one of the Working Group Chairs will
be appointed for a
one-year term.
According to a message posted to this mailing list on October 9, 2008
( https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/2008/000665.html ), three
persons were nominated to the AfriNIC PDP-MG. There hasn't been any
message posted to this mailing list about who are the members of the
MG and the terms they have been nominated for. One of the members of
the MG is nominated for a one-year term. There was a AfriNIC meeting
in November 2008. If the MG members were chosen then, it means that
there are currently two instead of three MG members.
This proposal defines when the term starts and when it ends. It is
meant to coincide with Public Policy Meetings for practice
purposes. A term can be slightly more than two calendar years but it
cannot be indefinite. The third paragraph of Section 4 takes into
account exceptional circumstances when the Working Group Chair is
unable to serve his or her full term.
AFPUB-2008-GEN-001 - Section 2.5:
2.5. After at least 30 days of discussions and comments on the
mailing list, the policy
is brought to the public open policy (face-to-face) meeting for a
final round of
discussions before the community endorses or rejects the policy
through consensus.
AFPUB-2009-GEN-001 - Section 5.1:
The draft policy shall be available for review for at least four
weeks. The author(s)
shall make the necessary changes to the draft policy according to
the feedback received
from the community. The Working Group Chair(s) may request
AfriNIC to provide an
analysis, technical, financial, legal or other, of the impact of
the draft policy.
Section 5.2 elaborates on the requirements for a draft policy to be
discussed at a Public Policy Meeting. It gives the community a
two-week notice about what is going to be discussed and ensures that
there are no last minute changes. That section also has a
requirement for the minutes of proceedings to be published. There is
no such requirement in the existing policy.
AFPUB-2008-GEN-001 - Section 2.7:
2.7. A 15-day last call for comments on the policy will be
announced on the policy
mailing list. During this 15-day period, comments agreed upon
during the open public
policy meeting will be incorporated into the policy.
AFPUB-2009-GEN-001 - Section 5.3:
A final review of the draft policy is initiated by the Working
Group Chair(s) by sending
an announcement to the Policy Development Process mailing list.
The Last Call period
shall be at least two weeks. The Working Group Chair(s) shall
evaluate the feedback
received during the Public Policy Meeting and during this period
and decide whether
consensus has been achieved.
The difference here is that feedback received during the Last Call is
also evaluated. Let's assume that you made these comments during a
Last Call. They do not have to be incorporated into the policy as
they were not agreed upon during a policy meeting.
AFPUB-2008-GEN-001 - Section 2.9:
2.9 The policy should be ratified by the BoT at the subsequent
Board Meeting and
implemented by the AfriNIC staff thereafter.
AFPUB-2009-GEN-001 - Section 5.4:
The Working Group Chair(s) shall recommend the draft policy to the
AfriNIC Board of
Directors for approval if it has the consensus of the Policy
Development Working Group.
The recommendation shall include a report of the discussions
during the Public Policy
Meeting and the Last Call. The AfriNIC Board of Directors may not
disapprove a draft
policy, but if it has concerns about a draft policy, it may refer
it back to the Policy
Development Working Group, together with an explanation, for further work.
Section 5.5 requires that the date of implementation should be
announced. The last sentence of Section 5.4 might be changed in a
future version as I don't know whether the community can tell the
AfriNIC Board of Directors what to do. The Board has legal responsibilities.
Quite clair enough. You mean instead of the entire community
discussing policy through the rpd mailing list, it will now be up to
the PDWG? .... that doesn't sound bottom up and open to me. ;-)
There is no such thing as the entire community discussing policy as
they are not subscribed to this mailing list. What we have here is a
subset of the community. The Policy Development Working Group
encompasses the people subscribed to this mailing list and the people
who attend the Public Policy Meeting.
There is a difference between anyone may participate and anyone will
participate. Based on the amount of participants discussing this
proposal, I may infer that it is either very boring or so bad that
people don't even want to discuss it. :-) Sometimes things are
bottom up and open in name only. Open doesn't necessarily result in
transparency. As for bottom up, we will soon see whether that works
as advertised. :-)
These are the specifics I like to see, and better still if you could
quote the relevant parts of the new proposal that addresses these weaknessis.
I mentioned a few sections from the proposal in this message. I gave
some examples of conflict resolution in my previous message. That is
addressed in Section 6.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
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