Re: [sig-nir] RE: [sig-policy] Regarding the no consensus decision ofPROP-028-v001

[Stephan Millet <stephan@telstra.net>]

Chanki,

> First, the decision making of chair.
> Before the decision was announced, there were internal debate among some of
> NIR members regarding the meaning of "substantial objection". Is
> 4:4:1(against: : for : conditional) opinions that were submitted during
> public comment period substantial objection? Some member asked for more
> time to have discussion on the validity of objections and discuss more if
> they were substantial objection. However, the chair ignored some members
> opinion and send final decision.(My feeling toward this action is the chair
> lost its neutral position and was pushing toward predetermined course.)
> Sending final announcement while debates were going on is definitely wrong.
> Specially without defining the meaning of "substantial objection" and
> without discussing if the objections raised were valid and substantial.
> (How can four objections out of 1,000 members be substantial?)
>

A few points about this: 
Firstly a well known doctrine of common law contracts "Silence is not 
acceptance", is this a contract ?? I will leave it to the lawyers to decide, 
however I do not believe you can justify that the "Silence" of the majority 
sits in anyone's favour.  They haven't spoken/objected, therefore they should 
be excluded from the count.
Okutani-san sent out an email request asking for who was for and against this 
proposal, if 9 parties replied, then it's the 9 we should be dealing with.

My next point is that people for the proposal don't cancel the objections 
raised by people against the proposal. I think there is a subtle difference 
between a "vote" and "consensus". If this were a vote, then I may agree with 
you, however _my_ interpretation of consensus is "appease the objectors". 
e.g. The policy needs to be worked, such that we all agree with it. 
We, as a group of objectors, have been forth coming in proposing what we would 
like to see changed in order for this proposal to gain consensus. To date we 
haven't seen anything. I hope that come APNIC21 this will have changed.


> Second, the decision of chair.
> The decision of chair contain technical error. Like I mentioned earlier,
> the chair only observed public comment period and concluded that "There is
> no clear general consensus for the proposal." The chair totally ignored
> previous consensus among NIR SIG and the meeting result of AMM. If the
> chair is to make the final call, she should have taken whole process into
> consideration as well as public comment period. She didn't, and the result
> was totally opposite.

I disagree with your point here, I believe that if the party running with the 
proposal can't address the objections being made, then the only viable option 
left is to withdraw the proposal, as Okutani-san did, be that the individual 
themselves or the SIG chair championing the proposal. If you are not prepared 
to address the objections being raised then there are very few options left 
other than withdrawing the proposal. 

Regards

Stephan Millet