Dear colleagues
Please note that a proposal to change the APNIC SIG Guidelines will be
discussed at APNIC 36 in Xi'an, China on 20 - 30 August 2013.
The proposal will be presented to the NIR SIG and Policy SIG for
community input and support. If agreed, the new document will be
circulated for an Editorial Draft comment period following APNIC 36.
Please find the proposal text below.
The current SIG Guidelines are available here:
http://www.apnic.net/community/sigs/sig-guidelines
We encourage you to express your views regarding the proposed changes on
the mailing list or at the SIG meetings.
Kind regards,
APNIC Secretariat
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Process for hibernating and reanimating a SIG
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Proposers: Izumi Okutani izumi@nic.ad.jp
Dean Pemberton dean@internetnz.net.nz
1. Problem statement*
--------------------
One of the major functions of the SIGs is to discuss policy proposals or
issues relevant to the charter of the SIG.
On the other hand, the need for proposals or discussions on a certain
SIG topic can change over time. If a SIG does not have proposals over a
certain period of time, it may be a good indication that the SIG topic
no longer has the requirement for discussion under the current SIG
format.
Today, the NIR SIG has not had proposals over the past five years. Its
contents has been focused on activity updates by NIRs and APNIC. Having
to follow the SIG Guidelines requires additional formatilities which are
not required due to the lack of proposals. Situation in Policy SIG may
also change after the exhaustion of IPv4 address space and it is worth
pre-defining how the session should be handled when there are no
propposals for a number of consequetive sessions.
Continuing to organize a SIG in such circumstances and requiring it to
follow the SIG Guidelines may not fit with the reality and the contents
of the session. It restricts the flexibility in the way the session
could be organized to match with the needs of its participants, and does
not allow an opportunity for the participants to review whether
continuation of the sessions under such SIG topic is necessary.
However, there is currently no process which defines how the SIG should
be handled when a particular SIG do not have proposals over a certain
period of time.
2. Objective of policy change
-----------------------------
This proposal intends to define how a SIG should be handled when there
are no longer proposals submitted to the SIG over a certain period of
time.
It also recognizes the need for the community to continue exchanging
information on a particular topic even not under a SIG format, or to
ensure a mechanism to re-activate the SIG as necessary, and defines such
process.
3. Proposed policy solution
---------------------------
Describe the following process in the SIG Guidelines document.
Putting a SIG into hibernation:
* One of the major function of the SIG is to call for proposals to
discuss and make consensus decisions. If there are no proposals
submitted to the SIG for three consecutive SIG sessions, the
SIG can be put to sleep.
* The SIG Chair/Co-Chairs will notify the community to put a SIG into
hibernation at the following SIG session and the SIG community will
have an option to select:
a. Put the SIG into hibernation and continue to hold the session in a
different format to facilitate information exchange.
If option a) is adopted, sessions will continue to be organized
under the SIG topic in future APNIC meetings, although it will not
be under the SIG format. The dedicated mailing list will continue
to be provided.
b. No longer hold the SIG session and hibernate the SIG without
dissolving the SIG.
This option could be considered only when there are signs that a
SIG may have outlived its purpose as described in 2.2 Dissolving a
SIG in the SIG Guideline document.
Instead of dissolving the SIG, the community members have an option
of putting the SIG into hibernation. This will allow the SIG to be
re-animated as necessary instead of going through the process of
creating a SIG from scratch.
Re-animating a hibernating SIG:
* If a proposal is posted to the SIG to discuss and seek consensus
from the community, the SIG will be re-animated, without any formal
approval from the community, to facilitate the discussion.
The same criteria as today will apply to judge the relevance of the
topic to the SIG.i.e.,the topic must be consistent with the charter
of the SIG.
* The hibernating SIG Chair/Co-Chair will make the decision to accept or
decline a proposal to the SIG.
If a proposal is accepted, the hibernating SIG Chair/Co-Chair will be
responsible to re-activate the SIG to facilitate the discussions.
If the hibernating SIG Chair/Co-Chair position expired at the time of
putting the SIG to sleep, Secretariat will follow the SIG guidelines
to elect Chair/Co-Chair.
4. Advantages / Disadvantages
-----------------------------
Advantages:
It allows the community the ability to organize or not organize a SIG
session which reflects the realities of the contents and the needs of
the community:
- For a topic which the community member no longer feels there is a need
to have discussions or share information, it allows the community to
stop organizing the session, and focus discussions on on other topics
which are more relevant to the community.
- If the needs are confirmed to continue the session under a particular
topic in a non-SIG format, it allows more flexibilities in the format
of the session, to reflects the needs of its participants.
Disadvantages:
No serious disadvantages have been identified at this time.
Some community members may feel the need to have a mechanism or a forum
to discuss about a paticular SIG topic, even if there are no proposals
to be discussed.
- However, this proposal allows such discussions by giving community a
choice to continue the session under the same topic.
- In addition, re-activation process is defined to be minimul so that a
SIG can be re-activated easily.
5. Impact on APNIC
------------------
There is no impact on for resource holders in the APNIC region.
There is no direct impact for members of the APNIC community.
- APNIC community members can continue to submit proposals to relevant
SIGs as necesary. Any hibernating SIG will then be re-activated.
- If the community feels the need to continue exchanging information on
a topic of a hibernating SIG, it still allows the sessions to be
organized under a non-SIG format.
References
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SIG Guidelines
http://www.apnic.net/community/sigs/sig-guidelines
