Let's use this list to discuss policy and issues and leave personal attacks where they should be - in the gutter.

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 1:46 AM, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:

but i'll leave the ad homina to experts such as you and owen and try to
get back to issues. someone too shy to post here suggested i shill for
them. i think their points are worth it. reasonable public resource
governance practice would include at least the following:
- term limits for board and committee positions (maybe 2-4 years?)

I think this is a fine idea. I've just finished my final term on the board of .nz due to limits to the number of terms allowed. It's common practice and it's there for a reason. For example, see US president rules.

- ten year employment caps on executive staff

I think again that some limit to the length of appointments to these senior roles is worth considering.

- members decide bylaws and budgets

Again I'd like to see this considered. APNIC is a membership organisation and it's direction should be able to be shaped directly by its members.

and as i suggested to arin, a gov/ops review consultation consisting of
folk with some stature in these areas, and not having any members from
board or staff.

and again, i am not speaking just to apnic, but all rirs.

I'm going to stay away from the issues of the other RIRs. If we do some good/useful things they may want to consider copying them.

I said I think that the policy process needs changed. Paul Wilson responded to that saying we still need a policy process and if the policy issues dry up we might come back to something like prop-103. I don't think it's as simple as that. We have a policy process that is disconnected from the membership and isn't working. A large percentage of those answering the member survey said they weren't interested.

So the challenge I put to you is that two former Chairs of the Policy SIG (Randy and me) think the process needs radically changed and I read Gaurab saying in the meeting:

"I am an ex-Policy SIG Chair. Listening to this discussion, I have a feeling that right now we don't have enough policies to discuss, that's why we are trying to create policies that are very fine in line, and then going and starting to discuss them. Even the proposal is not so sure whether it is right or not right, and it is like open-ended questions much that's why, as I said, you are going to have a really difficult time."

And I think this fits with my assertion in my original mail that the Policy SIG face to face meeting is used to justify a day's worth of agenda at the APNIC meeting. And watching the video of the day I see very little to change that view.

The conference report for APNIC38 (https://conference.apnic.net/38/report) lists:

Total number of on-site delegates:	214*
Economies represented:	33
APNIC Member organizations represented:	42
AMM delegates:	87
Remote Participants:
Adobe Connect:	179**

This means that potentially there were 214 on site delegates and 179 Adobe Connect participants who could have attended the Policy SIG open member meeting. In my experience as Chair I'd say that is highly, highly unlikely. Looking at the video (with 34 views on youtube) of the discussion of prop-111, I'd estimate about 30-40 people apart from RIR staff. And I've never seen more than a handful of remote participants in recent meetings.

And this ties with my experience of previous recent meetings where I've asked myself the question about whether such a small group of people can claim to make policy on behalf of APNIC's 4444 members (http://www.apnic.net/about-APNIC/organization/structure/members).

APNIC has been in existence for twenty years in some shape or form. The current policy process has been there more or less unchanged for ten years. A review of both areas would not be out of place given that much of the way APNIC works has evolved gradually.