All, I think this is the most appropriate and concluding answer for this thread by James. Members appoint and empower EC. EC decides what is right and what is not. If members are not happy with the EC, just don't vote for them and re-elect other EC's... its just that simple! Let EC (Board of Directors as-in Private company) run the show. Have respect for them and trust them to do a good job, after all, it is still an unpaid job. Beyond this, if still members want "*ANY*" change in the Policy or Procedure or Methodology, alright, make a proposal, post it and get voting to have the proposal implemented... it could be about Election, Representation, Tenure, Travel budget, etc etc etc Greetings, Kusumba S On 21-07-2010 09:35, James Spenceley wrote: All, I've kept quite while watching this debate and would now like to offer some personal comments and some comments with my EC hat on. On 18/07/2010, at 9:38 PM, Skeeve Stevens wrote:This debate does sound like it is turning into a yelling match, but proportional representation is an important issue for people in many nations and cultures.... some that have had to fight for it a lot harder than we've had to in Australia.We had a BoF on member voting at APNIC28, the issue of proportional voting was raised, there wasn't a lot of interest in the discussion and as a result a mailing list to take the matter further was never created. In the current circumstances [EC hat on] I have suggested that we find time to have a member voting BoF at APNIC30 and we can discuss this issue and take any appropriate steps from that meeting.I personally think the election process is a bit of a joke - it doesn't need to be so complicated. The whole preference swapping thing is just overcomplicated and smells of backroom deals.MMC has suggested that this whole current topic is simply backroom dealing and politics because of voting results. I think you are confusing voting system and general politics. There will always be general politics lets not blame the function of the system we use to put pen to paper. The EC has appointed an Election Review panel, lets see what they recommend.There are some issues that need to be dealt with here.... and some that won't go away easily without others going away first. The 5 year term for DG... I think perhaps 7... whatever the limit is... there should be one.Lets be very careful here My personal opinion is that in the commercial world this would be a complete disaster. No organisation want to limit the amount of time that a performing executive has in his job. The loss of Interlectual Property and disruption to the organisation would have your shareholders very angry. Now in a membership organisation, are the outcomes very different ? The DG position encompasses an incredible amount of work (which previous to being on the EC I hadn't full understood), the DG must be an expert on Internet Routing, Internet Addressing, Address Policy, Historical Policy and routing, the IETF, Internet Governance, (now) the ITU, he must understand our membership organisation, the NRO and (now) ICANN and the APNIC history (long and complicated), he must understand the cultures of the member countries, the governments of many of those members, he must know and have a relationship with all the other RIRs and the above bodies and on top of that be able to create and adhere to budgets, manage 50-60 staff all while having to travel frequently. How would you propose we find a suitable candidate for this (even every 5 or 7 years) ? After reading the above, I don't want the job, sounds like a lot of work and hard work at that ! How would we transition between the two DGs ? My guess would be that it would take at least a year of over-lap where we would be paying for 2 DGs. Then you have to consider the internal productivity loss of all the staff and managers having to explain issues and rationale to the new DG which the old DG would simply understand. Consistency and Historical knowledge in the DG position can not be underestimated. (Personal opinion) I think the idea is just plain wrong and we should drop it immediately. Now (with my EC hat on) the EC appoints the DG, if at any point we think he (or she) isn't doing a good job, we can not renew a contract to take action in-between contract periods to remove him. We have that power, just as a Board of Directors appoints a CEO to the run a commercial company (it is in fact exactly the same). I can't speak for the EC, but I as a member of the EC I think he is doing a good job, I don't believe we could appoint anyone to do a better job and no members have complained to me that he has done a bad job. On that basis I don't think we should replace him and I don't think it would be good for APNIC if we *had* to. In terms of the EC positions being limited to 1 or 2 terms, I would provide you with my own personal experience. It has taken all of my first year and a half to be able to be in the position where I feel I understand the workings, bylaws and history of APNIC to the point that I can add value. I'm sure the more times I have been through a budget process, the more value I will add. In reality it takes the first term on the EC to get to a position to add signifiant value, I don't believe having the EC change fully every 1 or 2 terms is a positive thing. Again like with the DG role, understanding processes, budgets, issues, governance, history and our complicated APNIC Bylaws is something I don't believe you can pickup quickly. Going in the years of IPv4 exhaustion I believe we want stability not frequent change. That is my personal observation.I think travel should be open and discusses at meetings, or in some forum... I am a big hater of wastage and while there is some here, I doubt it is on purpose - but it still needs to be looked at and justified. I don't think it is sour grapes here... this is a member based organisation and APNIC needs to be accountable to the membership.I understand that travel is of concern, as it is within any organisation but lets look at the process here, Where do you stop Skeeve ? Would you like to discuss the budget for the Operations Department at each member meeting ? Would the budget for the next meeting need to be discussed at each meeting. Why are we picking one cost ceter and pointing to it and saying the members should decided on that but not all items ? It simply isn't workable, we the community have argued over if address space can be transferred for 2 years (and I helped prolong that discussion so I'm to blame also), do you really think we can reach concencus on every one of 20-30 costs centres in a few hour meeting ? I think we all know that isn't workable, so we are we picking just one to analyse at meetings ? The reality is that the members of APNIC don't dictate to APNIC how to run the business of APNIC, if you put 200 people in a room you'll end up with at least 20 different views. It's just like a commercial company doesn't have it's shareholders deciding on how much is spent on tea or coffee or if they should buy a $20m building at the Annual General Meeting, why ? it simply isn't workable. In the commercial world the shareholders elect Directors to look after their interests and then provide feedback on how they think the company is doing by (for example) the share price. In APNIC's case the members elect the EC and provide feedback via the membership survey (I always knew there was a reason we did one :-) and at bi-annual meetings. What we have to have is a system that works, what I know from the commercial world is that a system that works is very rarely the perfect system. I would love to say that the APNIC system is perfect, as you can see from my comments it simply isn't, but I do believe it has historically and currently is functioning and the vast majority of members are happy with the results.Membership fees are of less an issue to me than the Initial start-up fees of $3000+. I've been told APNIC were reviewing this fee yet I've seen nothing happen yet since I was told close to a year ago it was being looked at. Membership fees themselves I think are fair and equitable.Great, thanks, the fee structure had a lot of work put into it (by people for a much longer period that myself), it was a difficult process but I believe you are right the current fees are much fairer. Final Note: We can spend a huge amount of timing analysing the process of voting, talking about creating a GAC to run the elections, we can propose that every country gets a term on the EC over the next 10 years and we can question if the DG should be removed every 5 years and we can have this discussion a number of times over the coming years and if that is what the member want to do, then let us do that ! However at the end of the day, we are running out of the most valuable resource the Internet has (and that APNIC has), there is a fundamental problem coming to the businesses of every member. This is the large iceberg (sorry, problem) we all have. How many EC members we have and how they are voted for isn't going to fix that problem, my opinion as a member is that we should be focusing our energy on IPv6 policy and how to ensure the most stable APNIC during and after this period, that I believe is in the best interests of the Internet and the members of APNIC....SkeeveCheers, -- James _______________________________________________ apnic-talk mailing list apnic-talk at lists dot apnic dot net http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/apnic-talk
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