[address-policy-wg] 2007-04 New Draft Document Published (IANA Policy for Allocation of ASN Blocks to RIRs)

On 20 Jun 2007, at 14:09, Leo Vegoda wrote:

> I see a clear advantage in having all five RIR communities review a  
> proposal and agree a policy as there is no policy at the moment -  
> just precedent.

	Me too.

> I for one am very much in favour of having a consensus policy to  
> work to. Of course, this would be true of any global policy. This  
> particular policy proposal doesn't really change very much and that  
> could also be seen as an advantage by some, too. However, these  
> points are made in the proposal's "Rationale" section.

	I see a kind of layering distinction between

	- on the one hand, rationale and arguments for or against
	  (layer of principle, policy or even philosophy), and

	- on the other, operational impact.

	I believe it adds clarity to address these separately.

> I suspect that Filiz limited her impact analysis to resource  
> consumption and service impact because these are quantifiable and  
> should help the community discuss the benefits and/or disadvantages  
> of the proposal itself.

	In her position, I'ld probably have done the same.  There is a tendency
	to consider "impact" by assumption "negative".  I'm suggesting that  
this
	is actually a prejudice which limits the usefulness of the impact  
analysis.
	I'm raising this now because

On 14 Jun 2007, at 14:29, Filiz Yilmaz wrote:
> The first impact analysis has been created for the proposal 2007-04

	and it is opportune to give feedback on the new process.

	For simplicity, let's consider three cases:  the impact of a proposed
	new policy may be assessed as "burdensome", "neutral", or  
"advantageous".

	The first case (burdensome) is easiest: there had better be a very
	strong rationale with clear benefits to the community in order to
	adopt such a proposal.

	The third case (advantageous) has (perhaps subtly hidden) consequences
	for RIR planning.  For example, if the proposal is expected to  
result in
	significantly more efficient operations, in comparison with existing
	practices, it may be that forward resource requirement projections will
	have to be revised.

	The neutral case is where elegant, but sterile, proposals fall.  If a
	proposal truly isn't expected to have any impact on operations, we  
should
	ask, "Why bother?"

	For clarity, I believe that proposal 2007-04 is not neutral, but
	advantageous in just the way Leo has put it.  Working from documented
	policy rather than from precedent (or worse, corporate memory, degraded
	by natural amnesia and staff turnover) will surely be more efficient,
	less demanding for the staff involved, and clearer for the customers.

	I think that "good impact" is worth mentioning as well as "bad impact",
	and that choosing to do so will result in more useful impact analysis
	for future proposals.

	FWIW
	/Niall
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