[anti-abuse-wg] On +1s and Policy Awareness AND Astro... something...

Ronald,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: anti-abuse-wg <anti-abuse-wg-bounces at ripe.net> On Behalf Of
> Ronald F. Guilmette
> Sent: Friday 5 April 2019 20:57
> To: anti-abuse-wg at ripe.net
> Subject: Re: [anti-abuse-wg] On +1s and Policy Awareness AND Astro...
> something...
>
>
> >The debate as to what function the NCC should have can and should be
> >had. However, not here. This is something that I firmly believe the
> >paying membership AND NOBODY ELSE should decide.
> 
> I actually would agree with that last part, i.e. the part about having -only- the
> dues-paying members decide.  I confess that I know virtually nothing about
> the mechanics of how this whole process is supposed to work, but it has
> been my assumption throughout that, yes, in fact, a proposal such as this -
> would- ultimately have to be approved by the dues-paying membership,
> acting as a whole body.  Are you asserting that a new rule such as 2019-03
> could be adopted WITHOUT the consent of the dues-paying members, acting
> as a whole?  If so, that's news to me!
> 
> I confess that I may have been incorrectly assuming that this proposal would
> be -reviewed- by the AAWG, and that at the end of this process, the
> -recommendation- of the AAWG would be passed on for final ratification to
> whatever body represents the whole of the dues-paying members... sort of
> like a U.S. congressional subcommittee can simply -recommend- something,
> after which it goes to the full committee, and then if -they- approve it, then it
> finally gets voted on by the whole body (either the Senate or the House of
> Representatives).  If that's not the way this actually works in the case of the
> RIPE AAWG, then I ask for either you or the chair to educate me about the
> mechanics of the actual adoption proccess for RIPE proposals (such as 2019-
> 03) because it sounds like you are saying that -just- the AAWG can act on its
> own and thus bind the whole of RIPE to some course of action.  If that's true,
> then it certainly would be unfair and un-democratic.

If this proposal reaches consensus after going through the RIPE Policy Development Process - https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies - then it becomes RIPE policy. The RIPE NCC are then tasked with implementing that policy. This is why we try to advertise the policy discussions so broadly (Policy Announce List, discussions at meetings, other forms of communication), because the process is the thing.

Now, should there be a dispute between the wishes of the membership and a policy, then that is a whole other thing and it is not my place to speculate on the outcome, but there is no step where the General Meeting is asked to vote on a policy, it's all done by consensus in the Working Groups. It is really wrong to describe this as a democracy, as I've said several times, this is not a vote.

Brian
Co-Chair, RIPE AA-WG

Brian Nisbet 
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