> On Jul 20, 2015, at 9:17 AM, David Huberman <[email protected]> > wrote: > What fair and objective data does a voter have to judge how well an incumbent > is doing?
Even speaking as someone who’s been reelected several times, this bothers me
quite a lot too, and I’m really glad David’s brought it up for discussion. I
hope this time we can continue the momentum through to some sort of conclusion,
even if it’s a difficult conversation.
When people have voted for me, I’m grateful, but I know that they don’t have
access to the information that I know I’d want before casting that vote, so I
know they’re going on faith. And I don’t think that’s a fair burden to put on
our membership. In a sense, only people who are already on the board have
access to the information they need to cast an informed vote regarding the
other incumbents.
So, one (admittedly very thin) source of information the members can turn to is
to look at the published endorsements of incumbent candidates by other
currently-sitting board members. That at least gives some indication of what
other board members think of an incumbent who’s running again, or (in the case
of non-incumbent candidates) what those sitting board members think is needed
in terms of new blood.
The deficiencies of this as a channel of information are many. First and
foremost, the board is collegial, and public and attributed statements that are
negative makes for difficult relations within the board. It’s easy to say that
good relations within the board are less important to the membership than are
results, but in reality, it’s very difficult to make progress when the board is
at loggerheads. So, there’s some value in maintaining that collegiality, and
letting board members feel like they’re not in a position of having to trade
votes for public support, for instance, which would be a bad outcome.
> I can't tell you how good a Board member is. I suspect that's because so
> much of our activity as the collective ARIN happens in the policy making
> arena, and the Board has chosen to be mostly silent in that arena.
I wouldn’t say that the board has chosen to be silent, I’d say that a majority
of the board has chosen for the board to be silent. I’d say that this is
actually one of the most contentious issues within the board. As well, it’s
one of the things that makes the nomcom’s job hardest: the best candidates know
that if they win, they’ll be effectively silenced on issues of policy. I think
it’s also worthy of note that although the danger of an activist board is not
negligible, it’s a putative danger over which the board is self-censoring,
rather than an issue raised by the membership.
> I read the published minutes of the Board meetings, and they're not
> particularly enlightening.
This is an issue that the AfriNIC community is confronting at the moment. The
membership appears to be on the verge of demanding transcripts, rather than
minutes, of their board. On the other hand, they’re facing board transparency
problems far worse than ARIN is, and the danger of chilling discussion of
difficult issues is also a real one.
> Does the Board Does the Board conduct any reviews or evaluations of Board
> member performance?
Not really, no.
> I mean, the CEO gets reviewed, yes?
Yes, that’s correct. Though I believe the results are protected under HR
policy. Anyone is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong on that.
> If the Board can review the CEO, would it be a stretch to ask for reviews of
> the other 6 members of the Board?
That seems reasonable enough; my one caveat would be that the criteria by which
a CEO is reviewed are reasonably cut-and-dried. Before you could have useful
reviews of board member performance, you’d need (1) to decide on criteria, and
(2) to instrument those criteria. To my observation, neither of those is as
straight-forward as one might hope.
One transparency mechanism I had high hopes for was the one we discussed at the
mic at the end of last fall’s meeting in Baltimore: use of the ASCP process for
public discussion between the membership and the board members, either singly
or each or collectively. For instance, a member could use the ASCP process to
ask each board member to state their position on membership categories and
fees. Or to ask each board member how they voted on an issue, and to defend
their choice. Or for their opinion on the success of the IPv4 marketplace.
Any of these would give the membership more insight than they have now, and it
would provide a public commitment that board members, and the board as a whole,
could be held to in their performance. As such, it would be one way of
beginning to establish criteria that board members could be measured against…
not static criteria, but the dynamic criteria of their positions on, and
response to, the issues that confront ARIN, both predictable and unpredictable.
In any event, I’m very happy to see this topic aired, and I look forward to a
good conversation and some actionable result!
-Bill
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