Consultation on Whether ARIN Should Have a Public "ARIN Discussion" Mailing List

Posted: Tuesday, 21 June 2022

Recent discussion on the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (arin-ppml) raised an important question: Should ARIN have a public “ARIN discussion” mailing list for broad discussion of ARIN topics which is open to all (i.e., much like the present arin-ppml, but with a scope greater than supporting number resource policy development)?

The arin-ppml mailing list has a more limited scope in order to keep ARIN public policy discussions focused and to reduce the number of extraneous messages that those who are participating solely for number resource policy development must process. Occasionally, there have been discussions on ARIN-ppml about topics outside number resource policy development, and this has been seen as a reasonable accommodation to allow discussion of other ARIN-related matters (such as ARIN’s governance) by the community.

With General Membership available to any ARIN customer with IPv4/IPv6 number resources held under a registration services agreement (RSA/LRSA), we now have a General Member mailing list that can serve as a focused forum for many of the more general governance issues that have been discussed on arin-ppml in the past (e.g., election-related matters, changes in fees, etc.). However, recent discussions on arin-ppml have noted that there may be interest to have a more open forum for discussion of overall issues related to ARIN by those who consider themselves part of the overall ARIN community, but are not ARIN members.

Input on Discussion Mailing List Needed

To this end, ARIN seeks input on the following two questions:

  • Should ARIN have an “arin-discuss” mailing list that is open to all for overall discussion of ARIN topics (conducted in accordance with ARIN’s normal rules of decorum)? Such a list would not displace the more focused ARIN-ppml, ARIN-consult, or ARIN’s general-member mailing lists, but rather provide a forum for topics not being formally considered under one of those lists.

  • If ARIN creates an arin-discuss mailing list, should the list be prepopulated in any manner? For example, if the new list “arin-discuss” is created, should it be prepopulated with those who subscribe to arin-ppml at present? A topical discussion list isn’t very effective without a sizable base of participants, but ARIN has had poor experience in the past with prepopulating mailing lists.

The feedback you provide during this consultation will help us determine the path forward regarding the possible creation of a new, open arin-discuss mailing list. Thank you for your participation in the ARIN Consultation and Suggestion Process. Please provide comments to arin-consult@arin.net. You can subscribe to this mailing list at:

http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-consult

This consultation will remain open through 5:00 PM ET on 21 July 2022.

Regards,

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)