Blimey!
Are they actually more incompetent than Nominet? Wow!
A protest vote against corporate mismanagement at Africa's main internet body has sent the organization into freefall. Following the poor handling of a sexual harassment scandal that eventually led to the resignation of its chair and vice-chair, members of Afrinic asked for a vote of no-confidence in the organization's entire …
And this is different from the USA how, currently?
In both the USA and Africa, elected officials are corrupt.
In both the USA and Africa, the public expect elected officials to be corrupt.
In Africa a slightly higher percentage of the population aspire to becoming a corrupt elected official (much as people elsewhere aspire to winning a lottery jackpot, and for similar reasons) and a slightly lower percentage deplore corrupt elected officials. In Africa it tends to be more open, in the USA there are token attempts to hide it, such as this.
The UK isn't much better.
"The UK isn't much better."
Well actually it is. It's 10th on the CPI corruption index versus the USA on 18th. And UK politics are vastly less influenced by corporate and minority money and lobbying.
Just for reference a typical third world / black country like Nigeria is at 136.
First past the post is Good. But the system Blighty calls first-past-the-post isn't: there's no post to pass. The Single Transferable Vote (see for example steve.apache.org) puts a 50% post in it, and ensures winners do really have more support than losers - as opposed to votes being wasted or manipulated.
>First past the post does have the advantage of commonly eliminating tiny minority parties. That tend to commonly be ethnic or religious in focus.<
And that commonly has the effect of radicalizing the disenfranchised parties, and encouraging them to work for the destruction of the system.
Sounds like it's the only smart thing Afrinic has done lately.
Only half-smart. The smart option is "Re-Open Nominations" (aka "RON"). With that option they wouldn't be in the mess they're in. Still a mess, because (theoretically) nobody would be authorized to hold a second ballot, but an improvement. Better still would be RON with a temporary reprieve for the current board until successful appointments. But that would be vulnerable to ballot-rigging (stuff the boxes with RON votes every time to get permanent power). That could have been improved upon by handing off electoral control to some independent third-party.
So only half-smart. Smart enough that it was possible to get rid of the bastards, not smart enough to get their replacements in place.
And yes, RON should be on every ballot.
So Africa - with its short and patchy history of any attempt at democracy - has come to a more honest outcome than broken systems in many more developed parts of the world.
try {
elect a decent ruling body;
}
catch (they're all scum) {
#ifdef AFRINIC
None of the above;
#else
Declare the biggest crook the winner;
#endif
}
So the board has complete control, including over elections to fill seats, eh? I wonder what would happen if the board met to fill the vacant seats and there was a small accident involving 250 kg of dioxgen difluoride? Or perhaps chlorine trifluoride? I’m not advocating any such thing, of course, just wondering out loud.
"Those assets include several IPv4 address blocks worth millions of dollars on the open market"
I think you might find that those assets are worthless unless the rest of the internet agrees to route stuff to and from whoever you choose to dish them out to. If a credible rival registry appears tomorrow then I think they will have de facto ownership of those blocks rather than leaving them in the hands of former board members of an organisation that its own stakeholders want to, er, stick a stake into.
There isn't much agreement required. You would just publish the BGP routes.
That's what BGP filtering is for. The rest of the internet could block off those blocks.
Ultimately AFRINIC don't own any IP addresses. IANA does. And in an extreme circumstance, IANA could reallocate them. Though that would need to come with stipulations on maintaining all current sub-allocations (subject to review by the new RIR) so as to not knock Africa offline.
" if your skin isn't the accepted colour you are obviously an immigrant and not a real resident."
well, maybe not in SOUTH Africa...
but yeah if they've got some racism built into their politics, it's ALSO a problem [tolerance of sexual harassment maybe being a symptom of bigger issues?]
Don't get me wrong, being FALSELY accused of any kind of harassment happens all of the time, too. So the claims have to be PROPERLY verified (i.e. not 'trial by fake news'). "Scandal alone" is NEVER a reason to be fired or forced to resign. That being said, too many people will cave in under the pressure instead of FIGHTING BACK.
Regardless, the accuser may NOT be a victim. That, in my mind, is an equal possibility to an actual case of sexual harassment. "#MeToo" can easily become a way to jam an agenda down people's throats. Ironic, though, how MOST of the perps are on 'the left'.
"Family lived there for generations but if your skin isn't the accepted colour you are obviously an immigrant and not a real resident."
That's the view of most people I know too. Especially if an obvious believer in that religion that thinks a known paedophile was a prophet, even though it's demonstrable that he just ripped off a lot of his material from early Christianity and spiced it up a bit. Who it turn ripped off many of the concepts of Judaism. Except for writing their holy book on a toilet roll...
You are more right than you realise.
The root of the problem is tribalism, if you are not from the right tribe then you are out. The same as the middle east and North Africa.
This mess sounds very similar the the East African Airways mess. It was originally run by BOAC, then given freedom of the market, it flourished opening routes over Africa, and serving the grass strips of the hinterland. At one point it had a regular service to the UK.
Then came Africanisation, and within one year a healthy profit moved to a loss, passenger numbers actually increased during this time, but freebies to the boards friends and families went from zero to sky high...
This brought the company down within two years. It has been restarted.
And some people call me racist!
jira.domain.com
, now offers something.jira.domain.com