Hi Gaurav, thanks for sharing the guidelines. <Quote> 3.6 Removing a Chair or Co-Chair If a SIG Chair or Co-Chair does not attend one in every two APNIC Conferences and does not attend the SIG Forum held at the APNIC Conference, the APNIC EC will have discretion to remove the Chair or Co-Chair from their role. The process of electing a replacement will then begin.
If SIG members do not think that the Chair or Co-Chair is sufficiently performing their duties (as described in this document or the relevant SIG Charter), they can express their concerns on the mailing list or in the SIG Forum. If there is consensus that the Chair or Co-Chair is not sufficiently performing their responsibilities, the Chair or Co-Chair will be removed by the APNIC EC. The process of electing a replacement will then begin. Before removing a Chair or Co-Chair under this section, the APNIC EC will: (a) give the Chair or Co-Chair written notice of the grounds for removal; (b) provide a period of 90 days from the date of the notice for the Chair or Co-Chair to respond before a decision is made; (c) provide written reasons for its decision; and (d) inform the SIG community of the outcome. If an individual holds more than one elected position and does not resign in accordance with section 3.4.1 within 30 days of their election, the APNIC EC has discretion to remove the individual from their elected positions/s (excluding the position for which they were most recently elected). </Quote> ------ First, references throughout the document to an “APNIC Conference” need to be framed more carefully. APRICOT is not an APNIC Conference. APNIC meetings and activities may be held in conjunction with APRICOT, but that does not make APRICOT itself an APNIC Conference. The terminology should therefore distinguish between an APNIC Conference/meeting and an APRICOT conference at which relevant APNIC meetings or SIG activities are held, rather than inadvertently treating APRICOT as an APNIC Conference. Second, section 3.6 refers to a Chair or Co-Chair not attending “at least one APNIC Conference per year”, but does not appear to distinguish between physical and online participation. This is important. If a Chair or Co-Chair is unable to travel to a particular meeting but actively participates in the SIG and attends the meeting remotely, why should that constitute non-performance or potentially contribute to their removal? If attendance is to be included as an expectation at all, the document should explicitly recognise remote participation. The relevant test should be whether the elected Chair or Co-Chair continues to participate in and facilitate the work of the SIG, not whether they are physically able to travel to a conference. Now the bigger issue, I have a fundamental concern with assigning the EC authority to remove an elected SIG Chair or Co-Chair. We should first be clear about the nature of SIGs within the APNIC community. SIGs are intentionally lightweight, community-driven forums established to facilitate discussion, exchange views and, where relevant, contribute to the bottom-up policy development process (ref policy and routing security). They are not formal organisational units or sub-committees of APNIC operating under the direction of the EC. Similarly, SIG Chairs and Co-Chairs are community-elected facilitators. They do not exercise corporate authority delegated to them by the EC, nor should they be regarded as officeholders accountable to the EC in the same manner as an employee or an appointed committee member and because of that reason, I question the governance basis (or legal basis) for giving the EC the authority to remove a community-elected SIG representative unless the issue is related to Code of Conduct which every attendee has to abide by. The APNIC By-laws define the powers delegated to the EC and expressly establish removal powers where these are intended. I am not aware of an equivalent provision giving the EC authority to remove an elected SIG Chair or Co-Chair. In my view, the EC therefore should not have the authority under the SIG Guidelines to remove a Chair or Co-Chair elected by the community. If there is a basis in By-law basis for such authority, it should be clearly identified. Otherwise, removal of an elected SIG representative should remain a decision of the community that elected them. Regards, Aftab A. Siddiqui On Sat, 8 Aug 2026 at 00:57, Gaurav Kansal <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Friends, > > On behalf of the SIG Guidelines Review Working Group, I'm pleased to share > that the revised draft of the SIG Guidelines is now ready for community > review. > > The Working Group has worked through the Guidelines broadly covering Chair > and Co-Chair responsibilities, the SIG formation and dissolution process, > term limits, SIG charters, and a few other areas. > > To help you review the proposed changes, we've prepared the following > documents: > > 1. *Revised draft of SIG Guidelines* – the full proposed text of the > revised Guidelines: > https://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/drafts/apnic-128-v005-draft.txt > 2. *HTML diff view* – a side-by-side comparison highlighting all the > changes between the current Guidelines and the draft version: > https://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/drafts/apnic-128-v005-draft.diff.html > 3. *Redline version* – showing additions and deletions directly within > the draft text for review: > https://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/drafts/apnic-128-v005-draft.redline.html > > > *How to provide feedback:* > > Please reply to this thread on the mailing list with your comments, > questions, or concerns. All feedback is welcome — support, objections, and > suggested edits alike. You're welcome to share feedback any time up to the > Joint SIGs session at APNIC 62 in Mumbai, where the consensus call will > take place. > > If you have any questions or would prefer to discuss anything off-list, > please feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected]. > > We look forward to your feedback, and to seeing many of you at the Joint > SIGs session in Mumbai. > > Best regards, > Gaurav Kansal > on behalf of the SIG Guidelines Review Working Group > _______________________________________________ > SIG-policy - https://mailman.apnic.net/[email protected]/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
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