In the beginning of the year the following changes in the ARIN membership structure came into force:

Starting from January, 2022, a new membership category called “Service members” is available.

The main difference between Service and General members is based on voting during ARIN elections: if a General member didn’t use his right to participate and vote in any of the previous three ARIN elections will lose his General Membership status which will be reverted to a Service Member status.

All existing end-user customers will become Service Members and each Service member can convert its status to General Member if he meets the General Membership criteria.

Due to the change above ARIN has also implemented the following changes:

• “Abstain/no vote” option will be available during ARIN elections;
• General Members who have been reverted to Service members in the way specified above will be able to reapply to became a General Member again, without 1 year limitation

Therefore, to become an ARIN General member the organisation shall meet the following criteria:

1. Presently be an ARIN Service member in a good standing and held IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses received under a valid ARIN service agreement;
2. An organisation agrees to participate and vote in ARIN annual elections;
3. An organisation agrees to comply with ARIN’s standards of Behavior and ARIN Mailing List Appropriate Usage Policy.

What do you think about these changes in the ARIN structure?

Couldn’t it be a good idea to realize the same structure in the other RIRs to increase the number of active members participating in GM and voting?