Given what appears to be the majority view here, the NCC may just as well decide to interpret the community's view on "need" as something that does not need to be documented in itself, other than placing a request for a network block.

Be careful here - we are not operating by majority but by consensus - so we need to get everybody - or at least most - to understand and not object.

Yes, we do operate by consensus, but let's say that we can't get everybody to not object to the change, and therefore the sentence in question remains (as an oddity, IMHO, but nevertheless).

The majority has then given pretty clear signals about how important that "need" is, which is to say "not at all", while a vocal few have said it _is_ important, and apparently more important than current and former practice has been handled by the RIPE NCC.

Now, what is the RIPE NCC to make of that?

There are three options:

1) Carry on as before.

2) Loosen up on the "need" interpretation.

3) Become more strict with how "need" must be documented.

Additionally, this will lead to new proposals for changes to other policy texts to ensure harmony with the remaining requirement for some sort of "need".