Dear all,
Here are the notes from yesterday's call. Let me know any corrections or
anything I've missed.
I have also attached some updated web copy which we will publish on
Monday unless we hear anything from the group.
Cheers
Antony
*RIPE Accountability Task Force Meeting Notes*
17 January 2017
Attendees:
Athina Fragkouli, Antony Gollan, Hans Petter Holen, Malcolm Hutty,
Alexander Isavnin, Peter Koch, Steve Nash, Nurani Nimpuno, Wim Rullens,
William Sylvester, Filiz Yilmaz.
1) Finalise agenda – adopt minutes
2) Selection of Chair
3) Finalise scope
4) Finalise deliverables
5) Finalise information for website
-Please review the attached document before the call
6) Openness of calls to third parties
7) Finding a regular time for TF calls
*1) Finalise agenda – adopt minutes*
There were no changes to the agenda. The minutes from the last call were
adopted.
*2) Selection of Chair*
Hans Petter said that as a matter of principle the RIPE Chair shouldn’t
act as Chair of any Task Forces directly and someone from the community
should take this position.
Alexander suggested that Athina could be Chair.
Filiz suggested they have someone form the community with Athina as
co-Chair.
Nurani said she had complete trust in Athina’s abilities, but it might
not be appropriate for a RIPE NCC staff member to chair the TF, though
the RIPE NCC had already said they were willing to provide support to
the Chair. It was good to have Hans Petter involved, but she agreed that
he also shouldn’t be Chair. On the last call they had suggested Filiz be
Chair and she was happy with that.
William said he would be happy to be Chair. There seemed to have been a
lack of participation over the past weeks, so the question was who was
willing to have regular interactions.
Athina agreed with Filiz and Nurani that while this would be supported
100% by the RIPE NCC, the TF had to be a community-driven effort. She
noted that William had stepped up and Nurani had nominated Filiz.
Filiz said she would be willing to be co-Chair with William, but she
didn’t have time to be the sole Chair.
Peter and Nurani seconded William and Filiz as Chairs of the RIPE
Accountability Task Force.
Filiz said she wanted to confirm Hans Petter as a member of the TF, as
it was appropriate for him to be involved to help ensure they stayed
within scope.
Hans Petter agreed and said he would participate as much as he was able.
*3) Finalise Scope*
Filiz noted that William had sent through some thoughts on the mailing
list earlier.
William said they should identify the various groups involved and
determine what kind of accountability they had to these groups. Then
they could publish some kind of ongoing status or scorecard with how
they were doing in terms of accountability. This wasn’t a one-time
checkbox but rather an ongoing thing. In areas where accountability was
missing, they could give a timeline when they expected a particular
issue or area to be addressed.
Nurani said they needed to clarify what they meant by accountability.
She mentioned a presentation at an ICANN meeting on accountability that
she would share with the group as a starting point. She agreed that
accountability was not something you achieved and then forgot about, but
they needed to define what the task of the group was. What did they
intend to actually look at for the various groups that this community
should or should not be accountable to? Maybe they should ensure they
had the same definition of accountability and then come up with the
scope of the group. She thought they wanted the TF to do an initial
assessment and come up with some recommendations that the community
could move forward on.
Athina suggested they look at the draft scope that Antony had put
together from the previous call that was in the draft website copy.
Antony ran through the draft scope [included here]:
“The RIPE Accountability Task Force agreed to:
* Undertake a review of existing RIPE community structures,
documentation and processes to ensure they provide adequate
accountability that is in alignment with RIPE values
* Identify potential gaps where RIPE accountability could be improved
or strengthened
* Document existing RIPE community structures or processes where needed
* Develop recommendations for the RIPE community
* Identify areas where communications efforts might be required and
develop communications materials”
Steve said he thought the process began with identifying what structures
they intended to look at. He said it was the accountability of each RIPE
community structure. He had sent an email on 18 December along these
lines. There were a number of places were accountability was moderately
clear but other places where this wasn’t so clear.
Hans Petter said a useful scope restriction was to focus on RIPE. Plenty
of work had already been done on the RIPE NCC. He wasn’t sure what they
meant by “community structures”, but he thought they were talking about
the RIPE community which consisted of Working Groups, Task Forces,
Mailing Lists, etc. He thought this was what they needed to look at, as
the lack of a well-defined community membership meant that it was
difficult to determine accountability.
Filiz agreed with Hans Petter.
Alexander said he had an addition. First they should define who they
were – as even on the TF there was confusion about the RIPE NCC and the
RIPE community. He said they shouldn’t only talk about WG Chairs et al,
but also about who the community was and how it could be defined. Once
they had this they could start talking about accountability. He said
RIPE didn’t exist in the legal world and so they needed to define its
existence in a satisfactory way.
Nurani said she mostly agreed with Hans Petter and Filiz that the work
should focus on the RIPE community and its mechanisms and they needed to
be clear about not mixing up membership processes and community powers.
So they needed to be crystal clear about these things before they
proceeded. Long-term accountability work would not be complete without
looking at the whole structure, including the RIPE NCC’s membership and
its board. This was probably something that needed to be done in future
work. If there were other issues that needed to be explored, this might
have to be undertaken by the membership and the secretariat. So maybe
they could proceed with a note that a full accountability review would
include a review of/by the membership and secretariat.
William said everything on the list looked good, but they needed to
define who the participants and stakeholders were, and what
organisations were encompassed by the review. He didn’t think that they
needed to define this today – this could come out in later discussions.
Peter said he agreed with most of what had been said. Policy setting was
the most important part where accountability came in and there were
challenges around this. They had learned in recent years that policy
setting by RIPE and policy implementation by the RIPE NCC resulted in
some interesting interactions, particularly where fees had been used. He
said they should be clear on where they were talking about RIPE and
where they were talking about the RIPE NCC. This needed to be especially
clear for readers. The RIPE and RIPE NCC interaction came after they had
reviewed the structures. He suggested bringing the third bullet-point up
[“Document existing RIPE community structures or processes where
needed”], which would include things like the process for selecting WG
Chairs.
Filiz said they seemed to be leaning towards a scope that the TF would
study the existing and future stakeholders within the RIPE community.
The other option would be to create another “stakeholders” section below
the scope where they could list who they thought this work would be
relating to.
Hans Petter said he just wanted to add two bits of formalism. If they
looked at existing TFs, they should create a charter — which would be
the existing scope shaped into what they would achieve. They also needed
a timeline. Once they had established this, they should bring this back
to the community to get feedback or consensus. And starting with the
community, they could also look later at the borders between the
community and the membership organisation.
Filiz agreed that they would need to get community input/support for
their charter. They therefore needed to focus on an initial scope among
themselves that they could then present to the community at the next
RIPE Meeting. She suggested the RIPE NCC come up with a timeline for this.
Hans Petter said they could also do this on the RIPE mailing list.
Filiz said they could do both.
Athina said she understood that having an accurate and complete scope
approved by the community was important. In the meantime she asked if
they should do some preparatory work, and some of the things they could
already work on (such as the action item for the RIPE NCC to map out
areas where accountability features were already in place) and have a
tentative scope on the website to share with the community, with a note
that it was draft and would be finalised in the coming months.
Filiz agreed with this and said this wasn’t just related to the scope –
they also needed a timeline for the group’s work. The first deliverable
was a scope on the mailing list by the RIPE Meeting, and this also
needed to be on the meeting agenda. Working back from this, eight weeks
before RIPE 74 a draft scope would need to be agreed on by the TF. Then
they could start preparing what they needed to do to socialise this with
the RIPE community.
**Action item: RIPE NCC to capture the wording of the TF’s comments on
scope and produce an updated document to send to the mailing list.
**Action item: RIPE NCC to come up with a draft timeline for the TF.
William said he was also happy to help with this.
*4) Finalise deliverables*
Filiz suggested that they defer this, as it depended on the scope and
timeline.
*5) Finalise information for website*
Nurani said she wanted to be transparent as possible – she suggested
they put up meeting minutes and any other documentation the group produced.
Filiz agreed but said they should discuss this further on the mailing list.
**Action item: Filiz to start a discussion about transparency/web
documentation on the mailing list.
Athina said having a web page about the TF was something that they had
to do soon, as they were already very late. The reason they hadn’t
published yet was because they weren’t sure what to publish. She
understood they hadn’t agreed on the final version of the scope but
suggested they could publish what they already had as a draft. They
already had members, and could add others. They now had Chairs. It was
important that they agree on this soon.
There was strong support for this.
Filiz said they should therefore publish the website content along with
the draft scope. She asked that the TF be informed as soon as this was
published.
*6) Openness of calls to third parties*
Filiz said this needed some more discussion, as they would be dealing
with possible interventions by other third parties or observers. She
suggested they discuss this further on the list.
**Action: Filiz to start a discussion regarding openness of TF calls on
the mailing list.
*7) Finding a regular time for TF calls. *
Filiz said they needed a poll for this, and asked the RIPE NCC to create
one. She suggested they consider as a priority times that would suit the
RIPE NCC, but to give the TF options. She suggested they start with one
hour meetings.
Nurani said they should agree on frequency.
William said monthly would be appropriate if they would be participating
on the mailing list, but this wouldn’t be enough if they didn’t have
this mailing list interaction.
Nurani said monthly was most practical, but that didn’t stop them adding
in extra calls if needed.
Filiz said they should agree on monthly calls, and the Chairs could call
for extra meetings if the need arose. If there was enough engagement on
the list, then she didn’t see any need for additional meetings.
The group agreed.
**Action: RIPE NCC to make poll covering Feb, March, April, and one
meeting before RIPE 74. The deadline for TF members to enter their
preferences should be one week.
Nurani said she wasn’t sure how much of the community was aware of the
TF being formed. She suggested they invite members of the community to
join. This would also avoid having people jumping in with comments and
suggestions late in the process.
Athina said the RIPE NCC had sent an email to the RIPE mailing list and
the Cooperation WG a month or so earlier – informing the community and
inviting people to join. She asked if there was more they should be doing.
Filiz said once they had published the draft scope and website content
they could drop a note to the RIPE mailing list and invite interested
parties to send messages to the Accountability TF mailing list. Once
they had produced the signed-off scope, they could send another email to
RIPE-list.
Nurani said this was about being as inclusive as possible. There might
also be community members who didn’t know what the RIPE Accountability
TF was. If another mail was sent once the draft scope was published,
people might get a better idea of what they were doing.
Peter said getting enough people on the call was already complicated.
Having more people onto the TF would result in random walk-ins and
walk-outs and he didn’t think this was what they were trying to achieve.
Filiz said it was good to have feedback from the community, but it was
important to limit access to the TF at some point – otherwise they
risked having people coming into the group at a late point and asking
them to change the scope. Latecomers would likely have some catching-up
to do, and this might impact the group’s deliverables. Being an active
TF member required some definition and she would take this to the ML.
**Action: Filiz to start a discussion on the mailing list about how open
the TF should be.
*Action items*
*20171801-1*: RIPE NCC to capture the wording of the TF’s comments on
scope and produce an updated document to send to the mailing list.
*20171801-2*: RIPE NCC to come up with a draft timeline for the TF.
*20171801-3*: Filiz to start a discussion about transparency/web
documentation on the mailing list.
*20171801-4*: Filiz to start a discussion regarding openness of TF calls
on the mailing list.
*20171801-5*: RIPE NCC to make poll covering Feb, March, April, and one
meeting before RIPE 74. The deadline for TF members to enter their
preferences should be one week.
*20171801-6*: Filiz to start a discussion on the mailing list about how
open the TF should be.
*20163011-1*: Task force members to each come up with a few topics they
want the Task Force to address and share this on the mailing list.
*20163011-2: *The RIPE NCC to map out areas where accountability
features are already.
