Dear TF members,
Sorry for the delay here. Below are the mintes from our last call.
As always, corrections welcome.
Cheers
Ant
***
*Draft Minutes - Code of Conduct TF: **Fifth**Call
**4****December 2020**, 1**6**:30-1**7**:30 (UTC+1)*
*Present:
*Denesh Bhabuta, Athina Fragkouli, Antony Gollan, Brian Nisbet, Leo
Vegoda, Salam Yamout
*Summary:*
The TF reviewed feedback from the Trusted Contacts on the reports it has
received. The group noted that the CoC should make it clear that
discussion/mediation was the ideal outcome. At the same time, the
community needed something for cases where this wouldn’t be enough. The
group agreed that data handling information should be covered in the CoC
documents rather than referenced separately. The group discussed
feedback from the RIPE Chair Team on the role of a future CoC Team
within RIPE NCC Executive Board Elections. This is not an absolute
requirement and it might be that another group performs this role. There
was some discussion on scope, and it was noted that this would always be
a complicated issue in terms of corner cases. The TF agreed to review
and make comments on the draft first document, and to then decide
whether this was ready to share with the community.
*1.**Minutes*
**
The draft minutes from the previous call were accepted without changes.
*2.**Agenda*
**
Leo noted that he had updated the agenda slightly from what he had sent
to the list. There were no further changes suggested by the group.
*3.**Actions *
**
-*RIPE NCC to request statistical information from trusted contacts*
**
Antony shared some statistics with the group, sorted by year. In total,
the Trusted Contacts had received eight reports since 2018; all relating
to behaviour during RIPE Meetings. Of these, three involved mailing list
behaviour, three involved offensive comments at RIPE Meetings, one
involved social media content, and one involved behaviour alongside the
meeting venue.
Antony said there was no formal record-keeping (mainly due to privacy
concerns) and so things became hazy further back than this. He
referenced a couple of other cases he knew of. He noted that this
excluded one person who had recently caused a lot of disruption on the
mailing lists for an extended period.
In terms of estimated workload, the Trusted Contacts had said this was
difficult to answer. This was because their role was different from what
they hoped the role of a future CoC Team would be. The current Trusted
Contacts had received training on how to comfort people who were in
distress and were there to provide advice. They did not conduct
investigations or perform interviews, which was something they thought
the CoC Team would probably do. The Trusted Contacts had also noted a
lack of clarity around roles often made things complicated – it was
sometimes unclear if it was the Trusted Contacts, WG Chairs, or other
parties who should be responsible for dealing with inappropriate behaviour.
Leo said one thing that came through clearly was that there was a
distinction between formal and informal reports. This was something they
might want to look at later in the process when they considered things
like record-keeping and tools.
Athina said this also highlighted a lack of structure around the CoC, as
the Trusted Contacts didn’t have something to base their actions on.
This was something that could be addressed. Another thing she noticed
was that in some cases there had been a discussion as a result of the
report. She thought this was a good solution. The CoC Team didn’t have
to default to a legalistic approach; it could also be a mediator and
seek to resolve misunderstandings by bringing people together.
Denesh agreed with Athina and related back to his point from an earlier
call – if they were going to be prescriptive, they would have to be
careful to define the terms they used. Terms like “acceptable behaviour”
and “respect” could be subjective depending on someone’s background.
Brian said any CoC Team should seek to mediate first. This was the core
piece and they needed to this make clear to the community. In many
cases, people could talk with one another and reach an agreement. But
the other side was that they were also seeking something that went
beyond mediation, for cases where this was needed. He added that they
needed to be careful with the cultural element, because people could
often use this as an excuse, and there was a line.
Salam said she agreed with these comments. She wanted to differentiate
between the CoC, which could address elements of what Athina had spoken
about, and other awareness or educational efforts that were separate
from the CoC but could promote understanding around what good behaviour
was. She wasn’t sure if this was something for the Diversity TF or the
CoC TF to look at.
Salam said she wanted to know more about how much time it was taking the
Trusted Contacts to serve in their roles right now.
Antony said he understood this was what they were after and had
approached the Trusted Contacts with this in mind. However, they had
found it hard to give an answer – as it could vary depending on the
cases that were reported. He said he could go back to them again. He
noted that much of this was also based on recollection.
*Action: RIPE NCC to request more detail from the Trusted Contacts on
workload.*
Leo said it might be fair to say the workload would be highly variable.
Athina said they saw this with the RIPE NCC Arbiters Panel – some years
they had relatively few cases while in others there were a lot.
Individual cases could also vary in terms of how much work was required.
It was difficult to predict.
-*TF members to review document and provide comments on structure*
Leo said everyone had looked at this and made comments, so they could
mark it as complete.
-*Leo to put together initial text regarding record-keeping*
**
Leo said he had put together some text on record-keeping. He had also
changed the structure of the document into three parts: 1) the CoC
itself, 2) process, 3) everything else.
Salam asked if this covered data and record-keeping – this could be a
document in itself.
Leo said he wasn’t sure if this should be a RIPE Document or a RIPE NCC
procedural document. He had wanted to get this down early, because it
mentioned controls and tools and he thought they had a responsibility to
give the RIPE NCC as much notice as possible, so it could do some
thinking. It would be good to know that the RIPE NCC could look at this
closely and identify the controls it thought were necessary along with
the tools it proposed they use.
Salam asked if the TF would produce three documents or four, and whether
the CoC would link to this process information.
Leo said there would be three documents. The first would be the CoC
itself. The second would be the CoC Team – how it was recruited, how big
it would be, and so on. The third document would cover how to make a
report and how reports were handled.
Salam suggested a fourth document on how the data was handled. She
thought this information should be there but didn’t think it should be
in the CoC itself.
Brian said he disagreed. The data aspects were spread throughout the
process document and there would be many places where this came up. If
they had this in a separate document, people might interpret it as
simply another GDPR statement and their eyes would glaze over.
Salam said she was fine with having this in the process document, she
just didn’t want it in the main CoC document.
Denesh asked if all of the information about data handling should be in
a central RIPE NCC procedural document. That way anything about data
handling in the process document could simply point there.
Athina said if data was kept for specific CoC-related purposes, it made
sense for it to be in the CoC documents. The important part about
personal data was the purpose – there was not a unified way of handling
data.
Denesh said he was thinking if there was a company-wide document, they
could say: “This follows the RIPE NCC’s general GDPR principles, which
you can find here.” He imagined they could have a single document with
all of these different purposes. That depended on how the RIPE NCC
wanted to handle things, of course.
Athina said they had their privacy statement for RIPE NCC services,
which followed this logic. However, as the CoC would sit outside of
this, she thought it needed to be separate. And while the principles
were always the same, they were obliged to repeat them every time.
-*Leo to ask for RIPE Chair Team’s perspective on CoC/RIPE NCC board
elections. *
Leo said he could report back on this, as he and Denesh had recently met
with the RIPE Chair Team. He also noted that other TF members were
welcome to join future calls if they wished.
Regarding the issue of the RIPE CoC and RIPE NCC Executive Board
elections, the view of the RIPE Chair team was similar to what Athina
had said on their last call: the RIPE NCC Executive Board would use
their CoC for its elections, but this would be a separate
implementation. There was no requirement that the CoC Team had to play a
role in this.
Brian said this was great. He asked if they could therefore say that the
RIPE CoC Team would definitely not be used in board elections.
Denesh said he thought they had agreed (on their call with the RIPE
Chair Team) that it would in fact be a separate team for this.
Leo said they should make sure to communicate this clearly when they
published their draft, as it appeared to be something that some people
in the community found concerning.
Athina said they had a board meeting next week, and these concerns would
be discussed there. What was currently on the table was to have a CoC
for the board elections (nothing more), and the evaluation of possible
violations would be done either by the Trusted Contacts or another third
party that was agreed-upon before the election process began. Perhaps
the CoC Team might feel confident performing this role in the future, so
she wondered if it was better to leave this open.
Leo asked if they needed to decide this now. He wondered if they might
end up with a similar situation to what they had with the NRO NC / ASO
AC where you had the same group of people in separate but overlapping roles.
Brian said what he wanted to avoid was people who were discouraged from
joining the CoC Team because they want to stay out of RIPE NCC politics.
He wanted them to be clear that this was a group for the RIPE community.
If the board later created a group ahead of its election, perhaps the
same people might volunteer to join that as well. Perhaps in the future
they would end up with a situation where the RIPE NCC needed a handful
of people for this role, and there were enough people on the CoC Team
willing to step forward, and this became more established over time.
Salam agreed with Brian’s point.
Leo said they would make sure it was clear in their communication that
these were separate implementations. So, the same people might volunteer
to join the board’s process, but it would be separate from the community’s.
Brian said he was fine with that approach for now. If they got some
pushback from community, they might want to take a more explicit step.
Leo said the other thing they had discussed was that they were heading
into December and might need to think about communication with the
community. The RIPE Chair Team was also concerned that the TF would blur
the documents together and so he had updated their draft to clearly mark
the three separate documents. He asked the TF to think about how much
progress they could make and whether they could share something with the
community before the end of the year – either they could share a rough
draft along with some leading questions, or they could say that they now
expected their first draft to be ready in January.
Brian said he thought the first document (the CoC itself) was in pretty
good shape. Certainly, it was enough to share with the community to show
where they were. One change he wanted to see was on the list of
unacceptable behaviour – he thought this could be a bulleted list
instead of a paragraph as it currently was.
Athina liked Brian’s suggestion. One thing she wanted more clarity on
was the scope. She expected questions on whether ENOG/MENOG were
covered, or RIPE NCC General Meetings. The same with social media – did
the CoC apply only if a discussion took place under a RIPE NCC account,
or was it by topic? She thought this could use some clarity.
Denesh said one of his comments in the document was that it should cover
everything related to the RIPE community or the RIPE NCC, and so social
media was very much a part of it.
Leo said they he wondered if they could have both the RIPE CoC and the
RIPE NCC could have its own for the non-RIPE events that it organised.
If ENOG was part of RIPE, then the community’s CoC would apply. If it
wasn’t, then the RIPE NCC’s CoC could have this as a separate
implementation (based on the community’s CoC). The CoC could end up
being a best practice document that was picked up by other groups, such
as NOGs.
Athina asked about corner cases. She asked what happened if two
attendees ran into trouble at an ARIN Meeting and tried to invoke the
RIPE CoC.
Brian said every CoC he had ever seen would say this was out of scope.
In some cases, they explicitly stated that this only applied to events
they were organising. In his own experience, there were cases where they
organised events within larger events for PR. Here, they explicitly
stated that the wider event’s CoC applied instead of their own. This was
especially important as their own CoC Team wouldn’t be present.
Salam said when she reviewed the document, she thought it applied to
people present at RIPE Meetings and related activities, as well as
mailing lists. Maybe they could include social media, but that was it.
She didn’t see what the issue was here.
Athina said that might have been a bad example. She asked what happened
if people got into a very heated discussion in a bar near the RIPE
Meeting venue.
Salam said they also had to look at existing behaviour. These people
were bound together at a time and place due to the RIPE Meeting, but
they would often go to a bar across the street. She asked if they needed
to worry about this.
Athina said it might be good to have some examples. She offered to come
up with a list.
Brian said there would be a lot of corner cases and they would never
answer them all. This was where the emphasis on mediation role of the
CoC Team would be important. If two people had an argument in a bar, it
would probably not end there and might enter the meeting. This is where
the CoC Team could help, and it might become a conversation. The
question of whether they CoC Team would then ban one of them from
attending the meeting might depend on the guidelines they set for the
community.
Antony noted that the previous version had used a lot of inconsistent
language in terms of “attendees” and “participants” who were “at” the
RIPE Meeting – but the CoC obviously applied in a much wider sense, as
it also applied to mailing lists and so there was not really a clear
start or end.
Leo said they were trying to reach an agreement on what they meant. They
would then rely on him to help them with the wording and make that
clear. Their charter was for everything RIPE-related – including things
like webinars, Mattermost servers, and so on. They wouldn’t get it right
the first time, and the CoC would likely need to be updated as people
and society changed over time. But they should not let the pursuit of
perfection stand in the way and if they produced something that was
better than what they had now – then they had achieved some measure of
success.
Leo also referred Athina to the questions document they had looked at
earlier in the process, which covered some of her points around scope.
He encouraged her to make comments or pose additional questions there,
as it would be easier if this was all in one place.
*Action: RIPE NCC to provide some examples of corner cases.*
**
Salam asked if Leo could update the table of contents for the draft to
match the new structure of the document.
Leo noted that Brian had already said he thought the document was in
pretty good shape. He suggested they work on the document online and
make any changes or comments, and discuss on the mailing list when they
wanted to send this to Antony to turn into a draft they could work on
together. He asked the group to do this by next Friday and then on
Monday they could have a mailing list discussion on what they wanted to
do. He thought they could then decide “go/no-go” at their next meeting.
*Action: TF members to review CoC doc and propose changes. *
*4.**AOB*
The group agreed to have its next meeting on Thursday, 17 December at
16:30 (UTC+1).
Leo said he would prepare a draft update for the community.
Brian said he thought they would know if their document was ready to
share with the community in about a week’s time. He thought they had
some flexibility in Europe around when people would start shutting down
for Christmas. His feeling was that around 15 or 16 December would be an
okay time to share an update.
*Action: Leo to draft an update for the community *
*5.**Review Actions*
*Action: RIPE NCC to request more detail from the Trusted Contacts on
workload.*
**
*Action: Athina to provide some examples of corner cases.*
**
*Action: TF members to review CoC doc and propose changes.*
**
*Action: Leo to draft an update for the community.*
