Dear TF members,
Here are the minutes from our last call.
Cheers
Ant
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*Draft Minutes – CoC TF Eleventh Call*
23 April 2021, 16:30 (UTC+1)
*Present:* Denesh Bhabuta, Athina Fragkouli, Antony Gollan, Brian
Nisbet, Leo Vegoda
*Summary: *The TF discussed how the (future) CoC Team would interact
with the WG Chairs. This would best be seen as an ongoing relationship
supported by regular communication rather than something defined by
strict rules. As part of this, it was noted that the CoC Team should
operate on the basis of reports, rather than proactively policing
community discussions. The TF discussed how to respond to feedback
objecting on the basis that this led down the path of socialism. It was
agreed that this should be referred to the RIPE Chair team as it was out
of scope for the TF. The TF discussed feedback from the community on its
draft CoC (v4), noting that some people wanted more detail and examples
while others preferred a focus on general principles. The tension
between these points will be discussed in a BoF with the community at
RIPE 82. The current draft also stated that the PCs of regional
communities such as MENOG, ENOG and SEE would determine whether/how the
CoC was implemented in their communities. It was agreed that no one
appeared to want this, and so there should be a single CoC for all
meetings organised by the RIPE NCC (perhaps with some implementation
differences, such as local/regional CoC Teams).
*1. Minutes*
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved without changes.
*2. Agenda*
Leo noted that he had added an item to the agenda regarding an email
they had received on the CoC Task Force mailing list the day before and
how they should respond.
*3. Actions*
*- RIPE NCC to review reporting requirements to inform a process of
improvements to the CoC (likely tooling and legal analysis).*
Antony said he and Athina had been looking at this. They had thought
about the steps that would need to happen (report made, CoC Team
informed, report archived, etc.) and then listed the legal
considerations for each step (who can access reports, GDPR
considerations, etc.) They had then tried to anticipate what would be
needed in terms of implementation. Once the document was ready, they
could share this with the group for feedback before approaching their
technical colleagues within the RIPE NCC to get input from them.
*- TF to think about how the CoC Team and WG Chairs would work together
to manage discussions on MLs. *
Leo noted that Mirjam had shared some guidance on this recently and
asked if everyone had read this.
Brian said he’d talked to Mirjam about this. He thought it needed to be
the case that the CoC Team shouldn’t be able to order the WG Chairs
around. At the same time, the WG Chairs should not be able to ignore the
CoC Team. It needed to be about cooperation.
Leo said this probably needed more thought. He thought this would be a
relationship that would need to be sustained.
Denesh asked if there could be something to support an ongoing dialogue
between the CoC Team and the WG Chairs (perhaps a mailing list or a chat
channel). That way, if something came up on the lists, the CoC Team
could raise the issue with the relevant WG chairs before it became an
issue.
Brian said he was all for more communication between the two groups, but
he didn’t think they should set an expectation that the CoC Team would
be proactively looking for issues – it should operate on the basis of
reports. However, he agreed that it would be a relationship and there
would need to be a dialogue. The chairs couldn’t take a “My WG – my
rules” approach. He wanted to be careful to ensure they didn’t create a
strict set of rules for this, as it was better to have a loose and
ongoing relationship that was maintained by both sides.
Denesh agreed and thought this was why they might want a real-time
channel, as it would allow an agreement to be reached much quicker.
Leo said he did like the idea of WG chairs having the ability to ask
questions from other people to get broader input. Having someone they
could trust to look out for the community’s best interest would be
helpful, and having some kind of tooling along these lines would be
good. He added that this could use some more thought, and so he would
keep it on the agenda for the next meeting. It could also roll back into
the tooling action item above.
Brian suggested (possibly after RIPE 82), they might want to have a
group call with the RIPE Chair Team before they started handing things
over to a CoC Team.
Leo said it would be good to have that on the agenda for their next
discussion with the RIPE Chair Team. He added that when Denesh and he
had met them last time, they discussed that as the TF was quite small,
they were happy to meet with the entire TF (the only reason not to do
this was in terms of the coordination of diaries).
*- TF to think about the appropriate level of process that would allow
improvements to the CoC. *
Leo said they needed to get the balance right between formal/informal.
If they wanted to repeat the current [TF] process to make future
improvements to the CoC, it would take quite a lot of time. On the other
hand, if an alternative approach was too lightweight, it might be easier
to make mistakes.
Brian said he thought they should approve three documents and then the
TF should disband. They would then have a CoC Team, and these would be
the best people to drive the process. Maybe there would be a need for a
future TF if that process broke down, or if huge changes were needed,
but otherwise he thought it should be that team that was responsible for
this. He thought their work as a TF was going well – but it had also
gone very slowly. There were valid reasons for this – it was the nature
of the RIPE community and the various legal and other interests involved.
Leo said he shared Brian’s understanding that the TF would disband at
the completion of their third document. His intention was that they
provide some level of guidance in their documents on how to update those
documents. If they didn’t provide some guidance on the process, it could
become chaotic, and that would not be to anyone’s advantage.
He thought they should give this some thought and so he would carry over
this action item.
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**- TF to think about their schedules between April/June and consider
changing call times. This can be coordinated via the ML to allow a new
schedule before April.*
Leo said they had meetings booked until the end of June, so they could
close this item.
*4. Feedback*
*- Responding to Rolf*
Leo said he had two questions: 1) whether Rolf’s request was within
their scope, and 2) what they should do. He thought Rolf was talking
about RIPE rather than the RIPE NCC (as in his email) and he noted that
it he addressed his email to the Diversity TF. He noted that Rolf said
he wanted them to move away from socialist ideas and adopt an apolitical
stance. He found it difficult to think about how to reply to the email.
He read it as: “I don’t like what you’re doing, so please don’t do it.”
Denesh said the way he read it, it seemed like he was protesting change
– i.e. “This is how things used to be, they worked well – so why
change?” He agreed that this was out of their scope, and it should go to
the RIPE Chair Team. He didn’t understand the political aspect that Rolf
was talking about, he assumed he was concerned with political
correctness, but it wasn’t about that – it was about the community
addressing issues.
Brian said he’d seen a lot of this reactionary stuff in response to
diversity and inclusion efforts that assumed all of this led to Soviet
Russia. He was actually surprised they hadn’t gotten more of this, but
agreed this wasn’t for the TF to deal with.
Leo said he would ask Mirjam and Niall to handle this, as he didn’t
think it was within their scope – especially since it addressed the
Diversity TF and they couldn’t have impact on the charter of another TF.
*- Tension between calls for additional details in lists and calls for
less detail with greater focus on general guiding principles*
Leo said there were two items he had pulled out for discussion. The
first was the tension between the request for more specific details on
one side, and those who wanted less detail and more focus on general
principles on the other. To give examples, it seemed Jordi wanted a lot
more detail, while Randy wanted less detail and more focus on
principles. They could go with one approach or the other – otherwise
they could make slight adjustments and stick with the balance they
currently had.
Denesh said they would always get a pull between these two perspectives.
They had started with general principles and a small list, but had added
more detail to avoid ambiguity. And now people wanted both more and less
detail. He thought they would never resolve this completely.
Brian agreed with Denesh. He was on Randy’s side on this and thought it
was not possible to please everyone. As a community of engineers, they
were liable to ask why they couldn’t map a specific example against the
document. It was impossible to cover everything, and the more precise
they got, the more likely it was that people could argue that something
not explicitly identified in the CoC was allowed. He thought they should
continue as they were.
Leo asked Athina if there were advantages or disadvantages with either
approach from an implementation and enforcement perspective.
Athina said if they could agree on certain negative behaviours that were
unacceptable, there was no harm in providing a non-exhaustive list. It
was impossible to provide a full list. Even in legal codes, you had
general principles and some general rules, and you tried to make these
as broad as possible to fit specific situations. It was perfectly
acceptable to provide a non-exhaustive list. They could look at some of
the feedback and see if there were any points that were valid and
created a new principle that they should include. She suggested they
could make a table with a list of the points made and for each item say
why they thought the draft should be amended (or not).
Leo said he was on the side of general principles. Even though they had
tried to be careful with their language to make it clear that these were
non-exhaustive lists, they could give the wording more attention when
they reviewed the draft.
Leo noted that their BoF at RIPE 82 had been approved. He said he could
draft some slides for this with some alternatives and they could use
this to get feedback from the community.
Action: Leo to draft slides for RIPE 82 BoF to support discussion with
the community on the balance between precise definitions vs general
principles.
*- CoC TF and ENOG, MENOG, and SEE.*
Leo asked if there was any view within the RIPE NCC on this.
Antony said what he and Athina had originally intended was not
necessarily to say that the PCs of these communities had any role “as
PCs”, but as representatives of their communities that they could easily
contact and have a discussion with. Thinking of the mailing lists for
these communities, it was unlikely that a mail sent there would get a
response, for example. He understood that at least one of these PCs had
indicated they weren’t interested in speaking on behalf of their
community in this way.
Leo said he understood they had been using “PC” as a stand-in for
“independently organised.” In his discussions with the RIPE Chair Team,
he understood that the RIPE NCC was the organiser of the meetings for
these communities. When they had started discussing this as a TF, they
hadn’t properly understood what the organisational status of these
communities was. He thought they needed clarity on this – whether they
were separate communities or activities of the RIPE community that were
organised by the RIPE NCC.
Athina said she thought they should clarify whether they were talking
about whether these communities would “adopt” the RIPE CoC or whether
they were talking about how they would implement the CoC. For example,
the same CoC might be implemented, but with different regional CoC Teams
making any determinations. She understood they were talking about the
latter case.
Brian said the message they’d gotten from the community (that was paying
attention and engaging on the topic) was that they didn’t understand why
the TF was asking the question. With the RIPE Chair Team and the RIPE
NCC Managing Director seemingly behind the idea of a single CoC for all
of RIPE, it seemed they should be able to do this. He’d prefer they had
one CoC that was implemented by regional CoC Teams, and if communities
wanted logistical support or funding from the RIPE NCC, they would need
to abide by it.
Leo said one of the advantages of the approach they’d taken was that
they’d asked and no one had requested that the CoC not apply to their
community. Because they hadn’t received this feedback, if they now
changed the wording to something along the lines of “Wherever there is a
RIPE NCC event that is not a RIPE Meeting, it will use this CoC unless
there is another CoC that provides a viable alternative.” This made it
an implementation problem. He was thinking about this from a volunteer
perspective – if they had this being used for all of the various RIPE
NCC meetings (including the various governmental meetings as well as
regional meetings), that might create quite a burden on a single CoC
Team. But if they’d moved from “Are we going to do this?” to “How are we
going to do this? – then that was process. Based on the nodding heads on
the call, he said that the agreement was that the CoC would apply to all
events organised by the RIPE NCC and they would next need to think about
how this would work.
Brian said if they updated the text, they might need to consider
specifying who made the decision (about how/whether the CoC was
implemented).
Leo said he was thinking the approach could be to say that the CoC
applied unless there was another CoC that was just as good. He was
thinking in terms of various financial regulations that allowed an
equivalent regulator in another country to act as a substitute for the
one in the home country.
Brian asked who decided whether an alternative CoC was just as good.
Leo said that was an implementation question. There were people within
the RIPE NCC who might be able to look at this. As they would be the
ones organising the event, perhaps it would be preferable for them to
assess this. He asked Athina if he had just dumped something big on them.
Athina asked who they (the RIPE NCC) were to impose the CoC on another
community?
Leo said as long as they weren’t aware of an alternative CoC, he didn’t
think they should worry about it at this stage.
Athina agreed and added that it would be good to have this clarify in
the scope.
Leo said they would have some time to agree on the wording.
*5. AoB*
Brian noted that in another community they were currently dealing with
the weaponisation of a CoC. This essentially came down to someone
claiming another person had used insulting language against them. They
were right, but this had been in reaction to threatening communication
from the person making the complaint. He was mentioning this because in
their CoC, they talked about aggressive communication and being
accepting of disagreement. He thought this was right, but they needed to
consider what happened if someone reacted to another person who broke
the CoC with language or behvaiour that itself broke the CoC.
Leo said this was about making it clear that they should rely more on
principles than lists of behaviour, and making it clear that they were
relying on the CoC Team to use its good sense.
Brian said he was aware of some good wording from another source and he
would share it with the group.
Brian noted that the BoF at RIPE 82 would require strong moderation, as
people could start ratholing. People would need to be able to voice
their opinion, but it would be important to keep the session on track.
Leo said he thought they were right, and they would need to plan this
correctly.
*6. Action Items*
*Action: TF to review ML guidance from Mirjam **
**Action: TF to think about implementing a method for WG chairs could
get advice about implementing the CoC in their WG**
**Action: Leo to draft slides for RIPE 82 BoF to support discussion with
the community on the balance between precise definitions vs gen*eral
principles
*Action: Leo to include an updated agenda to ensure a correct balance
between communicating and listening from the community*
