Dear TF members,
Here are the minutes from the call before last.
Cheers
Ant
***
*Draft Minutes – CoC TF Thirteenth Call *
14 May 16:30 (UTC+2)
*Attendees:* Denesh Bhabuta, Athina Fragkouli, Antony Gollan, Brian
Nisbet, Leo Vegoda, Salam Yamout
*Summary:* The TF discussed its upcoming BoF at RIPE 82. Based on
feedback from the community, the TF considered whether the CoC should
contain examples of positive/negative behaviour, or whether this should
be published in a separate document. After some discussion, the group
agreed that this should be contained in the CoC itself, recognising that
there was a fairly standard format to CoCs that included lists of
behaviour, and they didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Leo shared that
he had received an email from a community member who asked why he did
not get a response to his feedback – Leo explained that the TF was there
to listen, and its updated draft would essentially be the TF’s response
to community feedback. It was also noted that the TF might need to
consider additional communication efforts when it published its draft,
to walk people through the details of what had changed.
*1. Minutes*
The minutes from the meeting before last (23 April) were approved.
Salam asked if the minutes could more clearly indicate where a decision
was made.
Leo said he would try to summarise the discussion at the end of each
section where possible.
*2. Agenda*
Leo said he’d updated the agenda with an AOB to note that he’d received
an email from Hank Nussbacher.
Leo said he wanted to keep the call straightforward, as the focus would
be on the RIPE Meeting next week. He had cut all of the examples from
the CoC, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t add some of them back in if
the group disagreed with this approach.
Salam suggested some of the parts that had been cut could be covered in
a separate FAQ along with other details. This way the CoC could remain a
high-level document.
*3. Actions*
*- (Ongoing) RIPE NCC to review reporting requirements to inform a
process of improvements to the CoC (likely tooling and legal analysis).*
Antony said they were still working on this.
*- (Ongoing) TF to think about how the CoC Team and the WG Chairs would
work together to manage discussions on mailing lists. Including tools,
e.g. Mattermost channel*
Brian said he would have something to share around the end of May.
*- (Ongoing) TF to think about the appropriate level of process to allow
further improvements to the CoC.*
Leo said a lot of this would probably be informed by the feedback from
their BoF next week.
*- Leo to draft slides for BoF *
Leo said this was done.
*- TF to review Mailing List Guidelines for RIPE Working Group Chairs *
Brian clarified that the WG chairs would pick one of two moderation
options – chairs could either get access to the moderation admin or let
the RIPE NCC handle this. It was up to each WG to decide which option it
preferred.
Leo said he thought there could be a third option, which he had seen in
an IETF WG that had gotten out of hand. In that case, the chair had
enabled moderation for the entire mailing list and let through all
messages that weren’t abusive at a set time each day. This slowed
everything down, but it affected everyone equally and the slower pace
drove a more considered discussion. It had also taken some of the heat
out of the space.
Brian said that was covered under the first option (placing the entire
list into emergency moderation).
Leo suggested that could be clearer, as it could be interpreted in a
number of ways.
Brian added that this was essentially what the RIPE NCC Executive Board
had done with the Members Discuss mailing list. He had also warned the
Anti-Abuse WG list that he might do this if people didn’t behave.
Denesh said what he understood by “emergency moderation” was that
someone would review every message and let them through (more-or-less in
real time), but not slow things down as Leo had described.
Brian said they could improve the language there.
Leo said it was good that they’d had this discussion, as it gave them
awareness of the various options that were available.
*2. BoF*
Leo shared his draft slides. He said it was possible that they would get
a lot of input and wouldn’t have time to make it through all the
questions. He would let Olaf decide, because if they got a lot of
helpful feedback that identified different strands of thought within the
community, then that told them they might need another intersessional
BoF or something similar.
Denesh said he wasn’t seeing anything about their timeline in the slides.
Leo said that in his message to RIPE List, he had said they would like
to publish an updated CoC by the end of June. He would rather get it
right, so if it had to be later that was fine. He said he would mention
that June was the target in the BoF.
Salam asked if they could break out into separate sessions during the
BoF. Perhaps they could cover all of the questions that way.
Leo said that might not be practical, as they were using Meetecho and
only had an hour. If they did something intersessional in the future,
they could look at breakout rooms, though this would require more effort
overall – as they’d need to have multiple people chairing/noting what
was discussed.
Leo said he wouldn’t give a date for the process or CoC Team documents
in the BoF. This was because it would largely depend on the community’s
feedback.
Denesh suggested they make it clear during the BoF that they were there
to listen to the community.
Leo said he would do that and would also mention that this was why they
had invited Olaf to chair the BoF (so they could focus on listening).
*3. Updated CoC Doc*
Leo said he had tried to incorporate the feedback they’d received so far
by removing all of the bullet points from the draft, as there had been
some discussion that this was too much. This was part of the tension
between those in the community who wanted a focus on principles and
those who wanted examples. The question was how much of this to put back in.
Denesh said he thought they could keep it as-is and say that these were
a few examples but it was not an exhaustive list. They could refer to
another document with an FAQ or a longer list. He didn’t think they
would ever get the balance right or cover everything, but they could
give some examples and update this when needed.
Leo said he liked the idea of having a very brief CoC overall with more
detailed informational that was separated out. He asked if Antony or
Athina could give some guidance about how this could be managed – both
from an editorial and a procedural perspective (in terms of the future
CoC Team wanting to update this).
Antony said his first thought was that if version control and history
was important, then it was best to publish this as a RIPE Document. If
they were more flexible, then it could be a web page and they would take
care to manage it properly. Neither approach would be very hard to
manage on the RIPE NCC’s side.
Brian said if they didn’t publish the examples as RIPE Documents, people
would wonder why. His assumption was that all three documents they would
develop would be published as RIPE Documents – and what they were
discussing was essentially a fourth document.
Denesh agreed with Brian.
Leo said he was thinking of this in terms of the RIPE NCC’s training
material. Here, the community developed RIPE Documents with its
policies, and then trusted the RIPE NCC to use its own judgement when
communicating this information in other formats. The RIPE NCC would have
experience over multiple meetings and mailing lists, and so perhaps they
could entrust this document to the RIPE NCC.
Antony said he was thinking of people who might be worried about the CoC
being weaponised. This would essentially be a list of the reasons why
someone could be excluded from the community, and the idea of this being
updated on an ad hoc basis could concern them. Another option could be
something similar to RIPE NCC procedural documents, which were published
by the RIPE NCC but handled in the same way as RIPE Documents in terms
of version control.
Brian said they should involve the RIPE Chair Team if they decided to go
in this direction. This was the community’s document and he thought the
community should own it and be invested in it. He also wanted to avoid
the perception that the RIPE NCC was somehow gaining power or bringing
down the ban hammer. This was similar to how they said the RIPE NCC was
not the Internet Police – they didn’t want it to become the community’s
police either, which was why they would have a CoC Team.
Leo said it was important that Brian had brought this up. What he had
inferred from Salam’s comment was that this would not be a policy
document – it would be something to help people understand the policy.
They could identify positive/negative behaviours and add them to the FAQ
to support understanding. He wasn’t suggesting a RIPE NCC-managed policy
document, he was thinking more in terms of the RIPE NCC’s training
material.
Salam said this was roughly what she was thinking. She asked if the
current list included all the relevant aspects of identity – an earlier
version wasn’t much longer, but it had covered this well. She suggested
they could include positive behaviour in the CoC and have an FAQ with
negative behaviours that could expand over time (without version control).
Athina said if the TF or the community felt strongly that certain
behaviours were unacceptable, they should be identified in the document.
If this was left to the RIPE NCC, it might not be as strong, or could be
subject to doubt, especially as they had seen some comments from the
community that this effort was politically motivated. She thought they
should have a list of behaviours written down clearly, and then perhaps
they could say that this list would be clarified by the actual
evaluation of reports done by the CoC Team, and that in the future this
team might come up with examples in a publication later on. And they
could leave it there. Perhaps the team would come up with an anonymised
list of behaviours that were a violation along with behaviours that were
reported but were not a violation.
Denesh said he thought the TF would initially develop this list of
behaviours and, as it would be published as a RIPE Document, the CoC
Team could add to it over time (in addition to people within the RIPE
NCC and other community members). This could be a living document and
because it would be separate, it would avoid making the CoC overly long.
Leo asked for thoughts from each person on whether they should separate
the CoC from a document that would contain examples or, alternatively,
if they should go for one all-inclusive document.
Salam thought they needed to have one document – the CoC. This could be
accompanied by other peripheral documents such as training materials or
FAQs. For the list within the CoC, she would add intimidation, bullying
and harassment, and instead of aggressive communication, she would say
aggressive behaviour (or communication and behaviour).
Brian said there was a fairly standard format to CoCs across communities
and they all included lists of encouraged and unacceptable behaviour. He
didn’t think they needed to reinvent the wheel. They had good examples
there, and he really thought they should take the prior examples that
were out there and include them in the main document. They should
publish this as a RIPE Document and should stick with three documents
instead of four.
Denesh said he was on the fence. His earlier comments were intended to
keep the CoC from becoming too long and could allow the examples to be
updated independently. It depended on whether they wanted to keep the
CoC short or not.
Athina said she agreed with Brian.
Leo said in that case, he thought they should add the examples they had
before, perhaps with some wording to clarify that they were only
examples and subject to change.
Salam agreed with that approach.
Leo said in that case he would add the list back in.
*4. AOB*
Leo said he wanted to note that he had received an email from Hank
Nussabacher asking why he hadn’t received a response to his comment on
the mailing list, which noted that the CoC should list things like spam,
sharing malware, etc. In Leo’s reply to Hank, he had said they were not
planning to reply to everyone and were taking feedback on board – their
updated draft CoC would essentially act as their response. He had also
noted that most of Hank’s examples were already illegal and referred him
to the section in the existing draft that dealt with illegal behaviour.
Leo said that when they published their updated draft, they might need
to do something extra (such as a webinar) to walk people through what
had changed and explain their rationale.
Brian reiterated that the examples in Hank’s email were illegal
behaviour. He said it was worth clarifying these kinds of things out in
their communication when they shared their updated draft.
*
**5. Actions*
Leo said he saw two actions coming out of the above discussion – to
update the draft CoC (adding the examples back in) and to work with
Antony on communicating the draft CoC once it was ready to publish.
*Action: Leo to update draft CoC (adding examples of behaviours back in). **
**
**Action: Leo to work with Antony on communicating the updated draft CoC. **
*
