Hi all,
Here's the second set of minutes.
Cheers
Ant
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*Draft Minutes - Code of Conduct TF: Ninth Call *
18 February 2021, 16:30-17:30 (UTC+1)
*Present:*Denesh Bhabuta, Brian Nisbet, Ulka Uthale, Leo Vegoda, Salam
Yamout
*Summary:*The TF agreed that it was ready to publish the draft CoC and
ask the RIPE community for feedback. The approach for how to develop the
next two documents was discussed. The TF noted that it would need to
think about how the future CoC Team would interact with other parts of
RIPE, such as the WG Chairs. The TF discussed how it would respond to
feedback on its draft CoC; it agreed to focus on collecting input rather
than responding to every point on the mailing list.
*1. Minute**s*
The minutes from the previous call had not yet been sent and Leo said
they could move this to the next call.
*2. Agenda*
There were no changes to the agenda.
*3. Actions*
*- RIPE NCC to finalise and share draft CoC for publication*
*- Leo to draft and share announcement text for draft CoC*
Leo said Antony had shared an updated draft CoC and updated the draft
announcement – so these two actions were completed.
*4. Publish?*
Leo noted that Antony had added a few editorial comments and made some
changes to the draft CoC and ran through them. He asked if anyone wanted
to make any further changes or if they were ready to publish and make
any required changes at a later point.
The TF agreed that it was ready to publish the draft document.
Leo said he was a little wary of publishing a document that was too
final and indicated that they weren’t open to comments. So even if there
were imperfections, this might not be a problem.
Leo said he would work with the RIPE NCC to get the draft document
published.
*Action: RIPE NCC to publish draft CoC on a webpage to share with the
RIPE community. *
*5. Upcoming Meeting*
Leo said it would be good for them to think about planning the next two
documents, especially as they would have at least a month while the
community gave feedback on their updated CoC draft.
Leo said there would be some dependencies between the process and the
CoC Team, and some interactions between the CoC Team and, for example,
RIPE WG Chairs. They would need to think about this. There would also be
requirements for tooling, which the RIPE NCC was already thinking about.
And there would be some data governance aspects about how reports were
managed, and this might interact with tooling that was provided to WG
Chairs – for example, if one potential outcome was to ban someone from
posting to mailing list while allowing them to continue receiving emails.
Brian noted that managing and moderating mailing lists was already an
active discussion between the Working Group Chairs Collective and the
RIPE NCC. He agreed that they would need to think about what they were
responsible for as a TF. Maybe in some cases they would simply be
pointing out questions that needed answering, and working out who the
responsible party was.
Leo thought there was definitely an onus on them to work out who the
responsible party was. He didn’t think they needed to define a list of
actions that needed to be taken in response to a CoC violation. He
thought it would be good if there could be some guidance given to the
RIPE NCC in terms of potential outcomes, to avoid last-minute software
changes being needed.
Salam said it was up to them to write what needed to be done – and this
would be not only the principle but the tooling. As RIPE NCC staff were
part of the group, they could then decide what was practical.
Leo said he didn’t think they would need to look at specific tooling
requirements. But he thought it might be worth listing what kind of
actions/procedures might be needed. The RIPE NCC could then integrate
this into its systems. He imagined the RIPE NCC’s tooling could change
over time – this was fine, so long as they specified what mailing lists
needed to do (for example). But there was more to it than that, there
was an interaction between the process and the CoC Team. The more
specific the process document became, the more impact this had on the
CoC Team, and they also needed to think about how this might affect the
selection process. One of the things they had discussed on an earlier
call was that they needed to allow space for the CoC Team to make its
own decisions and not make the process overly defined or legalistic. He
thought they should focus on what agenda items they needed to look at.
He imagined this would take some back-and-forward, because none of them
would come up with all of the answers on their own.
Denesh asked whether the first step would be to ask the RIPE NCC what
their current processes related to this were.
Leo said that would be helpful, and they’d already had some of that in
terms of the report from the Trusted Contacts, but there was the element
of what was involved if the CoC Team banned someone from a RIPE Meeting.
This would involve some form of interaction between the CoC Team and the
RIPE NCC’s meeting software. So, getting some feedback from the RIPE NCC
on what was currently possible would be helpful.
Salam said she wasn’t clear on what Leo was after. She also didn’t see
the relation between the CoC Team and the WG Chairs.
Brian said as a WG Chair he had sometimes removed people from the
mailing list for misbehaviour, on the basis of the CoC. He could imagine
cases in the future where someone made a complaint to the CoC Team
instead of the WG Chair. It would be interesting to think about what
happened if the CoC Team decided that a violation had occurred and the
WG Chair disagreed. As a community they would need to think about this,
as it created a second root to some degree. This somewhat already
existed with the Trusted Contacts, but the updated CoC would make this
more explicit. There could also be issues with in-person WG sessions,
which took place within the larger RIPE Meeting context. So, while there
were things that WG Chairs and the CoC Team could do, there was a lot of
potential for interaction and also for disagreement there.
Salam said if she misbehaved in a WG session, it would be either the WG
Chair or another meeting attendee that would report her to the CoC Team.
A certain process would then start, and it would reach a decision on her
behaviour. This would result in an action – whether she was barred from
the RIPE Meeting, given a warning, or whatever. She couldn’t see the
role of the WG Chair in this process, unless they were part of the CoC
Team or were questioned as part of its investigation.
Brian said this was where it became interesting. He might say he was
making a decision as WG Chair to ban someone from the mailing list
without referring them to the CoC Team.
Salam said she understood. In a perfect world, they would keep these
separate – if a chair had a problem with the behaviour of someone in
their WG, they could report them to the CoC Team and let that process
take its course.
Brian said there could be a point where someone reported a mail to the
CoC Team, who decided they should be banned. Did that mean that he (as
chair) was bound by the CoC Team’s decision? It was entirely possible
that he should be – but he could anticipate some people objecting to
this kind of structure being forced onto the WGs.
In response to Brian’s point, Denesh said that things were evolving over
time, and perhaps WGs needed to change as part of this and become more
structured.
Leo said that until now, the Trusted Contacts had mostly been
responsible for doing things during a RIPE Meeting. However, they were
changing the scope to “everything RIPE.” This meant the CoC Team might
be called to do things between RIPE Meetings, if there was a vigorous
discussion on a mailing list, for example. They would need to think
about this, as they put together the CoC Team document. They needed to
set expectations for the people who would volunteer for the role. While
it was likely that they would always have a RIPE NCC staff member on the
CoC Team, that person might not be in a position to make all of those
decisions – and relying on the RIPE NCC’s staff to manage the RIPE
community might put them into a difficult position. He thought it was
worth starting this discussion now and perhaps sharing agenda items on
the TF mailing list over the next few weeks.
Leo noted that he had the initial structure document and it would be
helpful for TF members to review this and decide where content should
sit and what might need to be added/removed. This document was simply
intended to spark discussion and feedback.
Salam asked where it said that the WG Chairs function was to monitor
their mailing lists.
Brian noted that in the Working Group Chair Job Description and
Procedures (ripe-692), it said that WG Chairs were responsible for
guiding mailing list discussions, though this didn’t mention moderation
specifically. He added that there were currently discussions among the
chairs that they might improve the tools/workflow to allow them to
enable moderation more easily.
Leo said it might be that they needed to recommend an update to other
documents, and it might be that the WG Chair job description needed
changes.
Salam asked if they should consider making all WG chairs part of the CoC
Team.
Leo said he didn’t know if every WG chair needed to be trained. He noted
that Jordi had been talking about the need for every chair to be
selected in the same manner, as they all developed policy. Leo had asked
the RIPE NCC’s Policy Officer for numbers on how many policies went
through the different WGs. This was very heavily weighted towards the
Address Policy WG, and dropped off quite abruptly when looking at other
WGs. This made him think that some WGs had different focuses – some were
more focused on organising face-to-face meetings, others were geared
towards facilitating mailing list discussions. He wondered if it made
sense to have one job description for all of them.
Brian said he’d spent a lot of time in the past trying to come up with a
unified procedure for selecting WG Chairs after Rob had asked him to do
this. This hadn’t gotten far, as there was significant resistance,
especially from those who strongly believed that a WG must come up with
its own processes in a bottom-up way. He thought they should have a
single procedure, but he was wary of the TF forcing the WG Chairs to do
certain things, and thought it was better for them to invest their
energies elsewhere.
Leo said if they were going to have RIPE WG Chairs involved in making
decisions related to the CoC, they would need to be aware that there
would be some work required between RIPE Meetings. That was all he was
trying to suggest there. Leo said they needed to think about how
ambiguous they wanted to be – as they wanted to allow space for
flexibility – though they wanted to be understandable.
Salam agreed with Leo’s approach, but thought it was a matter of
principles. The CoC Team was a disciplinary body that would do an
investigation and judge an individual’s conduct, and apply punishment if
someone violated the CoC. So, she thought they should not blur the line
between this body and other roles, such as WG Chairs. So, as a matter of
principle, any disciplinary action should come from the CoC Team
according to its processes – and not from WG Chairs.
Leo said he thought they had achieved what he had intended under this
agenda item – to start thinking about what they wanted to discuss. He
said he would create an action on him to share the structure document on
the list, and for TF members to propose agenda items on the mailing list.
*Action: Leo to share draft structure document. *
*Action: TF members to propose agenda items on the mailing list. *
*6. AOB*
Brian asked how they would share their draft with the community –
whether they would just publish it and leave it for the community to
comment, or whether they should take a more engaged approach and
actively discuss it with the community, as with the PDP.
Salam said that was a good question. She asked if they should respond to
any questions as individuals or if they should coordinate this via a
dedicated person.
Denesh thought they should just put it out there with a deadline. They
would get a range of views, but it was their role as a TF to review the
feedback and work out what was usable and what was not.
Leo thought they should prepare a summary of all the messages that came
in, and share this with the community. Here, they could clarify what
changes they would make to address these points. Otherwise they could
say that they had worked with the RIPE Chair Team and this was now the
CoC for RIPE.
Brian agreed with this approach. However, he said they should make it
clear how this was going to work – because people might be expecting
something more interactive like the PDP. They should make it clear that
they were gathering input and would not be responding to individual
comments as they came in.
Leo said that allowing for anonymous feedback was good and it might be
best if people shared this with the RIPE Chair Team directly.
Brian said he had been thinking more in terms of “private” than
“anonymous”. It was about allowing a solution for people that wanted to
raise a concern without having to do this via a public forum. But he
supported this approach, provided the RIPE Chair Team was happy with it.
*7. Review actions*
*Action: RIPE NCC to publish draft CoC on a webpage to share with the
RIPE community. *
*Action: Leo to share draft template/structure document. *
*Action: TF members to propose agenda items on the mailing list. *
*Action: Leo to check with RIPE Chair Team to see if they are willing to
accept anonymous feedback. *
*Action: Leo to work with the RIPE NCC to modify the announcement email
as required. *
**
