Dear TF members,

Here's the draft minutes from our last call in May.

Cheers

Ant


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Draft Minutes – CoC TF Fourteenth Call

28 May 16:30 (UTC+2)

Attendees: Denesh Bhabuta, Antony Gollan, Brian Nisbet, Leo Vegoda

Summary: The TF discussed the BoF at RIPE 82. This had not gone as well as hoped - they had gotten stuck at certain points and an hour was probably too short for an in-depth discussion. However, two pieces of useful direction had out from this: 1) The TF shouldn't reinvent the wheel and could borrow working examples from other communities. 2) The CoC Team could review its implementation of the CoC (perhaps with input from the RIPE Chair), and this would not require the same heavy process as if it were updating the CoC itself. The group discussed changes to the draft CoC following the BoF and agreed to make a consensus call on the document in mid-June, aiming to publish around the end of the month. The TF agreed that an article on RIPE Labs to explain the changes was a good approach and a webinar could also be held to answer any questions people had. The RIPE Chair could then make a consensus call after the comment period. The TF also agreed that if there were objections to certain parts of its updated draft, it could remove those parts that was keeping them from reaching consensus – recognising that it was best to move ahead with something that broadly worked and could be improved in the future.

1. Minutes

It was agreed to approve the minutes on the next call.

2. Agenda

There were no changes to the agenda.

3. Actions

- (Ongoing) RIPE NCC to review reporting requirements to inform a process of improvements to the CoC

Antony said he and Athina had spent more time on the document. However, they needed a little more time to finalise this. However, he thought they already had enough that the TF could start looking at this in parallel.

The TF agreed to save discussing the document for a call that Athina could attend, so she could answer any questions on the legal aspects.

- (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 needed a few more weeks for this.

- (Ongoing) TF to think about appropriate level of process to allow further improvements to the CoC.

Leo said they had gotten some feedback on this at the BoF. He suggested they return to this when they discussed the BoF later on the call.

4. BoF

Leo asked if TF members had any impressions from the BoF or other feedback to share.

Brian said he didn’t think the BoF had gone as they had hoped and hadn’t made too much progress. There was still a lot of uncertainty there. He was quite disappointed to see a few comments that were still questioning whether they should be doing this, though obviously they had a lot of consensus to move forwards. Overall, he thought people just wanted the TF to get on with it and stop talking about the process.

Denesh said noted Randy’s comments in the Friday plenary and his subsequent mail to RIPE List. He thought that as much as they had been open and transparent about what they were doing, it was clear that people weren’t reading their minutes and other parts in any depth. Part of this was that people are also just tired, and he thought they might see more of this. He thought Leo had been very clear that the purpose of the BoF was to discuss the process and yet they had still gotten questions about why they were talking about that rather than what they were doing. In terms of the feeling that they should just get on with it – that’s what they had been doing – but they also had to be transparent about things. Whatever they did, it would be hard to find a middle ground, but being open and transparent would help them in the future. In terms of the BoF itself, he didn’t think it was long enough. There was only so much they could do in an hour, and it made it hard to have the in-depth discussions they wanted. He added that it was great to have an independent person chairing the session and he thought they should consider that for next time as well.

Antony said he was a little disappointed that it was mostly his RIPE NCC colleagues who had commented. He wanted to have a read through the comments to see if there was more from the community there. He agreed that it was hard to discuss so many topics in depth when there wasn’t enough time.

Leo said he agreed with a lot of what had already been said. He thought the BoF time was essentially “family time” for the EMEA region, which meant that people without a direct professional interest in the topic were less likely to participate. This might account for the participation by RIPE NCC staff. He added that if the RIPE NCC wanted to provide a document with its perspective as an organisation, that would be fine.

Leo said he had heard two things at the BoF that were very useful. The first was a comment that they shouldn’t reinvent the wheel and there was already good stuff out there they could use. That piece of direction meant they didn’t have to suffer from “not invented here syndrome”. They could take something like the Python code and tweak it. Another point was guidance that the code itself should be reviewed like a RIPE Document and he thought the schedule he was given was a two-year schedule, which wasn’t too bad. The CoC Team, perhaps in cooperation with the WG Chairs or the RIPE Chair Team could look at how it implemented this through its processes – so there could be a separation between the implementation and the principles. That meant it was fine for the CoC Team to implement something without needing to involve the entire community. And if people found that it didn’t work, then they would definitely let the CoC Team know. That was good news from his perspective.

Brian said in terms of updating the document, he wanted to reiterate that he wanted to avoid binding the CoC Team unnecessarily – for example by saying the document should be updated every X years while the CoC Team might prefer a different approach.

Antony said every time there had been a CoC discussion, perhaps going back to before the Diversity TF, one community member asked consistently asked to know where the decision was made to have a CoC in the first place. It seemed that they were thinking more in terms of what that decision was based on/its legitimacy. He didn’t think he had ever seen them receive a clear answer to that question. Perhaps it was simply a case of the RIPE Chair clearly stating that this would go ahead, but he wondered if this was something to consider.

Brian said, if nothing else, this question had been answered in Rotterdam. There had been questions, but nobody had said that it shouldn’t happen. He thought some people weren’t aware of their influence in the community and how these kinds of questions were perceived. At Rotterdam, Hans Petter [as RIPE Chair] had said he was doing this and it was going to happen, because it was the right thing to do. There might not have been total consensus there, but there had at least been rough consensus.

Denesh said this was related to the point he had made on a previous call, about people who asked why the community needed this now, when it hadn’t been an issue in the past. The answer was that it had been an issue in the past, and no people wanted to address it.

5. Updated CoC Doc

Leo ran through the updated draft document. He had added a paragraph at the beginning, which clarified that any lists of examples were non-exhaustive. He had also added a line that referred to the “Trusted Contacts or the CoC Team”. If they published this as a RIPE Document and a CoC Team was later formed, he thought it would be straightforward to update the RIPE Document without a huge amount of process.

He had also added to the line on under “CoC and Law” which said that victims of crime would have full control over whether and how to make a report. This was just an initial guess and would need to be reviewed by Athina. She could make whatever edits she thought were appropriate there.

Following the discussion at their last meeting, he had put the full list of behaviour back in. Based on Salam’s comments, he had also added “Aggressive or intimidating behaviour” as an example of behaviour that violated the CoC. He asked what TF members thought about the current state of the document.

Brian said he liked the that the examples were back in. His only concern was related to what he’d sent to the TF list – about reactions. For example, if he told someone to F-off after they had been aggressive or violated the CoC in some way, that person should not have cause to make a counter-report. He thought they shouldn’t miss an opportunity to have this in their CoC, especially as it was being addressed in other communities’ codes.

Leo said they could definitely add that in. When they published their updated version, they could point out that they had included this aspect. He had promised was to highlight what had changed when they published their updated version and explain why. Perhaps they could do a webinar for people to ask questions. They could then put this out to the list, there could be a call for consensus and Mirjam could make a determination. If there was a strong pushback on an aspect of the text, they could remove the part that was keeping them from consensus – with the understanding that agreement on 80% of the text was better than 0%.

The group agreed with that approach.

Leo said he therefore had an action to add text about weaponising the CoC. He would copy-paste the relevant text from GeekFeminism rather than reinvent the wheel. He thought they should aim for an internal consensus at their next TF meeting in mid-June. This would put them in a position to publish at the end of June. They could then give people a week or two to read it, with an accompanying RIPE Labs article explaining the changes, followed by a webinar to explain and discuss this with the community.

The group agreed with this approach.

Action: Leo to add text on weaponising the CoC from GeekFeminism wiki.

Action: Leo to check which TF members can make a meeting on 11 June to decide if there is consensus on the updated document.

Leo said if they took a consensus call, they either needed to do it during a call or on the TF mailing list.

6. AOB

Leo noted that Antony had added a link to their mailing list archives on the main TF page. They had also added a list of their engagement with the community so far. This made it much easier to find their list discussions.

Actions

Action: Leo to add more history/background to the CoC introduction.

Action: Leo to add in text about weaponising the CoC from GeekFeminism wiki.

Action: Leo to check who can make a meeting on 11 June to decide if there is consensus on the updated document.