Dear TF members,

Here's the draft minutes from our last call. Let me know if any corrections are needed.

I've also made the archives public and linked them from the TF page here:
https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/tf/code-of-conduct-task-force

Cheers

Ant

***

Draft Minutes - Code of Conduct TF: Third Call
18 November 2020, 17:30-18:30 (UTC+1)

Present:
Denesh Bhabuta, Antony Gollan, Brian Nisbet, Leo Vegoda, Salam Yamout

Summary: The TF discussed a request to contribute to the mailing list and agreed that people could access the archives and send comments to the list if they had input. A recent outcome from the GM alongside RIPE 81 linked Executive Board eligibility requirements to the RIPE Code of Conduct, and created a role for the Trusted Contacts/future CoC Team in making this determination. The TF agreed that this will need consideration and requested input from the RIPE NCC. A number of open questions were discussed in advance of updating the CoC document: People should not require HR or legal qualifications to conduct investigations, though the process should be developed with this specialist input; It will be important for a CoC process to include clear time frames where possible; While the CoC Team should do its utmost to protect the confidentiality of involved parties, it will be important to set expectations; The people conducting CoC investigations should not be the only ones making the final determination, a wider quorum should be required. The RIPE Chair should not be involved in this, as they would be needed as a “final arbiter” in the event of an appeal. The TF will request statistical information (only) from the Trusted Contacts on the number of complaints made at previous RIPE Meetings.

1. Minutes

Minutes from the previous call were approved.

The group agreed to include a summary with key decisions at the top of future minutes for public consumption.

The group agreed.

Action: Include a summary at the start of future minutes.

2. Agenda

There were no changes to the agenda.

3. Observers

Leo noted that he had received a request from someone interested in joining the mailing list to contribute. After discussing this with the RIPE Chair Team, they had agreed that there had been an open call for participation and membership of the TF was now closed. So, this wouldn’t be participation as a TF member. However, they could open up the mailing list if the TF wanted. He asked if there were other TFs that had had open lists during the discussion phase.

Antony said he didn’t have a full list of how this had worked with past groups, but with the Accountability TF they had kept public archives with moderation in place. That let people see what was being discussed, and they could still send an email to the TF if they wanted. It was essentially one step below having an open list. There had been variations of this in the past, but it was generally common for TF archives to be public.

Denesh said they needed to keep it to a relatively small group of people, otherwise it became “decision by committee.” He liked Antony’s suggestion, though it was important they solicit input from people.

Brian said the Diversity TF had been as open as possible. He was torn between remaining a small/focused group and opening it up. He wasn’t sure what they had meant by “access to the mailing list so that they could contribute”, because the TF wasn’t doing everything on the list (they were having these calls, for example). So, there was more buy-in required than simply accessing the mailing list.

Salam said she didn’t mind having them join the TF – the CoC mattered to everyone, so she wouldn’t object – provided the group didn’t get so big that it became inefficient.

Leo said in his discussion with the RIPE Chair Team, they agreed that it was the responsibility of the RIPE Chair to decide who was on the TF. If they now said they would another TF member after the open call for volunteers, that took them back to the beginning. So, they needed to be careful about extending membership based on individual requests.

Salam said in that case they documented this decision and made the archives public for anyone who would like to follow the discussion.

Action: RIPE NCC to make mailing list archives public.

Action: TF chair to respond to request to participate and let them know that while the ML won’t be opened to non-TF members, they can access the archives and are invited to send a mail to the list if they would like to make a contribution.

4. RIPE 81 Feedback

Brian noted the vote by the RIPE NCC General Meeting to adopt the recommendations of the Executive Board Election TF, one of which said that prospective board members must abide by the CoC and someone must okay this. He would need to review at the full GM minutes, but he understood this was about someone arbitrating whether potential board members were abiding by the CoC. He thought the Trusted Contacts weren’t qualified for this, and he believed the board had said the CoC TF should look at this. That meant the TF was now potentially enmeshed in this.

Denesh said this went back to one of Leo’s questions from an earlier call – whether the CoC was meant to cover every activity within RIPE. They had agreed that it wasn’t so broad but this seemed to be pulling them in that direction again.

Brian said that was his point. He thought the RIPE NCC membership had made mistake here, which would have unintended consequences. As a TF they would need to be mindful of this and be clear in terms of what they would be asking a future CoC Team to do. This was something they would need to have as an item for discussion with (potentially) Athina, the RIPE NCC Managing Director, the Chairman of the RIPE NCC Executive Board. He wasn’t sure exactly where this should sit, but they couldn’t just ignore this, as people might draw differing conclusions.

Leo suggested they include this as an agenda item for a future meeting, and that they ask for an impact analysis from Athina that explained what this meant for them and what the TF would have to deliver.

Salam said the idea was that violations of the CoC would need to be recorded on a list somewhere, and people running for the board of the RIPE NCC could be checked against this to determine whether they were eligible to stand. She agreed that this would affect them in terms of the CoC and they would need to deal with this.

Brian said his point was that this was a RIPE NCC Executive Board problem that was being pushed to the CoC Team and he didn’t think it should be.

Salam said they didn’t have to pick up the ball. But surely the CoC they would include a requirement that a list of violators be kept, obviously with some sort of process attached. If they had this, then that was where their task ended in relation to this requirement from the board.

Leo said one of the questions he had put into the document was about record keeping and what they should/should not keep a record of (and when this information should expire). This was something they would need legal guidance from Athina on when she returned.

Brian said he would share a copy of the Executive Board Election Task Force report which specified these recommendations in relation to the CoC Team.

Action: Athina to provide input on the decision by the RIPE NCC GM to reference the CoC in relation to potential EB candidates, as well as input on what kind of records a future CoC Team would need to keep (and for how long).

5. Review of Questions in Document

The group continued its review of the questions in the document Leo had provided.

Investigation – Professional Qualifications

Leo said the question here was whether the investigation should be managed by someone with relevant HR or legal qualifications.

Salam asked if interested volunteers could be trained for this.

Denesh agreed that interested people should be trained. However, there needed to be a process on how to conduct the investigation. This would need to be designed with the help of HR/legal people. This would allow anyone who had been trained to follow the process. There would need to be someone with professional qualifications on hand, though they wouldn’t necessarily have to manage the process.

Leo said if they had strong expectations in terms of training and time at the meeting devoted to investigations, they were placing quite a burden on someone who might be attending with other responsibilities (chairing a session, giving a presentation, etc). This could lead to cases where the investigator was engaged in something else and was not able to find a resolution by the end of the week. He asked if it would be better to have a professional instead and have a community member make a decision on the outcome, or if they were happy asking someone to potentially sacrifice their participation at the meeting for this.

Brian said other communities made sure to have a large enough pool of people so that one of them could drop everything if needed. If something came up it could be disruptive for the CoC Team, but in reality, chairing a session or attending a meeting was just a few hours. The other option was essentially to employ someone for a few weeks each year to avoid this problem, but he didn’t like this approach personally.

Salam supported the first option Brian had suggested. Some people would be interested in volunteering, and if they had a large enough pool this should be fine. The process could establish how people were selected from the pool (and how many). They would need training to join the pool. During the investigation they would have HR and legal support if needed. Sometimes these volunteers would have to sacrifice part of their meeting, but that was how it worked. She thought it was important for the community to take care of itself and have the processes to deal with its own problems – it was part of their culture.

Leo said he took this as rejecting a requirement that the person leading the investigation have HR/legal qualifications. However, they would want strong involvement in the design of the investigation process from people with these qualifications.

Investigation – Schedule

Leo asked what a reasonable time frame was – both from the perspective of those conducting the investigation and of those who made a report. One thing he noticed was that the DNS WG was holding monthly online events, there were mailing lists that went on all the time, and formal RIPE Meetings twice per year. The scope of their charter was all RIPE activities – which meant mailing lists, intersessional work and RIPE Meetings. So, when they looked at scheduling, they would need to consider all of these things. He thought they needed some borders in terms of minimum/maximum time frames.

Brian said expectations should be able to be set, both for the victim and the alleged perpetrator. It was important that this was in there.

Leo said they didn’t need to come up with an answer immediately, but they did need to let people know what to expect – when they could expect a resolution to be found, when they could expect to be contacted, etc. Much of this would be guided by the process; a more complex process would take longer and vice versa.

Brian said it would be fair to expect most of the investigation to be done while people were physically/virtually at the event. If the issue occurred during the Friday lunch time at a RIPE Meeting, then obviously they would need to be realistic. However, they couldn’t leave this for too long, because memories faded, and stories changed.

Leo said the other thing to keep in mind was that the RIPE Chair Team had talked about hybrid meetings with people both at the meeting venue and elsewhere. And with virtual meetings they had people in different time zones. When they built this process, they needed be mindful that no one participating at 1am was at their best.

Brian said the conventions he was involved with used a “follow the sun” model as much as possible. If they cast a wide net and volunteers didn’t necessarily have to be present at the meeting, this could be a positive thing.

Salam said she was imagining an “uber” model – where people in the pool grabbed an issue and assumed responsibility for it.

Salam asked if they had a pool of people for the CoC Team, would they have to disclose their names and phone numbers? And if so, would this be GDPR compliant?

Brian said he assumed they would list the names of the CoC Team – and the RIPE NCC could then arrange some method of communication that would largely be around email or voice communications and wouldn’t require personal contact information to be listed.

Salam clarified that she was thinking in terms of the parties involved in the report.

Antony said he thought Legal did have some GDPR concerns here. Athina would likely have more to share on this in any case.

Investigation – Confidentiality

Leo asked if it was possible to guarantee confidentiality to reporters.

Brian said the CoC Team would have to undertake to ensure this, but there was no legal sanction and realistically there was only so much of a guarantee they could offer.

Denesh said they could address this in the wording – they could say they would do their utmost to ensure confidentiality without going so far as to explicitly guarantee it.

Leo said past training he’d done as a manager had said they couldn’t promise people they would ensure confidentiality (e.g. “doing their best” vs “guaranteeing”). They couldn’t promise this because it could potentially compromise an investigation.

Denesh said they also couldn’t control people outside of the investigation, there could be rumours, etc. They could only promise to do their utmost to treat information in a confidential manner.

Brian said that would have to be a requirement to join the CoC Team – they would have to undertake to ensure confidentiality. There might be people they would have to speak with during their investigation, but in an ideal process they would check with the relevant parties first. This could be a request for permission or otherwise more in terms of a notification that they would be speaking with others. The CoC Team violating the confidentiality of involved parties in this context would essentially itself be a violation of the CoC.

Salam noted that to a certain extent, people should be aware that rumours were inevitable if they broke the community’s norms. These social repercussions were partly why they should behave well.

Brian said rumours already existed without a CoC; they just needed to ensure they didn’t come from this process or those entrusted to follow it.

Leo said they would need advice on how to word statements involving confidentiality.

Decision Making

Leo said this question was about the separation of duties. Did they want the same person to be both the investigator and the decider – or should these be different people?

Brian said he wondered if they could steal best practices from other communities here. He thought the person investigating should at least not be the only one making the decision, but he would need to look at other examples in more detail. He thought the decision should at least not only be made by those doing the investigation.

Leo said this was good, as it had affected the schedule as well. If they said there should be some separation, then they needed to account for that in the schedule. And they would need to account for that in terms of the people involved, so it was giving them some borders in terms of what they were working on.

Salam suggested they could have at least two people conducting the investigation with a third party (such as the RIPE Chair) helping to making the decision.

Leo said his concern was that they would probably need the RIPE Chair to fill an appeal role. If the RIPE Chair was involved in the initial decision, then they would have to create a separate appeal body.

Brian said the WG chairs been through this with an appeal in the PDP recently. They had said the RIPE Chair needed to remain separate in case they needed to weigh as a “final arbiter”. He didn’t think this third party needed to be a designated person. Using hypothetical numbers, if there was a CoC Team with six people, perhaps two of them did the investigation and no fewer than four or five made the decision. This would probably also require some participation from the RIPE NCC’s Legal Department. He thought it shouldn’t be the same person making all of these decisions.

Leo said the word he was hearing was quorum.

Brian agreed.

The group stopped before “Record Keeping” in the document.

6. AOB

Brian said it would be nice to have some statistical information about reports made to the CoC Team across recent RIPE Meetings.

Action: RIPE NCC to request statistical information from the CoC Team on reports made in recent RIPE Meetings.

The TF agreed to reschedule the next call for Wednesday, 18 November at 17:30 (CET/UTC+1).

7. Review Actions

Action: Include a summary at the start of future minutes.

Action: RIPE NCC to make mailing list archives public.

Action: RIPE NCC to request statistical information (only) from the Trusted Contacts on reports made in recent RIPE Meetings to help it consider aspects around process/size of CoC Team, etc.