Dear TF members,
Here are the minutes from our last call.
Cheers
Ant
***
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.
- 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 general principles
Action: Leo to include an updated agenda to ensure a correct
balance between communicating and listening from the community