Hi all,
Please find below the draft minutes from our last meeting. Shane, you
were cutting out a bit when you were updating on the gender metrics...so
I have a feeling you'll need to maybe have a look at that part.
If there's anything I didn't capture correctly, please let me know.
Warm regards,
Amanda
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RIPE Diversity Task Force - Meeting Minutes, 5 March 2019
Participants: Amanda Gowland, Mirjam Kühne, Brian Nisbet, J, Sasha
Romijn, Vesna Manojlovic, Bijal Sanghani, Shane Kerr, Malcolm Hutty
Agenda
- Code of Conduct
- Updates for RIPE 78
The main discussion for the day's meeting focused on the need to improve
the RIPE Meeting Code of Conduct, specifically:
- The text itself
- The lack of processes around violations, reporting
- The role that WG Chairs play in upholding the CoC
- The timing and practical aspects of moving forward
Amanda asked Sasha if she could brief the TF on what she shared on the
mailing list given her experience working on Django's CoC and Write the
Docs (WtD). Sasha said that the RIPE Meeting's CoC essentially says
"don't be an asshole", but there's no documented mechanism for reporting
violations or a team of people equipped to enforce it. She said that
dealing with CoC violations/reporting requires resources and expressed
doubt that the RIPE Chair had the time/resources for this.
She said that for Write the Docs, they have a CoC Response Guide, which
is a structured plan that stipulates who you involve when, how you deal
with conflicts of interest and more specific information on what kinds
of things are and are not acceptable.
Amanda asked if the TF should propose a Code of Conduct Team, since the
scope of the RIPE Meeting Trusted Contacts was not meant to tackle
reporting and enforcing consequences of CoC violations. She asked Sasha
if she'd be willing to help with this since she's the most experienced.
Sasha said she would be happy to draw on the text from WtD.
Amanda asked the TF what they thought about getting this in place for
RIPE 78?
Brian said he'd be weary of having something for the next meeting, only
because registration is already open and people have to agree to the CoC
during the registration process. It was too short to have a new proposal
to the community.
J asked if there was anything that could be done to improve the CoC for
RIPE 78 without touching upon the text, like improving the process or
the implementation.
Code of Conduct Team?
Sasha said that the current text is weak, so changes will need to happen
there but in the meantime other things can be improved to help things
progress.
Brian agreed that the TF could look at the process and how that works.
Amanda asked how the CoC Team should be selected - are people asked, is
there a nomination process, etc?
Sasha said it depends, in her experience it's a team of volunteers that
ideally have experience and who meet some specific criteria (like having
no record of CoC violations).
Amanda mentioned that the RIPE NCC was in discussion with Hans Petter
Holen (HPH) about having training for the WG Chairs so they are able to
better uphold the CoC.
Mirjam updated the TF that this is something that HPH is really
supportive of and has given the go-ahead for us to organise this in
Reykjavik for RIPE 78. He would like to do it at the WG Chair Lunch to
ensure full participation.
As an aside, Mir informed the group that she submitted a BoF for HPH
about "RIPE and the Bigger Picture" - looking at the societal
obligations of the RIPE community. Axel has also expressed a desired to
have a bigger focus on this.
Amanda asked what the next steps should be for drafting a new CoC and
its related processes. Malcolm said that he would like to contribute.
Sasha said she would also like to work on this.
J asked what the process was for a new document, what process does it
need to follow to be approved?
Malcome said that for the Accountability TF, they just submitted their
report. The process they were instructed to follow was that they share
their report with the community for comment, there's a consultation
period, the TF worked on the contributions and made amendments where
applicable. A revised draft is then reported back to the community and
it is up to HPH to declare consensus.
Brian added that if they can get text together in the next 4-6 weeks, a
draft could be ideally shared or presented at RIPE 78. He felt there
would likely be pushback on any sort of stronger document. He said there
was a difference with this and what the Accountability TF is doing - the
issue with the CoC is that we don't want to have to go through 18
iterations.
Malcolm replied that he hoped there wouldn't be multiple rounds of
iterations and pointed out that this is a TF and not a WG. Although
consultation is expected, it is up to the TF to decide what to do with
the contributions from the community to the draft. But it is not for the
TF to go from draft to execution, it is HPH to declare consensus and
move forward.
RIPE 78 Updates
Amanda gave an update on the WiT session for RIPE 78 - we were moving it
into the Side Room, taking place from 13:00-14:00. She has been working
with the Icelandic WiT group and they were enthusiastic on helping build
the programme.
She said that she was disappointed with how few registered attendees
have volunteered to be a mentor for RIPE 78, but that maybe it was a
case of it just building up slowly.
She also said that there were no organisations signing up as Diversity
Ticket sponsors, so they will monitor this for a couple meetings and
have to consider whether they still facilitate it going forward.
Shane said he didn't really have much of an update for the gender metric
gathering. He was playing around with a way to create visualisations. He
updates the graphs for every meeting but they didn't look great in terms
of % of women. He will work on an update before RIPE 78.
Bijal added that it was the first time she has taken part in the TF, she
missed the discussion about the CoC but will catch up on it. She said
she was surprised there weren't more people signing up to be mentors and
she will put her name forward.
J asked about the mechanism to draft the CoC to ensure version control,
bug trackers, etc., and if we were using something already for this?
Amanda said that Google Docs seemed to be the easiest way to work on it
to ensure changes are tracked, etc.
J suggested GitHub.
There were no further comments. Amanda thanked everyone for their
feedback and closed the meeting.
