Summary:
- It is good that the draft gives examples of unacceptable behavior.
- It is a real bad idea to create a special enforcement committee.
- The draft should encourage anyone in the community to actively
intervene when they observe unacceptable behavior.
- It would be better to continue the current system of trusted contacts
and empower them more.
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Full disclosure: I have participated in RIPE for 30 years and attended
76 RIPE meetings as well as numerous other meetings organised by our
community. During these 30 years there were some times when I have not
behaved in an exemplary manner; a few of those times I would have run
afoul of this draft code of conduct. With the help of people from this
community I have been able to realise my behavior was not appropriate,
to apologise and to make amends. Despite these missteps I feel that I
have contributed positively to the development and success of the RIPE
community. I have also experienced some inappropriate behavior towards
myself over the years and dealt with it appropriately, again with the
help of people from this community.
I welcome the part of this draft that describes examples of
inappropriate behavior and states clearly that we as a community do not
tolerate it. This is an improvement over the current code.
I am very deeply concerned about the part of this draft that creates
a very vaguely described 'enforcement committee' without any
responsibility to anyone and without any process whatsoever. Adopting
this part of the code would be a disaster for the credibility and
standing of RIPE all by itself but even more so by inviting our
antagonists to use it as a vehicle to harm us.
RIPE is not a conference but a community that with a significant
governance aspect. We argue in favor of our self governance by pointing
to RIPE, its openness and its low threshold to participation. This
requires that anyone interested can participate meaningfully in RIPE.
Excluding people from RIPE will be very bad; doing so without a clear
process and a hearing will be a disaster! We should remove this language
from the draft completely.
Instead, I suggest to a call on everyone in the community to actively
intervene when they observe inappropriate behavior and to help all
parties concerned to resolve the situation. The language should make it
clear that such interventions are positive and welcomed by the RIPE
community. I realise that it requires courage to act. We should
encourage people and not give them further excuse to look away by
putting emphasis only on a specific formal mechanism.
I suggest to maintain the current system of trusted contacts for
reporting violations and add that staff and volunteers such as chairs
and PC are also available. Where, by the way, is the evidence that this
is not sufficient? Maybe the trusted contacts can provide some sort of
transparency report to us?
Further I recommend to develop a response plan that defines who is
responsible to take action in cases where individuals do not stop
inappropriate behavior once it is pointed out to them. These
responsibilities do exist today within our governance structure. They
are shared between RIPE, RIPE NCC and third parties such as the
owners/operators of our venues. Maybe this needs to be clarified and we
may need to establish roles within these structures that are responsible
to follow up on any actions. But let us not create a new committee whose
sole purpose is to sanction community members without any process!
Before we know it this will lead its own life.
We should also make it clear that we do not tolerate any abuse of the
code of conduct itself. I realise that can be interpreted as
off-putting. However it is an essential part of such a code.
In case the TF wishes to act on my suggestions regarding the draft, I am
very much willing to help with creating new text.
Sincerely!
Daniel
