- diversity - mailman.ripe.net

Diversity Tickets and RIPE Meetings
by Amanda Gowland 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

Hi all, We would like to include an option under our Diversity Sponsor category for organisations or individuals to fund Diversity Tickets. The number of tickets available will depend on the number of sponsors and the amount they fund. The selection is done by diversitytickets.org based on the following criteria they use: "This diversity program is aimed to help underrepresented groups in tech to attend and lowering the barriers for them. This includes but isn’t limited to: women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and disabled people. Your privacy, details and answers will only be shared with the organizers of RIPE 78. We will not share any data with those who sponsor these tickets." We will cover the cost of the ticket and reimburse them EUR 650 to help with their travel/accommodation costs. I am asking the organisers if we can amend the criteria text above to say "This includes but isn't limited to women, people of colour, LGBTQIA+ people, disabled people and people coming from countries underrepresented at RIPE Meetings." If anyone has any feedback, please let me know (sooner rather than later). Warm regards, Amanda

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Re: [diversity] Feedback, including a piece of friendly and hopefully constructive criticism
by Amanda Gowland 22 Oct '18

22 Oct '18

Hi Theresa, Thank you for your feedback - I am, above all, really happy that we are finally starting to see some engagement at the RIPE Meetings on our D&I efforts (both from the Diversity TF and also the RIPE NCC). I am really happy to also see people active in the D&I circles coming to the meetings! I'm replying here as myself and not a TF member. It can be a bit of a gray area, since I'm involved in the TF initiatives too. The WiT Lunch is not a TF initiative, just to clarify. It was initially proposed by our board member, Salam Yamout (who is the woman that you mentioned from Lebanon that spoke at the mic after my presentation). Replying inline now... On 21/10/2018 11:27, Theresa Enghardt wrote: > Dear Diversity Taskforce, > > thank you so much for your work. > > RIPE 77 was my first RIPE meeting and I really enjoyed it. It feels nice > to come into a community and see that the diversity work is already > being done, so I don't have to be the one to do the heavy lifting. > (A bit of personal context: I do diversity-related work in other > communities, e.g., at the Chaos Communcation Congress.) > > Thank you in particular for the amazing presentation at the plenary on > Friday. > > That said, I would like to provide some friendly and hopefully > constructive criticsm in the following, rather long, e-mail. > This is NOT a call-out of any individual person, but rather something > I'm asking you as a group to consider. > Feel free to pass it on to people not on your mailing list, but then > without my name, please. > > > > 1.) Please do not issue a general invitation for people to talk to women > about their experience at RIPE. > > I was at RIPE to talk about technology, about my work, not about feminism. > Being asked about feminism in a work context generates a lot of stress > for me (details on that below, if you are interested). > I would rather have people talk to me about my work. I assume this is > true for many other women as well. When I said "talk to women about their experiences", my intention was not that it be about their experiences with being othered, but just to speak to them about their experiences period. About their work, yes. About their aspirations in their career, about the projects they're excited about. But also about the barriers they face that their male colleagues may not have any understanding of. It was certainly not meant as an open invitation for men to ask women about how they're being harrassed or discriminated against. It was related to my previous slides of what it means to be a male ally, and that the first step to advocacy is awareness. I want men to start recognising and advocating for the work that their non-male colleagues are doing so that hopefully we see more representation at the meetings, on the stage, etc. > > If you want to encourage people to learn more about women's experiences > in tech, how about "Consider reading up on this, here's some links, and > here are some people who volunteered to answer questions"? > > If you must invite people to talk to women they know about their > personal experience, please at least include a very prominent reminder > that not every woman may be comfortable to talk about her experiences > for many very valid reasons. > > Some details about my own reasons, just to illustrate: > I personally did not have any experience of harassment or discrimination > at RIPE that I recall. I'm sure this is the case for a number of other > women as well. Hearing "talk to a woman about her experience here", for > me, implies that you expect that everyone has experienced discrimination > AND is comfortable to talk about it. It also feels a little bit > infantilizing to me, like, "You poor women have it so bad here". This is > simply not true. > I know that there's still lots of problems, so I could talk about other > women's experiences, or about feminism in general. However, I have been > "the angry feminist" in a work context before. Even with coworkers that > I really like, if I disagree with them on some feminist topic, it can > create a lot of stress and a feeling of alienation on both sides. In > addition, I fear that having a public stance on feminism could damage my > future career. I don't feel like it's on me to "get over this", but for > the culture to change. > Your work is an important part of that change, and I appreciate it. > > > > 2.) Please do not misuse the term "intersectionality". > > (Relevant context for the following section: I'm white. Please consider > reading the writings by black feminists on this topic.) > If I recall correctly, in the plenary the term was used to mean "we do > things for women and then other minorities / everyone benefits from it". > This is not what intersectionality means. In fact, it's literally the > opposite. In our first diversity workshop before the TF was formed, we understood the phrase to mean how the struggle to combat sexism and racism (and other forms of discrimination) intersect. Yes, Crenshaw's original definition of the phrase has taken on ambiguous meaning over the years and I should have chosen a better phrase there. However, her original intention of the word to frame the struggle that someone belonging to more than one marginalised group faces is still relevant for our diversity efforts I think. > > The term "intersectionality" was created by Black feminists Kimberlé Crenshaw > to mean that > black women are discriminated in different ways than white women. They > experience racism AND sexism, so their experience of racism is different > from the racism black men experience, and their experience of sexism is > different from the sexism that white women experience. > This means that if you just "do things for women" without looking at > other forms of discrimination, you end up doing things that mostly > support white women, and leave other women behind. > Similar points apply to trans women (who also experience transmisogyny), > disabled women (who also experience ableism), and so on. I agree that we need to tackle diversity from every angle and I know that we will get there. We are working within an almost 30yo community built on 'legacy' and achieving the change I believe we need to see means building the foundation for inclusiveness of women, period. Once we do that, then I hope that it'll be easier (and quicker) to improve the meeting and community experience for all under-represented groups. > > I think that the remark at the mic by the woman from the middle-east, > whose name I sadly don't recall, Salam Yamout > was exactly spot on. > Different discriminations exist, they are sometimes combined, and > working against them does not have to be mutually exclusive. > > Do not assume that all women need or want the same. Do not assume that > there is a universal female experience or perspective. There is not. The > "universal" female perspective is usually the white, cis, non-disabled > female perspective. (Such as my own, technically and ironically, as I > have all those privileges.) I fully agree here. And while we don't aim to speak on behalf of all women, I also don't feel comfortable speaking on behalf of another group. Making our meetings more inclusive for women will (I hope) make it also more inclusive for non-white/cis/non-disabled women. We have to start somewhere. > It's not a bad thing to have privilege, but one should be aware of it, > one should question it, and one should actively give space to others who > do not have this privilege. > In that sense, I try my best to be a cis ally to trans* people, a white > ally to non-white people, and a non-disabled ally to disabled people. > > In summary, it's fine you focus on women, but please be aware that > there's different kinds of women. > It's fine if you pick your battles. It's fine that you cannot do > everything at once. > I'm simply asking you to read up on the term "intersectionality" and to > not misuse it. > > > > 3.) Please try to avoid gender binarism. > > I heard gender-binarist language (e.g., "both men and women" used to > mean everyone) a lot this week. > I don't know if there's any openly non-binary people in the community, > but given that your registration form includes a non-binary option, > perhaps there's a way to find out if anybody was brave enough to out > themself on that form. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they exist. There was one person that identified themselves as non-binary. > > You don't necessarily have to educate everyone about this stuff, at > least not for me. To me, just being conscious of your language, like > saying "Dear gentlepeople" instead of "Dear ladies and gentlemen", makes > a big difference. Also, consider having T-shirts in "fitted" and > "unisex" cut instead of "woman's" and "man's" cut. > Having some gender-neutral bathrooms in addition to gendered bathrooms > might also help to make the space more inclusive to non-binary people, > and maybe also to binary trans* people. Funny about the t-shirts, we have had the opposite feedback from women in the community. For this meeting, we had unisex t-shirts, but previous meetings we've had different cuts for m/f (which was requested from our female attendees). We can certainly be more inclusive in how we label the shirts at the table though (although, annoyingly for this meeting we had two colours of unisex shirts and some people were still referring to the burgundy shirts as the "girl" shirts :/). For the bathrooms, I will certainly pass this feedback back to our meeting organisation team. Not sure what is/isn't possible given that the meetings are always in hotels. > > > Finally, a but of positive feedback again: > > I think the discussion on (male) allies is a really good and important > one, I was really pleased to see it. > I've met lots of male allies at RIPE, even those who aren't active > advocates and don't call themselves feminist (yet?), but who encourage > me in my work and mentor me. > If some of these men become more feminist, that's really awesome, and > thank you for working on that. Thank you Theresa for your valuable feedback and for engaging in the diversity discussions! > > Hope to see you at a RIPE meeting next year! > > Best, > Theresa >

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Feedback, including a piece of friendly and hopefully constructive criticism
by Theresa Enghardt 22 Oct '18

22 Oct '18

Dear Diversity Taskforce, thank you so much for your work. RIPE 77 was my first RIPE meeting and I really enjoyed it. It feels nice to come into a community and see that the diversity work is already being done, so I don't have to be the one to do the heavy lifting. (A bit of personal context: I do diversity-related work in other communities, e.g., at the Chaos Communcation Congress.) Thank you in particular for the amazing presentation at the plenary on Friday. That said, I would like to provide some friendly and hopefully constructive criticsm in the following, rather long, e-mail. This is NOT a call-out of any individual person, but rather something I'm asking you as a group to consider. Feel free to pass it on to people not on your mailing list, but then without my name, please. 1.) Please do not issue a general invitation for people to talk to women about their experience at RIPE. I was at RIPE to talk about technology, about my work, not about feminism. Being asked about feminism in a work context generates a lot of stress for me (details on that below, if you are interested). I would rather have people talk to me about my work. I assume this is true for many other women as well. If you want to encourage people to learn more about women's experiences in tech, how about "Consider reading up on this, here's some links, and here are some people who volunteered to answer questions"? If you must invite people to talk to women they know about their personal experience, please at least include a very prominent reminder that not every woman may be comfortable to talk about her experiences for many very valid reasons. Some details about my own reasons, just to illustrate: I personally did not have any experience of harassment or discrimination at RIPE that I recall. I'm sure this is the case for a number of other women as well. Hearing "talk to a woman about her experience here", for me, implies that you expect that everyone has experienced discrimination AND is comfortable to talk about it. It also feels a little bit infantilizing to me, like, "You poor women have it so bad here". This is simply not true. I know that there's still lots of problems, so I could talk about other women's experiences, or about feminism in general. However, I have been "the angry feminist" in a work context before. Even with coworkers that I really like, if I disagree with them on some feminist topic, it can create a lot of stress and a feeling of alienation on both sides. In addition, I fear that having a public stance on feminism could damage my future career. I don't feel like it's on me to "get over this", but for the culture to change. Your work is an important part of that change, and I appreciate it. 2.) Please do not misuse the term "intersectionality". (Relevant context for the following section: I'm white. Please consider reading the writings by black feminists on this topic.) If I recall correctly, in the plenary the term was used to mean "we do things for women and then other minorities / everyone benefits from it". This is not what intersectionality means. In fact, it's literally the opposite. The term "intersectionality" was created by Black feminists to mean that black women are discriminated in different ways than white women. They experience racism AND sexism, so their experience of racism is different from the racism black men experience, and their experience of sexism is different from the sexism that white women experience. This means that if you just "do things for women" without looking at other forms of discrimination, you end up doing things that mostly support white women, and leave other women behind. Similar points apply to trans women (who also experience transmisogyny), disabled women (who also experience ableism), and so on. I think that the remark at the mic by the woman from the middle-east, whose name I sadly don't recall, was exactly spot on. Different discriminations exist, they are sometimes combined, and working against them does not have to be mutually exclusive. Do not assume that all women need or want the same. Do not assume that there is a universal female experience or perspective. There is not. The "universal" female perspective is usually the white, cis, non-disabled female perspective. (Such as my own, technically and ironically, as I have all those privileges.) It's not a bad thing to have privilege, but one should be aware of it, one should question it, and one should actively give space to others who do not have this privilege. In that sense, I try my best to be a cis ally to trans* people, a white ally to non-white people, and a non-disabled ally to disabled people. In summary, it's fine you focus on women, but please be aware that there's different kinds of women. It's fine if you pick your battles. It's fine that you cannot do everything at once. I'm simply asking you to read up on the term "intersectionality" and to not misuse it. 3.) Please try to avoid gender binarism. I heard gender-binarist language (e.g., "both men and women" used to mean everyone) a lot this week. I don't know if there's any openly non-binary people in the community, but given that your registration form includes a non-binary option, perhaps there's a way to find out if anybody was brave enough to out themself on that form. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they exist. You don't necessarily have to educate everyone about this stuff, at least not for me. To me, just being conscious of your language, like saying "Dear gentlepeople" instead of "Dear ladies and gentlemen", makes a big difference. Also, consider having T-shirts in "fitted" and "unisex" cut instead of "woman's" and "man's" cut. Having some gender-neutral bathrooms in addition to gendered bathrooms might also help to make the space more inclusive to non-binary people, and maybe also to binary trans* people. Finally, a but of positive feedback again: I think the discussion on (male) allies is a really good and important one, I was really pleased to see it. I've met lots of male allies at RIPE, even those who aren't active advocates and don't call themselves feminist (yet?), but who encourage me in my work and mentor me. If some of these men become more feminist, that's really awesome, and thank you for working on that. Hope to see you at a RIPE meeting next year! Best, Theresa -- Theresa Enghardt Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin / Research Assistant Phone: +49 30 314 78628 Office: MAR 4.032 FG / Group "Internet Network Architectures" (INET) Technische Universität Berlin Sekr. MAR 4-4, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin

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Meeting Notes - Diversity TF Meeting 20181015
by Brian Nisbet 19 Oct '18

19 Oct '18

Folks, Here are my notes from yesterday's meeting, please let me know if there are any mistakes or omissions. RIPE Diversity TF 20181015 Present: Mirjam, Denesh, Shane, Vesna, Jelte, Salam, Julia, Amdanda, Sasha, E, Brian General Point: Diversity/Inclusivity is more than "just" gender and race. Also around food, travel, cost etc. Metrics: - Shane has updated the metrics based on name of attendees, continuing over time. He will publish the info to the list. RIPE77 seems to have more women attending than the last meeting in Amsterdam, but fewer than the last five meetings. Around 16%. Being checked against NCC self declaration information. - NCC info 10% self identified as female, 25% declined to answer, 1 NB, 2 Other, all other male - SREcon in Düsseldorf, 13% women, 13% declined to answer, 74% men - Shane looking at pulling out AMS meetings to try and get a trend based on same location - Can also get information from t-shirt types and sizes. 103/800 looking for women's cut - Data is all in Github, so others can work on it. - But Shane isn't sure what the right approach/direction is, so hence part of the reason for the BoF on Tuesday. That might give more info on what metrics to track. Action: Shane to send out information and continue to think about the metrics Local Communities: - Vesna contacted some of the hackerspace communities - Hackerspace visit on Wednesday - Need to make a push for RIPE78 - Looking to get school age girls to come, but communications broke down with the relevant local people Childcare: - Only 2 kids registered for RIPE77 - Unfortunately can't be continued if kids aren't being registered - Very visible for RIPE77 registration - Cost now at €10/day - Reduced cost due to local providers - Forecast uncertain for RIPE78 at present - Going to look at gaining information in advance again, both during 77 feedback and maybe opening registration early to get information more in advance? - General feeling that we should continue it if at all possible Mentoring: - Official mentoring programme launched at the end of August - Around 13 people signed up to be mentors - Almost all mentors signed up with mentees TF Update: - Plan now to put one slide into HPH's closing plenary presentation. General vibe that we are continuing, that progress is happening, and TF to recheck need for TF. Current feeling is we continue to need it. RIPE CoC: - Trusted Contacts received training from Hubert Consult, Vesna to send the details to the list - Need to review and improve at this point in time - Especially in regards to the procedure around dealing with reports and who can take the action to remove someone from the meeting? - Sasha has a template for a possible changes to/rewrite of the CoC - Sasha will send an email to the list with the JangoCon Europe information and we can file off the relevant serial numbers - TF to consider how to make updating the CoC and associated procedures easier - Brian & Shane to inform the PC and WG Chairs that this work is ongoing Helping Other Communities: - Need to look at checklist for NCC sponsored events Open Action: Gender diversity in speakers and leadership still isn't where we want it to be. Open Action: UKNOF update not on programme, hopefully for Iceland Open Action: Vesna will try again to reach Dutch office of Women & Girls in Tech Open Action: Need to make it easier to change the name of a speaker after submission has been made, NCC working on this for PCSS Open Action: Amanda was talking to HPH about restricting questions to online submission and led by session chair, so no questions from the mic. HPH interested in the idea. Suggestion that both pronoun stickers and "Do not photograph" stickers/badges should be available Brian Nisbet Network Operations Manager HEAnet CLG, Ireland's National Education and Research Network 1st Floor, 5 George's Dock, IFSC, Dublin D01 X8N7, Ireland +35316609040 brian.nisbet(a)heanet.ie www.heanet.ie Registered in Ireland, No. 275301. CRA No. 20036270

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RIPE77 meeting: updated list of actions
by Vesna Manojlovic 15 Oct '18

15 Oct '18

Hi everyone, as a preparation for the in-person meeting on Monday, here is the updated list of actions: Ongoing efforts: - approach local communities - mentoring - child-care - encourage diverse panels in CfP - ask for gender at the registration form - follow metrics to see if we are making progress - report from the TF on the progress since the previous RIPE meeting Open actions: - Denesh : do a talk "an update from UKNOF how are we approaching diversity", by Liz Stevens (July 2018) - RIPE NCC: cooperate with the managing director for the Dutch office of girls and women in tech: https://www.vhto.nl/ (July 2018) - Vesna : talk to RIPE NCC's Web Services to make the PC system more flexible to be able to change names/presenters more easily. (July 2018) - RIPE NCC: come up with a proposal and send it to the diversity list: how to reward other kinds of participants & not the "first 3 who registered" (July 2018) - TF: start addressing the lack of diversity in leadership roles in the RIPE community - specifically, the RIPE Programme Committee and the Working Group Chairs (May 2018) - Vesna - organise meeting with Sara from Europol (May 2018) You can find these, and older actions, here: http://etherpad.tools.ietf.org:9000/p/ripe-diversity-tf-2017 Also, any volunteer to take notes on Monday? Thanks, Vesna

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Deciding on the time for the Task Force meetup at RIPE77
by Vesna Manojlovic 11 Oct '18

11 Oct '18

Hi, in about a month the RIPE77 meeting is happening in Amsterdam - and that's an opportunity for the "members" of the Diversity Task Force to meet in person. Usually it's quite busy & the time suiting everyone is hard to find... I made a "poll" to help us choose the date&time: https://doodle.com/poll/7qbtuc5ewxu7fi4b Please reply by Thursday, 20.9., noon (UTC+1) Afterwards, I will send the best-voted slot to the list. You can join this TF meeting if you are interested in helping with the ongoing actions, those that are still outstanding, or if you have another activity to suggest. "members" are simply people who do some work - and that can be *you* :) More info is here: https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/tf/ripe-diversity-task-force https://labs.ripe.net/diversity We will agree on more detailed agenda for the meeting beginning of October. Regards, Vesna ps I know there are privacy concerns with a "free" service that uses advertisements on the page, so if you have a suggestion for something else then d00dle for the next survey, please let me know

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Workshop on Internet Governance and Feminist Internet
by Vesna Manojlovic 11 Oct '18

11 Oct '18

Dear all, The RIPE NCC is hosting a workshop in our office together with a tech-focused feminist organisation from Germany and we'd like to extend an invitation for you to join. We see this initiative as an extension of our work to increase diversity and inclusion in the RIPE community. When: Thursday, 20 September 2018, 14:00 - 17:00 What: Workshop on Internet Governance and Feminist Internet Perspective Where: RIPE NCC offices, Stationsplein 11, Amsterdam Programme: - Mirjam Kuehne: Governing the Internet Infrastructure as a Commons https://18.re-publica.com/en/session/governing-internet-infrastructure-comm… - Vesna Manojlovic: Ethics in Technology and RIPE Atlas https://program.sha2017.org/events/311.html - Amanda Gowland: RIPE Community Diversity Efforts https://labs.ripe.net/diversity - Discussion: Feminist Perspectives on Internet Governance https://feministinternet.org/ and https://techfestival.co/event/feminist-internet-summit/ You are invited to join! Places are limited. Please let us know if you are interested before 18 September 2018, 12:00 UTC, by replying to me. Kind Regards, Vesna Manojlovic Community Builder RIPE NCC

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Fwd: N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications 2018
by Vesna Manojlovic 02 Oct '18

02 Oct '18

Cross-posting: an example of the similar community (slightly more academic) , where they promote the work of young researchers, from diverse disciplines. Also a good list of possible contributors / speakers for some of our future projects / events. Cheers, Vesna -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [n2women] N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications 2018 Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2018 16:39:54 +0000 Reply-To: subarna chatterjee <chatterjeesubarna(a)yahoo.com> To: n2women(a)ACM.ORG Dear all, We are very excited to announce the fourth list of “/N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications/”. We received a large number of nominations for a wide range of amazing researchers in our field, and it was difficult to choose only 10 amazing women. We focused on young women whose career start has already impacted research in networking and/or communications. We also wanted a list that represented our diversity, e.g., diversity in the area of networking/communications and, thus, chose the list accordingly. For 2018, in alphabetical order (by the last name), here are the 10 Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications! 1. Behnaz Arzani (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/bearzani/) 2. Leyre Azpilicueta (https://scholar.google.com.mx/citations?user=2vjBtoEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao) 3. Aruna Balasubramanian (https://www.cs.stonybrook.edu/~arunab/) 4. Shehar Bano (https://sheharbano.com/) 5. Carlee Joe-Wong (https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/cjoewong/) 6. Fotini Karinou (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/fokarino/) 7. Radhika Mittal (http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~radhika/) 8. Justine Sherry (http://www.justinesherry.com/) 9. Anna Vizziello (http://tlclab.unipv.it/index.php/people/the-team/23-people/78-anna-vizziello) 10. Noa Zilberman (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~nz247/)  Details on these outstanding women, as well as quotes from one of the many people who nominated these women, will soon be available at: http://n2women.comsoc.org/  We sincerely thank the nominators for taking out the time to submit the nominations thereby encouraging several young women researchers to acquire visibility. The "N2Women: Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications” is an annual list. This list focuses on amazing young women whose career start has already impacted research in networking and/or communications. Best, Subarna Chatterjee, Angela Sara Cacciapuoti, Ying Zhang, N2Women Awards Co-Chairs Katia Jaffrès-Runser and Sami Rollins, N2Women Board Co-Chairs http://n2women.comsoc.org/ <http://n2women.comsoc.org/> P.S. Networking Networking Women (N2Women) is a discipline-specific community for researchers in the communications and networking research fields. N2Women is an ACM SIGMOBILE program that is supported by the IEEE Communications Society, Microsoft Research, HP Labs, Google, Facebook, ACM SIGCOMM and IEEE Computer Society (CS) Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC). We are very grateful for the support of these fabulous organisations. **

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Overcoming divisions, making participation inclusive
by Vesna Manojlovic 28 Sep '18

28 Sep '18

Hi, I was reading this article & I found it strangely relevant for the RIPE community, so I wanted to share it with you: http://netdem.nl/en/articles/new-democracy-overcoming-social-division/ (althou I don't agree with the conclusion of the "fix" ) Vesna Some quotes: In my view, the success of the RIPE community is in its ability to "overcome [] divisions and bring the conflicting groups together at the negotiation table." For example: ISPs, governments/regulators & vendors . And we share some similar challenges: "it is becoming more difficult to find candidates for [volunteering positions] ... it has also become increasingly difficult to develop policy, which would account for the interests of all [] groups." "How to make [] participation inclusive?" "That’s why it is important to keep inventing and enlarging the repertoire of methods for citizens to be active outside of the established procedures." Of course, the differences are that the original article talks about democracy & politics, not the Internet Governance, but the overlap seems more and more prominent. OTOH, there is again the sparkling diversity discussion at IETF... https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg109519.html https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-carpenter-community-leaders-00 https://www.theengineroom.org/diversity-is-a-competency/

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"Free speech" in the RIPE Code of Conduct
by Sasha Romijn 11 Sep '18

11 Sep '18

Hello all, I noticed the following in the RIPE mailing list and RIPE meeting Code of Conduct (emphasis mine): > Please treat each other with tolerance and respect. Free speech and an open exchange of ideas is encouraged and celebrated. Demeaning, intimidating or harming other community members is wrong. We are especially sensitive to behaviour that offends based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnic origin, or other perceived social, cultural, or personal differences. Earlier, the CoC also mentions "diversity of views”. My concern with this wording is that, in my personal experience, “free speech” and “diversity of views” are often used as arguments by people to justify sharing discriminatory views, or demanding that space is made for their ideas. It makes it seem like CoC decisions are taken in a way where free speech and the diversity of views are balanced against harm, rather than just saying that harmful statements are not ok. Even in the more restricted European legal interpretation of free speech, there are many statements that are inappropriate and harmful for a community that aims to be inclusive, yet most certainly within the legal bounds. By making free speech and diversity of views seem equally important to the incidence of harm, I think the current wording allows too much freedom, and can reduce the reporting rate. Increasing the reporting rate is a general struggle for communities, and anything that makes people more hesitant to report weakens the CoC. Personally, I’d be reluctant to report anything non-physical under a CoC that mentions free speech and diversity of ideas as values. If my memory serves me right, the text of the CoC was decided by the WG chairs. Was there an actual expert involved? And what was the reason for the chairs (or whoever else was involved) to mention free speech and diversity of views this way? Did they consider the potential negative impact? Writing CoC language is quite difficult and sensitive, and small changes can have large impacts. Sasha

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