- Have the new chairs, together with the working group, draft the selection process with the aim of reaching consensus and publishing this document prior to RIPE 70 which will be in Amsterdam in May 2015.
I'm a bit confused - new chairs will have to write a procedure that will enable them to become chairs later on?
- Take the 70th RIPE meeting as an opportunity to execute the new process for the first time and have the working group re-affirm the new chairs under the new procedure.
This is a bit confusing, I must say. If the working group agrees on new chairs, then there is no need of re-confirming. We can ask them to come up with a new procedure that is evaluated in WG, but is used for next chair(s) rotation. Don't add too much complexity, please ;)
The idea is to have a process in place for each working group to elect and re-elect chairs. It is up for this WG, as all others, to come up with something that fits the needs of the group, adheres to the fundamental RIPE prinicples like openness, transparency and inclusiveness. What this in the most simple wording would come down to is “limited terms” and a re-election every once in while, not because somebody decides to step down, but because some timer went off. As explained, Shane and I felt a bit uncomfortable taking the lead in this process. While ultimately it is up to the working group and not the chairs to decide, they no doubt will play an important role in drafting and guiding the group to consensus. We think this is better done by some fresh heads rather than the ones that are on the way out. At the same time this is causing some bootstrapping issues, we want new chairs to take the lead, but there is no process. So we used the old one, if there is such a thing. Which means there are no timers and it might not be done in line with the yet to designed process. So the easiest and most fair way to fix this is to design a process and once consensus has been reached to execute it. Wether that is just a formality to re-affirm the current new chairs or a full reset, I believe is one question that needs to be addressed in the design process. In the end it needs a starting point, so we better be fair and put a reasonable deadline on it. I hope this answers your questions and we are of course welcoming other feedback, Marco