All, As mentioned earlier, I would like to write down our approach for co-chair selection. This would help us to have an open and transparent process to get a cochair appointed, but also help in the future for other working groups as either an example or at the minimum that they can use the same set of principles. I believe that this request already has resulted in a quite bit useful discussion on a few things that we should, or shouldn't do and many of you mentioned that it would be useful if we don't wait too long as our new charter would also be a good starting point for the appointment of (an) additional cochair(s). Below, I will summarize some of the key principles that I came away with and my initial idea on how to start the process. Since these are initial ideas, I very much welcome your input or if you would be interested in volunteering to work out the text further. At the same time, there doesn't seem to be much disagreement about the first step of the process so I would like to start with that step right away: an open call for candidates. I realize that there is a bit of risk involved on starting this before we have agreed on the full process: however, there has been already quite a bit discussion on the list on the general direction and I have confidence in our community that we will be able to find a workable solution along the way. I will send a seperate mail with an official call for nominations. David Kessens --- Date: Thu Jan 21 21:36:39 PST 2010 Draft Proposal on handling of chair position selection within the RIPE community RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collaborative forum open to a parties interested in wide area IP networks in Europe and beyond. Work is carried out within a variety of working groups. Each of these working groups has more than one co-chair. The selection process for a chair position is deliberately left to the working group, so that at any given time, the community is free to select the organisational structure that best reflects the work they want to do at that time. Working group chairs are responsible for organizing the working groups activities as defined in their charters. In addition, they are required to participate in the policy making process to judge and ensure that the RIPE policy making process has been properly followed after new policy proposals have been accepted by a working group (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/pdp.html). While the actual implementation of the chair position selection process is on purpose not codified in any process document, it is expected that such a process follows the same principles as outlined in the RIPE policy development process: 1. It is open to all and follows an established, bottom-up process of collaboration. Everyone interested in the well-being of the Internet may propose a policy and take part in the discussions that follow on from the proposal. 2. It is transparent. All discussions and resulting actions are documented and freely available to all. 3. Conclusions are reached by consensus. 4. All policies are documented within RIPE Documents and placed in the RIPE Document Store The same dispute resolution process as used for the policy development applies to cochair selection process or results of the process. The Process As there is no standardized process for working group selection, this section serves as an example only and describes on how the IPv6 working group is currently selecting its co-chairs. The following is a proposal only and it has not been decided on how to continue after the nomination step. - Call for nominations of more than 7 days (self nominations being ok) - During the same time period: 1) The nominees are given a chance to determine whether they want to be considered or withdraw as they decided that there are other good candidates already available 2) The community may express opinions that could help the candidates to come to a decision on whether they want to be continued to be considered as a candidate - the community may consider appointing more than one co-chair in case of several good candidates - If the discussion period seems to result in a consensus decision, a last call of more than 7 days is issued or - Each nominee writes a short statement to the WG Mailinglist - Election using single transferable vote (we need to figure out whether we can do this online or wheter this is better done at the meeting) ----