Hello Fergal and all, Thank you for outlining the steps RIPE NCC has taken to improve voter turnout. However, I believe these measures don't address the fundamental issue: the extremely low turnout creates a situation where approximately 2.46% of members can effectively change RIPE NCC policies, which raises serious questions about the legitimacy of our voting process. For context, at the Amsterdam GM (26-27 Sep 2012), Option A passed with 197 Yes / 105 No / 11 Abstain votes—representing only about 3.8% of ~8,000 LIRs. This means that the decision to implement the flat fee structure was effectively made by just 2.46% of LIRs, which is concerning for organizational health. Regarding the specific points raised: Registration and Voting Process: While the process may seem simple from a technical perspective, it presents significant barriers. Many 2FA token holders are non-technical managers or owners who find the current authentication requirements confusing and overly complex. The current TOTP/HOTP system is fundamentally flawed for voting purposes because: * The shared secret can be distributed to multiple people, creating accountability issues * There's no way to verify who actually possesses the authenticator * It requires manual code entry, which is error-prone and frustrating for non-technical users RIPE NCC should implement WebAuthn (passkeys), which offers significant advantages: * Single-click authentication that even non-technical users find intuitive * Cryptographically secure credentials that cannot be shared or extracted * Attestation capabilities that can verify the authenticity of the voting device * Support across all modern devices and browsers Registration Requirement: * Why is separate registration required at all? APNIC and LACNIC don't require this additional step—membership itself should suffice as registration to vote. * Evidence suggests that the registration requirement alone causes RIPE to lose 15-18% of potential votes annually. * If Dutch law truly requires separate registration (which I question), this warrants serious consideration of either legal clarification or structural changes(moving HQ?). Voting Window: * The 40-minute session limit is unnecessarily restrictive. Members should be able to vote at any time during the voting period. * RIPE has by far the shortest voting window among RIRs: RIPE NCC ~1.5 days vs. ARIN 8 days, APNIC ~14 days, LACNIC 7 days, and AFRINIC 7 days. This <48-hour window is a governance choice, not a technical limitation. Communication: * While I appreciate the reminder emails, RIPE NCC demonstrates much greater persistence when requesting information from members (even during wartime or government strikes) than when encouraging voting participation. Mailing List Participation: * The loss of 500 subscribers from members-discuss is indeed concerning. However, rather than accepting disengagement, RIPE NCC could offer digest options for those who prefer less frequent updates while maintaining their connection to community discussions. Participation in governance discussions should be viewed as a civic duty within our community, not an optional activity. I believe meaningful change requires addressing these structural barriers rather than placing the burden solely on engaged members to increase turnout. While I agree that providing feedback to the Charging Scheme Task Force is important, we must also address these fundamental governance issues that limit member participation. On Fri, 2025-06-06 at 17:00 +0200, Fergal Cunningham wrote:
Dear Dmitry, all,
Thank you for the input on the voting turnout. There are quite a few suggestions we noted from the discussions. Some seem like they could be implemented with some work, but others would require significant changes to our governance structures. We’ll review them all internally and see what’s feasible to implement.
Increasing voter turnout is something we’ve worked very hard at since electronic voting was introduced. In summary, what we have done is:
* Make registration and voting as easy as possible - registering takes no more than a minute or two via the LIR Portal * Provide remote options for discussions and the voting processes * Provide a recording immediately after the GM for those unable to attend or who have timezone restrictions so they can follow discussion and vote at their convenience * Publish extensive supporting documentation well in advance of the GMs, including explainers of more complicated resolutions to be voted on * Have Open Houses to allow members to interact directly with our Executive Board, candidates and RIPE NCC management on important issues * Send extensive communications and reminders on a number of channels, including a personalised mail to unregistered voters the week before the GM * Publish analyses of the voting after each GM to support discussion on the issues and the turnout
Every year, we also improve our processes and the GM-related information on our website based on what we hear from members who vote.
Given the above, it’s not clear to what extent changes to process will increase turnout. Although we do expect a vote on a new charging model based on the Charging Scheme Task Force’s proposed principles would see many more members exercise their voting rights.
A good approach might be to see voter turnout as a shared responsibility between the RIPE NCC and its members. For instance, those members who are invested in seeing greater participation could play a big part by informing other members in their networks about the issues to be voted on, and persuading them to vote. People might well be more convinced by someone they know in their network than by an additional email from the RIPE NCC.
And ensuring discussions stay positive and on-topic would also help. We lost many subscribers from members-discuss last year when discussions around the charging scheme and budget became overly heated. This caused over 500 people to unsubscribe from this mailing list, and these people will therefore not be participating in discussions or hearing what people think on important issues, including matters to be voted on.
If the RIPE NCC can work on suggested improvements, and invested members can play their own part in helping to boost turnout, we could well see a much more involved and engaged membership. An excellent start would be to provide useful feedback to the Charging Scheme Task Force on the document they provided with principles for a new charging scheme model, which was the initial request that started the current discussions.
Kind regards, Fergal Cunningham Head of Membership Engagement RIPE NCC
On Sat, May 31, 2025 at 3:10 PM <sdy@a-n-t.ru> wrote:
It is clear: "If I got something for free, then I don't want to pay for it. Even if it is very expensive and necessary for everyone."
But arguments to not pay for /24 has next problems. 1. The equality of members and their votes is fixed by the charter of the NCC and does not depend on the payment in any way - forget this issue forever. 2. Payment in accordance with the amount of resources used is not prohibited anywhere or in any way - all these arguments about Dutch law are nonsense. 3. The nature of the activity (commercial or non-commercial) is determined not by the fundraising per peers, but by its established goals and the way income is distributed among the participants. And is fixed by the charter NCC.
!!! Now a little bit about the decision and the vote. !!!
The most important thing we are facing right now is the passivity of 90% of NCC members. They are all full-rights participants and should take part in General meetings in a good way.
But in fact, the issues are decided on GM by the votes of 600-700 members out of 22000. I see this as a purposeful approach by the core of the old NCC members (who are big resource holders) and unfortunately the NCC management. Most of the LIRs not to be subscribers on [members-discuss], do not participate in GM, and do not even understand their role and rights in the community. For a fair solution of such complex issues as the payment scheme and the prospects for the future of the NCC, it is necessary to attract the large number of LIRs. I would like the management of the NCC to take a closer look at these problems.
Serbulov Dmitry.
Hi,
On Sat, May 31, 2025 at 01:36:27PM +0300, Jean Salim wrote:
We missed you Gert, I was surprised you disappeared as you're always the one to mislead the conversation away from charging scheme. I would like yo hear your proposal on an alternative charging scheme that more fair to small LIRs. I myself, as pointed out before, prefer the ARIN model.
"1 LIR, 1 vote, 1 fee for the membership" seems to be the one where most LIRs can actually *agree* on.
Every charging scheme will be unfair to some - we had categories, and that was unfair to some, we had flat fees, and those are unfair to some, and even if we introduce fee-by-/24, it will be unfair to some.
Even if we totally ignore IPv4, there will still be people that say "someone with a larger yearly budget should pay more", and "non- profit members should be free!", and maybe they are right. But if we go there, some people will have to pay more than they did the year before, and they will find this unfair.
Conclusions left as homework to the reader.
Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...?
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