Dear Martin,
Thank you for extending a welcome to me and for engaging in this important dialogue. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my perspective and to deepen my involvement with the RIPE community.
In your email, you highlighted the importance of being a well-informed and active member of the community, particularly in the context of voting for leadership positions. However, the growing inconsistency surrounding the nature of this process — whether it was intended as a public call for candidate support, a forum for expressing opinions, or an element of a specific selection procedure — is of considerable concern. This lack of clarity, which appears to be more than coincidental, has left myself, and possibly others, in a state of doubt regarding the appropriate way to respond and participate. My actions were based on the directives issued by the current chairs, yet I now find myself questioning if there might be a deeper, possibly unspoken, agenda underpinning these communications. While it perhaps truly is coincidentally inconvenient that such ambiguities were not adequately addressed prior to "unusual traffic in the list”, I would greatly appreciate your guidance in shedding light on the true purpose and framework of this initiative.
In my quest to navigate through this entanglement, I delved into the historical records of our mailing list. My investigation revealed a notably sparse flow of communication, with only about 20 emails exchanged annually on average. Given that we are now approaching the year's end, I am expecting that someone might at some point propose a thoughtful reduction in email traffic for these remaining days of December. This strategy potentially could preserve the customary communication patterns, ensuring a well-balanced and smooth transition into the upcoming year, and potentially revitalizing the usual dialogue dynamics within the list.
Despite these well designed roadblocks, I would like to offer some insights into my involvement and interest in the RIPE community, which will allow you to make informed decisions and not uninformed opinions.
I agree that knowing who we collaborate with is key for effective teamwork. Acknowledging your concerns, I appreciate the chance to introduce myself. Surely you have noticed that I've used my official email for group subscription to affirm my genuine interest and identity, underscoring my commitment to maintaining the integrity and trustworthiness of our voting process.
As a philosopher and computational linguist with experience in training language models and the ethics of big data, I believe I can offer insights and expertise to the RIPE community. My introduction to RIPE was through a recommendation by Luka Perkov, a long-time collaborator, and a respected member of the open source community. Over the past year, my research group has extensively utilized statistical data, which has been very useful in our work. At the University of Zagreb as well as at Entimem Ltd, we have specialized in deep learning analysis of religious texts of various religions, and RIPE's data has been helpful in measuring activities, aiding our project proposals and research.
As I have now introduced myself in this e-mail as requested, I am now very interested to learn more about other members in the same way, namely those whose opinions are given weight in these discussions and decisions so that I am at least given an opportunity to engage in the conversation. This would not only foster a sense of safety and inclusion but also align with the RIPE’s Code of Conduct, where it is stated that one of the main goals of the RIPE community is “to help everyone feel safe and included. Many people will be new to our community. Some may have had negative experiences in other communities. We want to set a clear expectation that harassment and related behaviours are not tolerated here. If people do have an unpleasant experience, they will know that this is neither the norm nor acceptable to us as a community.”
In closing, I would appreciate any information on how we collaborate and meet outside of the RIPE meetings, so I can efficiently plan my involvement. Additionally, if there are any resources, guidelines, or specific contacts that could help me get started and blend more smoothly into the team, I would be most grateful for that information. What I have seen so far is very intriguing and I am very interested to understand the dynamics of the community.
Warm regards,
Ines
Ines.
First of all welcome. And yes, you are one of the impacted persons as
well who just joined the list after the RIPE meeting, not attended any
recent RIPEs and were still informed well enough to immediatly vote
after joining the list.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 9:14 AM Ines Skelac <ines.skelac@ffrz.hr> wrote:
>
> Dear RIPE Community,
>
> I am writing to express my disappointment and concern regarding the recent decision-making process for the open co-chair position in the RIPE community. As a new member of this esteemed group, I find the approach taken to be both disheartening and alarming.
Is it really alarming that we don't allow votes from people who were
not part of the community when the voting started? In all democracies
I know,
you have to be registered/present some time before the voting starts.
If you would be part of the RIPE community for a bit longer then you
would be aware that usually the voting would be at the meeting itself.
We decided at the last minute to give people a bit more time after
they heard each of them introducing themself at the meeting and give
them 2 weeks to make up their minds. Maybe we should have been clear
that later joins are not eligible to vote, but then you wouldn't have
seen or heard that anyway as you were not yet part of the community.
So instead of making wild accusations that this is alarming, please
take yourself as an example and explain why YOUR vote should count.
Explain how you know about the voting and how you heard about ALL of
the candidates and about your past experience with RIPE (which got you
a bit familiar with the community, our goal of the WG) - which I
assume you all know to be able to pick the best candidate.
Please be aware, we didn't look for the most popular person or the one
with the most followers or the best Open Source background. We were
looking for the best choice for a WG chair. How this is defined might
be viewed differently by each person.
If you can explain this, then we might be happy to reconsider counting
your vote.
So far, the only ones complaining are the ones who signed up days
after the meeting and voted immediately.
> The decision to disqualify votes from new members who may not have had the opportunity to attend a RIPE meeting or were not subscribed to the mailing list by a specific date seems not only unfair but also counterproductive. This approach overlooks the potential contributions of new members and creates an unwelcoming environment. It also appears to be grounded in logical fallacies, such as the 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' fallacy, which undermines the rationality of this decision.
Please be aware that you can attend RIPE for free from remote. No
travel required. No money required. This is a very low entry level.
And no, this does not produce a unwelcoming environment, but protects
the working group to be not potentially controlled by some outside
force.
By your definition, welcoming would mean that I can create a bot to
create votes and you expect them to be counted. Or I can go and ask
all my friends to join and vote in exchange for a beer. This has
nothing to do with welcoming, but all about protecting the integrity
of the vote.
I welcome you to join the next RIPE meeting and bring up this in
person to discuss with the whole group.
Regards,
Martin Winter
Open Source WG Chair
>
> Moreover, such a stance is unacademic and unethical. It disregards the principles of open dialogue and diversity of perspectives, which are crucial in any intellectual community. Disqualifying members without substantial evidence and not acknowledging the value of fresh perspectives can severely damage the integrity and reputation of the RIPE community.
>
> As a new member eager to contribute, this experience is not only disheartening but also raises concerns about the future direction of the community. I urge the leadership to reconsider this approach and adopt more inclusive and equitable practices. The strength of a community lies in its diversity and openness to all voices, including those of its newest members.
>
> I hope that my concerns will be taken seriously and that we can work together towards a more inclusive and respectful RIPE community.
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ines Skelac, PhD, Assistant Professor
>
> Vice-dean for Science, International Cooperation, Management and Quality Assurance
>
> University of Zagreb, Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies
>
>
>
>
> sub, 16. pro 2023. u 23:45 Ondřej Surý <ondrej@dns.rocks> napisao je:
>>
>> Oh, I didn’t want to imply any intentional wrongdoing. I simply suggested that stepping down in such situation might be the best way to acknowledge the less than ideal situation and prevent the possible argument that might drag for a long time.
>>
>> Ondrej
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 16, 2023, at 23:22, Martin Winter wrote:
>>
>> Ondrej,
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 9:31 PM Ondřej Surý <ondrej@dns.rocks> wrote:
>> > The way I read the decision from the chair, they strive to have the voting process work for the existing community. If suddenly there’s a surge of people who were never active in this community subscribing to the mailing list and voting for any of the candidates, I would consider this be a kind of hostile takeover.
>> >
>> > Honestly, I think the only fair way out of this would be if the candidate who received the surge of votes from people outside of this community stepped down. A co-chair elected with votes from people who never participated in the RIPE community would not be accepted by this community and it would be divisive and toxic to the future work.
>>
>> I don't like to go this far. We (as the chairs) have no proof or
>> indication that any of the candidates actively tried to manipulate the
>> voting. However, some candidates might be more popular in their own
>> social circles and may have mentioned that they are candidates. And I
>> think that's all good and fair.
>> I can't blame the candidates for this or for the fact if someone then
>> just signed up to vote for him. I have no indication that he/she
>> motivated them to do this.
>> As such, I assume all candidates are innocent and did not try to
>> manipulate the voting.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Martin Winter
>> Open Source WG Chair
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ondřej Surý (He/Him)
>> ondrej@sury.org
>>
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