it is somewhat odd that meeting attendance is the criterion in a community which claims that the mailing lists are the place where work is done. and, of course, this is re-discussed.
Yes, there is a contradiction there. Sort of. However for RIPE, we're appointing a Chair whose responsibilities largely focus around RIPE meetings, not the work or policy-making that supposedly gets done on RIPE's mailing lists. Drawing from the people who regularly participate in RIPE meetings for both the Nomcom and Chair seems the most sensible choice to me.
I don’t think we should forget those who are active in the community that can’t attend the RIPE meetings for whatever reason, by active I mean via the mailing lists or remote meeting participation.
So I think the criteria should be to have been active in the RIPE community over the last x years by attending at least y RIPE meetings OR by being active on a RIPE mailing list in the last x years.
i am not sure i see a major clue level difference between attendees and mailing list participants. but i am a poor judge as i am good at avoiding. but i take jim's point that the chair is the *meeting* chair. rob used to do a fair bit of external relations; not sure about hph, and not sure what is really needed. randy