Hi Jordi,

Hi Mirjam, all,

Firstly, I can't agree with how this update to the PDP is being managed. The PDP is updated by the PDP as a policy proposal and it should follow exactly the same process. Is not only because this is the way the other RIRs do, but because we already did that not long time ago: https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2018-04

We can't approve a PDP change not following the PDP process, otherwise, we set a terrible precedent of an exception with will be an illegal act against our own laws (understanding the PDP as our law) and highly discriminatory (neither RIPE chairs or WG chairs must be or have a different treatment vs the rest of the community).

In addition to that, here are my observations:

1) We discussed this already a few times in the past. It is abnormal that the PDP is considered as a RIPE Chair "authored" document. Again, it is discriminatory and no sense. It is just one more document in our policy set, actually the one on top of all them, and all them belong to the community and are authored by the community.

2) Actually, related to that, there is something that I've already discussed with Hans Petter (when he was RIPE Chair), Marco (when he was the PDO) and other folks several times, but this is the opportunity to take an action, if we decide to update the PDP. Policies *are community documents*, they should not have the authors names. Authors work on that to voluntarily support the community. I understand that during the discussion the name is visible in the web pages for the policy proposal and then in the archives, etc., but they must not be part of the final policy text, unless we want to do like in IETF, where we have an ack section, to recognize all the discussion participants, not just the authors. So consequently, we should have some clear text about that in the PDP update,  and we must remove all those mentions in the actual documents (option 1). Otherwise, all the document should include the authors (option 2). Because it is discriminatory that a few documents have author names and not all them. Note that my personal preference is option 1.

3) I strongly disagree that we should have this text "This document deals solely with policy. Everything else, such as RIPE NCC business practices, procedures and operations is out of scope.". The first sentence is wrong, as the PDP, as demonstrated previously, also deals with PDP changes. The PDP is the only way the community has to deal with documents and reach consensus on them before being published. There are documents which aren't policy but also follow the PDP. The second part is a big mistake. The only way the community has to influence how the NCC implements policies, if something goes wrong, is the policy making process. Otherwise, the membership (which is a small fraction of the community) decides to ignore the community (ignoring policies), we are just lost. Yes, there is a similar text in the actual PDP, but it is just wrong, we should work to remove it.

4) The text about the "idea" is wrong and untrue. Past experience doesn't show that. There have been many policy proposals that didn't followed that process and they are actual policies. The PDP is a set of rules, strict rules of a process, not "rules and suggestions". We can't mix rules and suggestions in a formal PDP text.

5) I strongly disagree with the removal of the text that clarify what are "policies". We agreed long time ago that we should work on BCPs, guidelines, etc. If we remove that then those documents lose their umbrella. I will agree to reword it, but not removing it.

6) There is another big chunk of text that has been removed, and it is about the open/bottom-up transparent process. I understand that it has been reworded, but there are some keyworks that are now missing which are key.

7) "After preliminary discussion of the idea", is broken. Because it is not mandatory to have a preliminary "idea". We have discussed this already many times. There is no need for a discussion before a formal proposal, neither the chairs have any discriminatory authority to reject a proposal, if it is in the scope of the WG. And in case it is not in scope of any WG, must come to the plenary (difficult to be in that case, but it must be clear).

8) Across the text you use "proposer" as this was the wording in the original PDP. I suggest that we have a foot note or similar alternative way to indicate the first time the term is used that the proposer is one or a set of authors, just for clarity. Not everybody is used to the PDP and if they read it, they should be able to quickly understand that author(s) and proposer(s) is the same.

9) Regarding "Clearly and concisely formulate the problem statement and the intended result", is not good, because sometime we need policies to improve and existing one, the problem statement then is not so obvious for all (not the same "degree" of understanding the need for a solution), or we need to clarify text because the wording can be misinterpreted. I will instead use something like "Clearly and concisely formulate the problem statement, opportunity for improvement, or required clarification and the intended result".

10) I think we should take the opportunity to define the discussion and review time as a fixed one, not something like "at least four weeks". If the community believe that a proposal needs more discussion, it can be discussed later among authors/chairs/community, but the initial discussion phase should be the same for all the proposals and not (again), create "up-front" discriminations.

11) I think we are missing (even in the actual PDP) that a policy may be "abandoned" when authors become irresponsible (they don't react to the requests for a new version, etc.). In some other languages, withdrawn and abandoned is not the same, and consequently many folks, non-native English, may have difficulties to differentiate it.

12) I don't agree that the co-chairs are the only responsible of withdrawing a proposal, it shall be done with the agreement of the authors. Chairs may perceive that a new version can't make progress, and of course they may be wrong. Also, if this is not accepted, authors can just send a new proposal with the new version (and this can't be avoided), and chairs are there only to manage the discussion and help the community to determine consensus, but nothing else.

13)  We had a long discussion about the appeals process and now it seems that we have forgot about most of it. I strongly oppose to this, also because you have clearly discriminated me, according to the actual PDP and you haven't proceeded with my appeals proposal. Where in the actual PDP say that you can just ignore a proposal ???? I radically disagree that the appeal is handled by the WGCC. The community must decide about how to handle that with an independent set of people. Our first appeal demonstrated that: some WG chairs that have disagreed with the proposal under appeal were taking part on the WGCC discussion. How come that can be considered neutral and transparent?

14) Section 5 shows to me at least, a big theater, really ugly. How come, we can use something different to change the PDP? How come we can *already* use that procedure to amend the PDP *before* it has been approved? How come, the community can appeal then the RIPE Chair(s) decision? No way!


Regards,
Jordi
@jordipalet



El 28/10/21 14:16, "ripe-list en nombre de Mirjam Kuehne" <ripe-list-bounces@ripe.net en nombre de mir@zu-hause.nl> escribió:

    Dear colleagues,

    The RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP) was last updated in 2018. With
    experience from the first appeal and some other suggested improvements
    to the process, we felt it was time to work on a new version.

    The draft version can be found here:
    https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/policy-development-process-in-ripe

    Please send any feedback, questions or suggestions to this list. We will
    also reserve some time during the RIPE 83 Community Plenary for this
    topic. We will then issue a last call for consensus after RIPE 83.

    Here is a list of the most significant changes:

    - We shortened the introduction to clarify that this document deals with
    policy only.

    - We added a section prior to going into details about the formal process:
    It strongly suggests that an idea for a new policy or a change in policy
    is first discussed on the relevant mailing list before it enters the
    formal PDP. This can potentially save the proposer and the community a
    lot of time and can lead to a better result in the end.

    - We clarified that the relevant WG chairs need to summarize the state
    of the discussion after each phase. This will make clear what the state
    of the discussion is and if community members are required to restate
    their position.

    - We clarified the appeals process, especially who should recuse
    themselves, and we added clear deadlines and responsibilities.

    - We added a section 5. that describes how the PDP is changed (by
    community consensus).

    - In the Policy Proposal Template in Appendix B we added a point 11.a.:
    Motivation for the proposal.

    - We made a number of editorial changes in places where it was not clear
    who is tasked to do what on which list (e.g. the WG chairs or the RIPE
    NCC Policy Officer).

    For reference, here is the current version of the PDP:
    https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-710

    Kind regards,
    Mirjam & Niall
    RIPE Chair Team






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