Dear Colleagues, I am glad to declare RIPE community consensus on draft v2 [[1][]] of the document on RIPE NCC staff participation in RIPE. I expect that the text of this draft will be published as a RIPE document in the near future, after final editing to add acknowledgements, check spelling and terminology, and make whatever other minor changes may be needed to prepare it for release. I should like to add a few remarks. Last call on this draft was re-opened on 21 July 2023 [[2][]], and closed on 4 September 2023. During this second last-call period, there were a number of expressions of support, and none of objection, to the two principles enunciated in this draft. In addition, on 2 August 2023, Andy Davidson maintained [[3][]],
As a responsible community, it is incumbent upon us to safeguard NCC staff from potential conflicts of interest by defining clear protocols for how such situations are considered and managed when NCC staff participate in RIPE activities with activity plans, budgets, or hiring decisions.
He also asked,
Can this be captured in the lovely succinct way that you have approached the first two drafts?
At the time, I replied that I hoped so. On reflection, I believe that the initiative for addressing Andy's concerns is best left to RIPE NCC management and staff. Pragmatically, they have well-established internal mechanisms which would likely not run more smoothly if the community were to try to orchestrate them. Diplomatically, the community should avoid telling NCC management and staff what is good for them. Moreover, I have been made aware that the RIPE NCC is planning to review its internal guidelines on staff interaction with the community, and needs to know the consensus of the community in order to inform that review. For all these reasons, I believe it is appropriate to declare consensus on this document now, rather than to attempt improving it further. Finally, I wish to thank everyone who has participated in discussing this draft and its predecessor. Best regards, Niall O'Reilly RIPE Vice-Chair --- [1]: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n... [2]: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ripe-list/2023-July/002967.html [3]: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ripe-list/2023-August/002984.html