New Draft Document: RIPE NCC Staff Participation in the RIPE Community (Please review)
Dear colleagues, In its final report [1], the 2020 RIPE Nominating Committee recommended to document a consensus on the relationship between RIPE and the RIPE NCC and, in particular, how RIPE NCC staff can participate in RIPE. In this new draft document, we focus on the second part of this recommendation: how RIPE NCC staff can and should participate in the RIPE community and how the RIPE community welcomes participation by RIPE NCC staff: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n... Please review this document. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, please send them to this list or to me directly before 31 May 2023. Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair [1] RIPE Nominating Committee 2020 https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-762
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n...
/me likes. short and simple. i especially like
RIPE NCC staff are part of the community
randy
+1 Randy, well said! Best, -Michael On Thu, May 4, 2023, 4:33 PM Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n...
/me likes. short and simple. i especially like
RIPE NCC staff are part of the community
randy
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Totally agree with Randy! One question, as it's not clearly forbidden, is NCC staff allowed to be a WG chair, partake in NomCom, etc? I would say yes. Thanks, Melchior On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 4:33 PM Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n...
/me likes. short and simple. i especially like
RIPE NCC staff are part of the community
randy
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On Mon, 2023-05-08 at 09:40 +0200, Melchior Aelmans wrote:
Totally agree with Randy!
Yes!
One question, as it's not clearly forbidden, is NCC staff allowed to be a WG chair, partake in NomCom, etc? I would say yes.
I think it absolutely should be allowed. We want the NCC to be rooted within the RIPE community and excluding them from active participation would not support that goal. In my experience if you are actively involved in a community you get a way better understanding of the inner workings and principles. For the NCC staff that means better input to their decision making process. We try very hard to get people to engage and participate in the RIPE community - let's not reduce that pool unnecessarily. The document states very clearly, that NCC staff needs to disclose their position. This is something we already do by, e.g, asking people to disclose their affliation when commenting on the microphone. So we already know how to deal with potential conflict of interests with a lot of different stake holders. Regarding "to avoid giving direction" I am bit torn. I think to put the staff into a safe situation they need a little bit of freedom there. The line between what could be perceived as "giving direction" vs "sharing expertise" is very thin. Best, Franziska
On 9 May 2023, at 12:30, Franziska Lichtblau <rhalina@old-forest.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2023-05-08 at 09:40 +0200, Melchior Aelmans wrote:
One question, as it's not clearly forbidden, is NCC staff allowed to be a WG chair, partake in NomCom, etc? I would say yes.
I think it absolutely should be allowed. We want the NCC to be rooted within the RIPE community and excluding them from active participation would not support that goal. In my experience if you are actively involved in a community you get a way better understanding of the inner workings and principles. For the NCC staff that means better input to their decision making process. We try very hard to get people to engage and participate in the RIPE community - let's not reduce that pool unnecessarily.
while i do not see any particular harm in WG chairing, the RIPE chair nomcom had to tread a fine line in separating chairmanship and NCC and therefore I think it is best to be cautious due to conflict of interest, but it does not mean that nobody from staff can participate: rather, to protect variety of opinion by avoiding single group of taking control. such issues can be handled by the charters lf such bodies though; we didn't discuss PC, or NRO NC, but same approach applies.
The document states very clearly, that NCC staff needs to disclose their position. This is something we already do by, e.g, asking people to disclose their affliation when commenting on the microphone. So we already know how to deal with potential conflict of interests with a lot of different stake holders.
good point, likewise a meeting etiquette can handle other multiple hats one may wear. -- dk@ (PC member; not NCC)
On Tue, May 9, 2023 at 15:31, Dmitry Kohmanyuk via ripe-list <[ripe-list@ripe.net](mailto:On Tue, May 9, 2023 at 15:31, Dmitry Kohmanyuk via ripe-list <<a href=)> wrote:
On 9 May 2023, at 12:30, Franziska Lichtblau <rhalina@old-forest.org> wrote:
The document states very clearly, that NCC staff needs to disclose their position. This is something we already do by, e.g, asking people to disclose their affliation when commenting on the microphone. So we already know how to deal with potential conflict of interests with a lot of different stake holders.
good point, likewise a meeting etiquette can handle other multiple hats one may wear.
I do not disagree with the tone or direction of the draft document, but I think these particular comments (above) might be a little optimistic. In my experience very few people without legal training actually understand what a conflict of interest is, why it's important, or how to handle them when they do or don't come up. It's common that people think conflicts exist when they don't and vice versa; a disclosure of interests is not the same as recusal from a discussion that leads to a decision, etc, etc. If we think there is the potential for a conflict of interest to arise it would be as well to consider producing some guidance that is suitable for digestion by people who are not actually lawyers, e.g. a simple statement of principles, some examples, and perhaps some suggestion about what to do if someone thinks a conflict of interest does actually exist. Again, I am not suggesting a change to the draft document under discussion, just illustrating a related gap that I think might well exist and that might be useful to address separately. Joe
Hi, On Tue, 9 May 2023 at 02:29, Franziska Lichtblau <rhalina@old-forest.org> wrote: [...]
One question, as it's not clearly forbidden, is NCC staff allowed to be a WG chair, partake in NomCom, etc? I would say yes.
[...]
Regarding "to avoid giving direction" I am bit torn. I think to put the staff into a safe situation they need a little bit of freedom there. The line between what could be perceived as "giving direction" vs "sharing expertise" is very thin.
If a RIPE NCC staff member was a WG chair, could they make a decision on a policy proposal? Kind regards, Leo
Hi,
On 4 May 2023, at 16:30, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n...
/me likes. short and simple. i especially like
RIPE NCC staff are part of the community
+many to that! A lot of NCC staff has been part of this community for a long time. They are a very stable factor and have a lot of experience. So to the NCC staff: I’m happy to have you as part of our community! Cheers, Sander
Hi Mirjam, I like the document overall and that it is so short and simple but there is one thing that I would prefer if it was clarified a bit.
In settings that provide guidance to the RIPE NCC, RIPE NCC staff shall take care both to disclose their position and to avoid giving direction.
While I agree with the idea of this I don't want to try to silence the staff as sometimes others in the community might not really know what they are talking about, specifically regarding legal implications. Additionally if other members of the community are asking for input from an NCC staff member then they should be allowed to say what they think even if that could give some direction. I do generally think that the NCC staff that I have seen posting on mailing lists have been able to use their discretion well. I would hate to see this reduce the amount of valuable input that we get from NCC staff members. So while I fully acknowledge the obvious conflict of interest, would it maybe be worth asking NCC staff members what they think about this? Specifically if it would be likely to change anything about how they interact with other members of the community. I fully agree with the disclosure part and the rest of the document though. -Cynthia On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 3:16 PM Mirjam Kuehne <mir@zu-hause.nl> wrote:
Dear colleagues,
In its final report [1], the 2020 RIPE Nominating Committee recommended to document a consensus on the relationship between RIPE and the RIPE NCC and, in particular, how RIPE NCC staff can participate in RIPE.
In this new draft document, we focus on the second part of this recommendation: how RIPE NCC staff can and should participate in the RIPE community and how the RIPE community welcomes participation by RIPE NCC staff:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-n...
Please review this document. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, please send them to this list or to me directly before 31 May 2023.
Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair
[1] RIPE Nominating Committee 2020 https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-762
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participants (10)
-
Cynthia Revström -
Dmitry Kohmanyuk -
Franziska Lichtblau -
Joe Abley -
Leo Vegoda -
Melchior Aelmans -
Michael J. Oghia -
Mirjam Kuehne -
Randy Bush -
Sander Steffann