WG chair re-selection procedure
Hello working group, The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following: The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair. This will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to volunteers for the chair position, including the chair who offered to stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group. Those who volunteer to chair the RIPE Address Policy Working Group should be aware of the responsibilities and work this involves. A generic description of the responsibilities of a RIPE working group chair can be found in RIPE-542 (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-542). Address policy working group chairs are also expected to coordinate with the RIPE NCC Registration Services department on issues and/or questions arising in the either the working group or the RIPE NCC regarding address policy. As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on this procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at the next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London. Sincerely, Gert & Sander
Who determines whether consensus on a new chair has been reached? If a vocal minority objects to replacing the current chair and blocks consensus on a new one, does that mean he could continue chairing the WG indefinitely? -Scott On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hello working group,
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following:
The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair. This will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to volunteers for the chair position, including the chair who offered to stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group.
Those who volunteer to chair the RIPE Address Policy Working Group should be aware of the responsibilities and work this involves. A generic description of the responsibilities of a RIPE working group chair can be found in RIPE-542 (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-542). Address policy working group chairs are also expected to coordinate with the RIPE NCC Registration Services department on issues and/or questions arising in the either the working group or the RIPE NCC regarding address policy.
As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on this procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at the next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London.
Sincerely, Gert & Sander
If this were another region, I might agree. Solving problems we don't currently have is a distraction. I like the proposed approach. It is simple and provides opportunity for change and provides for continuity. I'm in favor of it. Best, -M< On Sep 15, 2014, at 14:38, "Scott Leibrand" <scottleibrand@gmail.com<mailto:scottleibrand@gmail.com>> wrote: Who determines whether consensus on a new chair has been reached? If a vocal minority objects to replacing the current chair and blocks consensus on a new one, does that mean he could continue chairing the WG indefinitely? -Scott On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl<mailto:sander@steffann.nl>> wrote: Hello working group, The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following: The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair. This will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to volunteers for the chair position, including the chair who offered to stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group. Those who volunteer to chair the RIPE Address Policy Working Group should be aware of the responsibilities and work this involves. A generic description of the responsibilities of a RIPE working group chair can be found in RIPE-542 (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-542). Address policy working group chairs are also expected to coordinate with the RIPE NCC Registration Services department on issues and/or questions arising in the either the working group or the RIPE NCC regarding address policy. As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on this procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at the next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London. Sincerely, Gert & Sander
Hi Scott,
Who determines whether consensus on a new chair has been reached?
It are the working group chairs that determine consensus. If a chair is personally involved (whether it is a policy discussion or something like this) then he/she usually abstains and leaves the determining of consensus to the other chair. If someone objects to a consensus decision then this can be discussed in the WG or appealed following http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-614.
If a vocal minority objects to replacing the current chair and blocks consensus on a new one, does that mean he could continue chairing the WG indefinitely?
Consensus is based on discussion. The minority would need good arguments to oppose the change. And if the worst happens there is always the appeals procedure, but I hope we'll never reach that point over who gets to do the work of being a chair :) Cheers, Sander
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 11:58 AM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hi Scott,
Who determines whether consensus on a new chair has been reached?
It are the working group chairs that determine consensus. If a chair is personally involved (whether it is a policy discussion or something like this) then he/she usually abstains and leaves the determining of consensus to the other chair. If someone objects to a consensus decision then this can be discussed in the WG or appealed following http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-614.
If a vocal minority objects to replacing the current chair and blocks consensus on a new one, does that mean he could continue chairing the WG indefinitely?
Consensus is based on discussion. The minority would need good arguments to oppose the change. And if the worst happens there is always the appeals procedure, but I hope we'll never reach that point over who gets to do the work of being a chair :)
Ok, that's good enough for me. Support. -Scott
On 15 Sep 2014, at 19:37, Scott Leibrand <scottleibrand@gmail.com> wrote:
Who determines whether consensus on a new chair has been reached? If a vocal minority objects to replacing the current chair and blocks consensus on a new one, does that mean he could continue chairing the WG indefinitely?
I think we should apply common sense rather than try to enumerate solutions for every possible corner case. If the WG can't reach consensus -- for some loose definition of that -- kick the problem upstairs for a judgement. IMO that could best be done by the RIPE chair. Who could intervene if there's an appeal or dispute on the consensus decision. I suppose the WG Chairs Collective could also be used for that role, though they may be considered too close to the Chairs of the AP WG to take on that task. I would like to think that if a chair cannot get the support from the WG, he/she would know this would be the point to stand down and make way for a replacement.
I think we should apply common sense rather than try to enumerate solutions for every possible corner case.
can we have that engraved in fire and placed some place very visible? randy
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:22 PM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hello working group,
Hello chairpeople :D I've read the proposal, and the responses so far. As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the
working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on this procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at the next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London.
I like the proposal's simplicity, and I see no pressing problems with it. I support it. -- Jan
+1 On 15. September 2014 21:12:01 MESZ, Jan Ingvoldstad <frettled@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:22 PM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hello working group,
Hello chairpeople :D
I've read the proposal, and the responses so far.
working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on
procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at
As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the this the
next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London.
I like the proposal's simplicity, and I see no pressing problems with it. I support it.
-- Jan
!DSPAM:637,54173a28270301047118848!
On 15/09/2014 18:22, Sander Steffann wrote:
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided
on what authority? Nick
Hi, On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 11:44:19PM +0100, Nick Hilliard wrote:
On 15/09/2014 18:22, Sander Steffann wrote:
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided on what authority?
Ours, granted to us by the WG members. Nick, what are you upset with? This was one of the areas that lacked transparency ("how do chairs get (s)elected? when do they step down, or get re-affirmed? how does a WG get rid of a chair?"), so we as a group agreed that we *all* need to do it, not just individual WGs. In particular, we're not deciding any particular process behind your back, which is why Sander sent out the proposal how to do it in the AP WG, to have WG agreement about it. (APWG used to select WG co-chairs by finding innocent victims that did not have any idea what was expected from them, and chairs got removed by voluntarily stepping down eventually - but that was never documented anywhere, and might not be the best of all possible processes) Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
On Mon, 15 Sep 2014, Sander Steffann wrote:
Hello working group,
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following:
The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair. This will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to volunteers for the chair position, including the chair who offered to stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group.
Those who volunteer to chair the RIPE Address Policy Working Group should be aware of the responsibilities and work this involves. A generic description of the responsibilities of a RIPE working group chair can be found in RIPE-542 (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-542). Address policy working group chairs are also expected to coordinate with the RIPE NCC Registration Services department on issues and/or questions arising in the either the working group or the RIPE NCC regarding address policy.
As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on this procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at the next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London.
Sincerely, Gert & Sander
Well, I think this is a good start to address the problem of not having clear rule about how and when to select new chairs. While the proposal in itself looks OK, I wonder about "each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs." Does that mean that each WG will have rules, but they will have their own rules? Just a thought that "what if we could decide on common rules for every WG"? Cheers, Daniel Stolpe _________________________________________________________________________________ Daniel Stolpe Tel: 08 - 688 11 81 stolpe@resilans.se Resilans AB Fax: 08 - 55 00 21 63 http://www.resilans.se/ Box 45 094 556741-1193 104 30 Stockholm
Hi, On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 09:46:21AM +0200, Daniel Stolpe wrote:
Well, I think this is a good start to address the problem of not having clear rule about how and when to select new chairs. While the proposal in itself looks OK, I wonder about
"each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs."
Does that mean that each WG will have rules, but they will have their own rules?
Yes.
Just a thought that "what if we could decide on common rules for every WG"?
We (as the WG chair collective) tried to agree on something, and couldn't. While some parts of the duties are really similar, others are different, and the individual communities of each WG are different enough that we decided to go for similar basics, like "the WG selects their chair" and "in regular intervals, chairs get re-affirmed", and leave the small print to each WG. Like, for example, the former EIX WG actually needed to have WG chair elections since it seemed to be way cool to run for EIX WG chair (they had like 5 candidates), while IPv6 and AP used to have "one chair, and no volunteers to share the work" - so no need to specify a detailed voting procedure there if you can be happy to have a single candidate. Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
Hi all, I think there should be common rules for all WG and specific rules to each WG who needs it. Some WG could be OK with the common rules while another WG could need specific ones due to their work. Regards, -- Daniel Baeza Centro de Observación de Red Dpto. Red y Sistemas Television Costa Blanca S.L. Telf. 966.190.847 | Fax. 965.074.390 http://www.tvt.es | http://www.tvt-datos.es Correo: d.baeza@tvt-datos.es -- [Atención] La información contenida en este e-mail es confidencial, privilegiada y está dirigida exclusivamente a su destinatario. Cualquier revisión, difusión, distribución o copiado de este mensaje sin autorización del propietario está prohibido. Si ha recibido este e-mail por error por favor bórrelo y envíe un mensaje al remitente. [Disclaimer] The information contained in this e-mail is privileged and confidential and is intended only for its addressee. Any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is prohibited. If you have received it in error please delete the original message and e-mail us. (!) El medio ambiente es responsabilidad de todos. Imprime este mail si es absolutamente necesario.
Hi Daniel,
I think there should be common rules for all WG and specific rules to each WG who needs it. Some WG could be OK with the common rules while another WG could need specific ones due to their work.
We tried to come up with common rules and couldn't find anything that worked for all working groups. Therefore we decided to let each working group make their own rules. Remember that there is no central authority. In the end it are the participants in the working groups that decide how they want to work together. As chairs collective we just try to coordinate and do what's best for our working groups. (I hope this also answers Nick's question) Let's see how this goes and then we can look at unifying/merging/etc those rules after we have some real experience. Cheers, Sander
Hi Sander, El 16/09/2014 10:27, Sander Steffann escribió:
Hi Daniel,
I think there should be common rules for all WG and specific rules to each WG who needs it. Some WG could be OK with the common rules while another WG could need specific ones due to their work.
We tried to come up with common rules and couldn't find anything that worked for all working groups. Therefore we decided to let each working group make their own rules. Remember that there is no central authority. In the end it are the participants in the working groups that decide how they want to work together. As chairs collective we just try to coordinate and do what's best for our working groups. (I hope this also answers Nick's question) What I mean with common rules? P.E. For being WG Chair proposed you need some knowledge, being part of the WG for "X" time, know the processes in RIPE, you cant stand up just another one need to promote you....
Those examples can be valid for all WG since there is no specific questions about it. Then, for this WG, should be specific rules about IP Resources, policies, etc... Regards, -- Daniel Baeza Centro de Observación de Red Dpto. Red y Sistemas Television Costa Blanca S.L. Telf. 966.190.847 | Fax. 965.074.390 http://www.tvt.es | http://www.tvt-datos.es Correo: d.baeza@tvt-datos.es -- [Atención] La información contenida en este e-mail es confidencial, privilegiada y está dirigida exclusivamente a su destinatario. Cualquier revisión, difusión, distribución o copiado de este mensaje sin autorización del propietario está prohibido. Si ha recibido este e-mail por error por favor bórrelo y envíe un mensaje al remitente. [Disclaimer] The information contained in this e-mail is privileged and confidential and is intended only for its addressee. Any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is prohibited. If you have received it in error please delete the original message and e-mail us. (!) El medio ambiente es responsabilidad de todos. Imprime este mail si es absolutamente necesario.
On 16 Sep 2014, at 10:03, Daniel Baeza (Red y Sistemas TVT) <d.baeza@tvt-datos.es> wrote:
What I mean with common rules? P.E. For being WG Chair proposed you need some knowledge, being part of the WG for "X" time, know the processes in RIPE, you cant stand up just another one need to promote you....
Those examples can be valid for all WG since there is no specific questions about it.
Then, for this WG, should be specific rules about IP Resources, policies, etc...
Daniel, this sounds like a nice idea in theory. However it's just not that easy in practice. A "one size fits all" approach simply doesn't work, partly for the reason you hinted at. The requirements for a Chair of this WG are different from those from say NCC Services. Or DNS. Or... The WG Chairs Collective has struggled with this issue for a long time and couldn't find a solution. An ad-hoc panel looked at this as well. They couldn't find one either. That suggests there is no magic bullet here, but feel free to come up with one. So the upshot is each WG will decide for itself how it appoints/removes/rotates its Chairs. Just like how it decides its own charter. This is also consistent with RIPE's bottom-up, consensus-driven decision making. Each WG is or should be in charge of how it runs its business. BTW, I think it's unwise to put any barriers to becoming a WG Chair other than "having the support of the WG". Anyone who's able and willing to volunteer should not be excluded because they haven't been active the the WG for "long enough" or have a deep enough understanding of RIPE processes. YMMV. The WG will be more than capable of deciding who is the best (or least worst) choice of Chair. Trust them (ie ourselves) to do make that decision. I think it's also unwise to spend hours debating this meta-issue. This WG exists to make address policy, not to invent processes and procedures. IMO the WG should try the scheme that's been suggested. If it works, fine. We're done. If not, we revisit the issue once there's a clear idea of what (if anything) has gone wrong and how to fix or improve it. We are supposed to be engineers after all.
On 16/09/2014 10:28, Jim Reid wrote:
The WG Chairs Collective has struggled with this issue for a long time and couldn't find a solution. An ad-hoc panel looked at this as well. They couldn't find one either.
Interesting. Can you post the URL to the archives where we can read up about what happened? Nick
On 16 Sep 2014, at 11:03, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
Interesting. Can you post the URL to the archives where we can read up about what happened?
The WG Chairs Collective has just begun to publish the minutes of its meetings -- long story. The fag-end of their discussion can be found at: https://www.ripe.net/ripe/groups/wg/cc/summaries I don't know if the ad-hoc group got around to publishing its deliberations.
On 16/09/2014 11:36, Jim Reid wrote:
On 16 Sep 2014, at 11:03, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
Interesting. Can you post the URL to the archives where we can read up about what happened?
The WG Chairs Collective has just begun to publish the minutes of its meetings -- long story. The fag-end of their discussion can be found at:
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/groups/wg/cc/summaries
I don't know if the ad-hoc group got around to publishing its deliberations.
The ad-hoc group - of which I was a member - fine tuned some existing proposals for handling WG Chair rotation. The problem set that we wanted to handle was: - no automatic resignation for WG chairs, which has led to some WG chairs sitting in their positions for upwards of 15 years. This is fundamentally incompatible with good governance. - no standardised procedure for selecting new WG chairs - no standardised procedure for removing new WG chairs (which has happened before on an ad-hoc basis) - not having to deal with 20 different WG chair selection procedures for the ~20 different working groups (both active and inactive). - ensuring that each working group has a selection procedure. - some other odds and ends (e.g. WGs with no chair, etc) A brief note was made of this in the ripe-67 WG Chairs minutes: -- - The task-force should look at the final documents, give it some editing as needed, and have the RIPE Chair publish it on the ripe-list with an explanation and a deadline of one month. -- The next note on this issue appeared in the ripe-68 WG chair minutes: -- - The Collective agreed to work with their respective WGs to establish a procedure for replacing WG Chairs. - The minimum requirements are that each WG should have its own procedures, that these should be written down, that this should be done by the next RIPE Meeting and executed at the end of that meeting. -- I'd like to see the ad-hoc group proposals published and the mail archives of the WG Chairs opened up, so that the RIPE community can make an informed decision about whether this is best approach for handling WG Chair rotation. It is not appropriate to expect the RIPE community to be satisfied with what you correctly refer to as fag-ends of a discussion. This is an issue which goes beyond the remit of AP-WG. It would be more appropriate to discuss it on ripe-list@ripe.net. Nick
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 1:15 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
- no standardised procedure for removing new WG chairs (which has happened before on an ad-hoc basis)
s/new/existing/ ? Richard
On 16/09/2014 13:23, Richard Hartmann wrote:
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 1:15 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
- no standardised procedure for removing new WG chairs (which has happened before on an ad-hoc basis)
s/new/existing/ ?
er, yes. Nick
On 16 Sep 2014, at 12:15, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
I'd like to see the ad-hoc group proposals published and the mail archives of the WG Chairs opened up, so that the RIPE community can make an informed decision about whether this is best approach for handling WG Chair rotation.
As far as I remember, most of this discussion took place in physical meetings rather than on the WG Chairs mailing list. Notes of these meetings were taken I think but it is only recently that the Chairs were able to reach consensus on how these would be published: some wanted verbatim transcripts, others felt regular minutes would do. Although I would be happy to have these minutes and mail archives published, it may be difficult to do so retrospectively given that some of the then WG Chairs and WGs are not around any more. Untangling that could be more bother than it's worth.
It is not appropriate to expect the RIPE community to be satisfied with what you correctly refer to as fag-ends of a discussion.
Maybe. However we are where we are and I am not sure there's much point raking over ancient history. High-level overview: the WG Chairs Collective could not reach consensus after flogging this issue to death for years. Everyone agreed a transparent appointment mechanism was necessary. They just couldn't agree what it was or if it should be the same for every WG. An ad-hoc group was formed to try and break that deadlock. It didn't. So each WG was asked to come up with its own process and have that ready for RIPE69. Gert and Sander have started that for this WG. And nudged me to get things under way in DNS. In my view the thing now is to look forwards rather than backwards. The outcome of those earlier discussions addresses the basic problem. There will soon be clear and transparent mechanisms for each WG to select its Chairs. I doubt it matters much how we got to that destination or why it took so long. The point is we're there. At last!
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:23 PM, Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> wrote:
In my view the thing now is to look forwards rather than backwards. The outcome of those earlier discussions addresses the basic problem. There will soon be clear and transparent mechanisms for each WG to select its Chairs. I doubt it matters much how we got to that destination or why it took so long. The point is we're there. At last!
Looking forward, it seems obvious to me that some work should be done to ensure a reasonable standardization of these mechanisms, so that e.g. if I were to take part in another WG, I'd instantly know how these procedures worked. It's difficult enough to be a fresh WG participant without having to expend extra time on reading and understanding different procedures. And I suppose this is your fear, that having too detailed procedures could be demotivating to WG participants. It would be less potentially demotivating with a concise, common procedure set. I'm not saying that it is demotivating, and I still think that the general idea of how to handle governance is sufficiently sound to proceed with. -- Jan
I'd like to see the ad-hoc group proposals published The proposal from the task force has now been published togehter with
On 16.09.14 20:15, Nick Hilliard wrote: the minutes from the wg-chairs meetings at: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/groups/wg/cc/summaries -- Hans Petter Holen RIPE Chair | Mobile +47 45 06 60 54 | hph@oslo.net | http://hph.oslo.net
On 16/09/2014 10:28, Jim Reid wrote:
Daniel, this sounds like a nice idea in theory. However it's just not that easy in practice. A "one size fits all" approach simply doesn't work, partly for the reason you hinted at. The requirements for a Chair of this WG are different from those from say NCC Services. Or DNS. Or...
Jim, this is nonsense. The candidates will be different but there is no good reason not to have the same or a similar selection process.
The WG Chairs Collective has struggled with this issue for a long time and couldn't find a solution. An ad-hoc panel looked at this as well. They couldn't find one either.
This is plain wrong at a variety of levels. Firstly, you're voicing an implicit assumption that the WG chairs are responsible for deciding the baseline scope of this policy. In fact, this is a matter of general RIPE community policy and the opinion of the WG Chairs matters only insofar as they are also members of the RIPE community. The place to discuss this is not the WG lists, but ripe-list and at the plenary. If the RIPE community comes to some form of consensus that this should be devolved to the WGs, only then should this happen. Otherwise, this is subject to general RIPE community policy. Secondly, despite what you have claimed multiple times during this discussion, the ad-hoc panel came up with a reasonable and consistent set of proposals. The WG chairs - not the wider RIPE Community - then rejected this because a number of them felt that:
[...] Each WG is or should be in charge of how it runs its business.
In other words, a small number of the WG chairs decided to push this down to their own working groups, without reference to the wider RIPE community and without reference to the PDP. The RIPE Community has a policy development process for deciding matters of community policy. Once again, it is being ignored because of top-down decisions which were made in private without reference to the wider RIPE community. This is not ok. Nick
Hi, On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 12:14:41PM +0100, Nick Hilliard wrote:
Firstly, you're voicing an implicit assumption that the WG chairs are responsible for deciding the baseline scope of this policy. In fact, this is a matter of general RIPE community policy and the opinion of the WG Chairs matters only insofar as they are also members of the RIPE community.
The place to discuss this is not the WG lists, but ripe-list and at the plenary. If the RIPE community comes to some form of consensus that this should be devolved to the WGs, only then should this happen. Otherwise, this is subject to general RIPE community policy.
Actually, I strongly disagree with you here - how a working group runs its show, whether it wants 1 or 5 WG chairs, and whether it wants voting or not is a local matter for this WG's members. Not all WGs are equal, and having "the RIPE community" decide about matters that are a local decision of each WG is effectly exactly what you despise: a top-down decision, someone else deciding for the members of that particular WG. Experience shows that the different WGs really are quite different regarding WG chair (s)election, number of available candidates, and of course, effective job description for the WG chairs in question - APWG is very different from DNS, which is very different from EIX, etc. But I'm sure you know that :-) If you're annoyed that "the small and secret" WG chairs collective has decided to give every WG the freedom to decide for themselves how they want to handle this, you could just ignore the discussions that were done before that - we always had the freedom to handle WG chair decisions the way each individual WG wanted to do it, so deciding to *not* go for a central procedure for all is actually a *non*-change. The new thing is "hey, WG chairs, please come to a formal description how your WG will do this in the future, and write it down" - and you can't claim that this is a bad thing. Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
On 20 Sep 2014, at 12:14, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
On 16/09/2014 10:28, Jim Reid wrote:
Daniel, this sounds like a nice idea in theory. However it's just not that easy in practice. A "one size fits all" approach simply doesn't work, partly for the reason you hinted at. The requirements for a Chair of this WG are different from those from say NCC Services. Or DNS. Or...
Jim, this is nonsense. The candidates will be different but there is no good reason not to have the same or a similar selection process.
It is not nonsense Nick and there are plenty of good reasons why "the same or a similar selection process" is not possible. One of them was in my previous mail. Another was neither the WG Chairs Collective nor the Gang of Four could come up with an over-arching mechanism that got consensus. The best that could be agreed was each WG should choose and document its own open, transparent process. There was consensus on that. If those who were most motivated to fix this issue couldn't find a one-stop solution and reach consensus on it, I fail to see how anyone else could. Feel free to prove me wrong. Yet another reason is the principle that Gert explained, namely RIPE uses bottom-up governance and policy making, not top-down. Each WG must remain free to decide for itself what works best for that WG. The members of that WG know what's best for that WG and must always be trusted to make that decision for themselves. I hope this key principle remains non-negotiable.
Firstly, you're voicing an implicit assumption that the WG chairs are responsible for deciding the baseline scope of this policy.
IMO this is not a policy matter. I expect we have to agree to disagree about that Nick. WG Chairs are responsible for the running of their WGs. Their responsibilities are defined in RIPE542. AFAICT that document did not go through the PDP. Nobody's suggested it should. Yet. It also says nothing about WG Chair selection. Yet. There are plenty of other things that happen in RIPE which do not require formal policies: eg the creation and killing of WGs and Task Forces. IMO, these are a virtue of RIPE, not a "problem" that must be solved by reaching for the PDP and inventing process and procedures. YMMV. If you wish to put a proposal for a single process here Nick, you are welcome to submit it and have it work its way through the PDP. I doubt this would get consensus (see above) or even get through the PDP any time soon. Meanwhile, we have the far more unacceptable position that few, if any, WGs have an open, transparent and documented process for appointing WG Chairs. That's the immediate concern and we must focus on that more than any other aspect of this issue. Steps have been taken to address this breakage and it should get sorted out by the end of this year. Let's get that done first and see how it works out. Maybe the WGs will converge on a common mechanism, maybe they won't. If there is convergence, that should be the stage for an existential discussion about whether the converged mechanism merits a formal proposal and an invocation of the PDP. I think we don't need to do that now and it would be most unwelcome to do that or even contemplate doing that. IMO there is no reason to formulate policy in this area, let alone a policy which has to apply to every WG about how it appoints/rotates/removes its Chair(s). What really matters here is each WG decides for itself how that should be done and that the process chosen is open, transparent and properly documented. It simply doesn't matter how we've arrived at the point where we have consensus on introducing some badly overdue transparency and community accountability. The fact is is we've arrived at that point. Going back to the start and rehashing those earlier discussions all over again seems an exercise in futility because it will almost certainly end up at the same point that's already been reached.
The RIPE Community has a policy development process for deciding matters of community policy. Once again, it is being ignored because of top-down decisions which were made in private without reference to the wider RIPE community.
This is utterly false. No top-down decisions have been made. A consensus has been reached and that *is* being discussed with the RIPE community, albeit on a WG-by-WG basis. This should be how things get done in RIPE. Each WG will get to decide for itself how it selects/changes its Chair(s). That is the epitome of bottom-up decision-making. That selection (of both the procedure to use and the appointment/rotation/removal of future WG Chairs) will also be done in an open, transparent manner. Those are the fundamental principles which underpin everything we do at RIPE. It would be more than unfortunate if this is abandoned. If a WG is minded to look for a one-stop solution which can then be applied to every WG, it is of course free to do that. That quest is unlikely to succeed however for the reasons I've outlined. Finally, let me just +1 what Gert just said in reply to you.
On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 1:14 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@inex.ie> wrote:
On 16/09/2014 10:28, Jim Reid wrote: <snip>
[...] Each WG is or should be in charge of how it runs its business.
In other words, a small number of the WG chairs decided to push this down to their own working groups, without reference to the wider RIPE community and without reference to the PDP.
The RIPE Community has a policy development process for deciding matters of community policy. Once again, it is being ignored because of top-down decisions which were made in private without reference to the wider RIPE community.
This is not ok.
IF, I only say if, this is the case then this is very wrong, and the chair collective should know their place and rethink if it is right to push it down to each WG. However, a question : did this ad-hoc panel have community backing, or was it some sort of internal WG-chairs working group? I can't remember to see it anywhere on any list but I would have overlooked it. But, if this ad-hoc panel had community backing and WG-chairs collective chose to go their own way.... -- Roger Jorgensen | ROJO9-RIPE rogerj@gmail.com | - IPv6 is The Key! http://www.jorgensen.no | roger@jorgensen.no
Hi, On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 10:27:46AM +0200, Roger Jørgensen wrote:
However, a question : did this ad-hoc panel have community backing, or was it some sort of internal WG-chairs working group? I can't remember to see it anywhere on any list but I would have overlooked it.
If I recall it right, the panel was set up by the WG chairs collective to come up with a workable procedure because the collective in total couldn't agree on anything. There was no mandate from the community (but members of the community took part in the panel, not only WG chairs), plus, the expected outcome of the panel was a new *proposed* text, not a final decision that the WG chairs had to take as is. So, yeah, it's kind of stupid to give the task to a group dedicated to come up with something well-considered, and then decide to ignore the result - apologies for the time wasted on that. But it's by no means "ignoring the mandate of the wider RIPE community". Gert -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 11:24 AM, Gert Doering <gert@space.net> wrote:
Hi,
On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 10:27:46AM +0200, Roger Jørgensen wrote:
However, a question : did this ad-hoc panel have community backing, or was it some sort of internal WG-chairs working group? I can't remember to see it anywhere on any list but I would have overlooked it.
If I recall it right, the panel was set up by the WG chairs collective to come up with a workable procedure because the collective in total couldn't agree on anything.
There was no mandate from the community (but members of the community took part in the panel, not only WG chairs), plus, the expected outcome of the panel was a new *proposed* text, not a final decision that the WG chairs had to take as is.
So, yeah, it's kind of stupid to give the task to a group dedicated to come up with something well-considered, and then decide to ignore the result - apologies for the time wasted on that. But it's by no means "ignoring the mandate of the wider RIPE community".
From what I've seen so far it seems like all are doing more or less
So that ad-hoc group didn't have clear community "backing" or mandate, just from the WG chairs collective. Then the WG chairs collective are free to ignore it or accept whatever they came up with. Seems like a clear cut case there really. ... that you (wg chair collective) asked someone to do a work for you (wg chair collective) and then ignore it, probably not a wise move? That still leave the issue if it's a good idea for each WG to have their own procedures of selecting chairs, or if there should be one common for all. Guess that's for the entire community and not this working group to discuss ? the same thing, a slight change of wording here and there but no major difference. -- Roger Jorgensen | ROJO9-RIPE rogerj@gmail.com | - IPv6 is The Key! http://www.jorgensen.no | roger@jorgensen.no
On 21 Sep 2014, at 10:48, Roger Jørgensen <rogerj@gmail.com> wrote:
That still leave the issue if it's a good idea for each WG to have their own procedures of selecting chairs, or if there should be one common for all. Guess that's for the entire community and not this working group to discuss ?
Sure, if you like car-herding. I think the priority MUST be to have clearly documented open and transparent procedures for appointing, removing and rotating WG chairs. That's just around the corner. It would be desperately embarrassing if this opportunity was discarded while the community has an angels on pinhead debate about how to decide the procedure for deciding the selection of WG chairs. That debate will run for a long time and almost certainly bring us back to where we are today. This seems silly. Let's fix the immediate accountability vacuum because that's the key issue. Or should be. IMO the focus should be on outcomes, not procedures. A discussion on how to decide the procedure for deciding a selection mechanism is the sort of pointless make-work that belongs in the hot air factories of ICANN and ITU. It will be a desparate shame if RIPE chooses to go down that path.
On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> wrote:
On 21 Sep 2014, at 10:48, Roger Jørgensen <rogerj@gmail.com> wrote:
That still leave the issue if it's a good idea for each WG to have their own procedures of selecting chairs, or if there should be one common for all. Guess that's for the entire community and not this working group to discuss ?
Sure, if you like car-herding.
I think the priority MUST be to have clearly documented open and transparent procedures for appointing, removing and rotating WG chairs. That's just around the corner. It would be desperately embarrassing if this opportunity was discarded while the community has an angels on pinhead debate about how to decide the procedure for deciding the selection of WG chairs. That debate will run for a long time and almost certainly bring us back to where we are today. This seems silly. Let's fix the immediate accountability vacuum because that's the key issue. Or should be.
IMO the focus should be on outcomes, not procedures. A discussion on how to decide the procedure for deciding a selection mechanism is the sort of pointless make-work that belongs in the hot air factories of ICANN and ITU. It will be a desparate shame if RIPE chooses to go down that path.
Guess I should have said something about that in my last email. The current work with getting some procedures in place should not stop waiting for some other unknown discussion. Neither my above question or Nick's concern should influence that work ongoing in this working group. Right now I'm just waiting for an update proposal that address my concern about people not being on site, and maybe some of the other concern raised :) -- Roger Jorgensen | ROJO9-RIPE rogerj@gmail.com | - IPv6 is The Key! http://www.jorgensen.no | roger@jorgensen.no
Hi, On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 11:48:15AM +0200, Roger Jørgensen wrote:
That still leave the issue if it's a good idea for each WG to have their own procedures of selecting chairs, or if there should be one common for all. Guess that's for the entire community and not this working group to discuss ?
Given the history of this, I'd really like to postpone *that* question until we have some tangible results of what all the WGs individually agreed to. If it turns out that the effective differences are just wording details, we can go for a round of word-smithing these variants into one generic version - and if it turns out that people really want fundamentally different policies (like "fixed upper limit to the number of terms a given chair can service" vs. "as long as the WG is happy with him"), we'll see - maybe other WGs want to learn and adopt, maybe we just accept the fact that the WGs and the WGs' constituencys are just different. Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
On Sun, 21 Sep 2014, Gert Doering wrote:
Hi,
On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 11:48:15AM +0200, Roger Jørgensen wrote:
That still leave the issue if it's a good idea for each WG to have their own procedures of selecting chairs, or if there should be one common for all. Guess that's for the entire community and not this working group to discuss ?
Given the history of this, I'd really like to postpone *that* question until we have some tangible results of what all the WGs individually agreed to. If it turns out that the effective differences are just wording details, we can go for a round of word-smithing these variants into one generic version - and if it turns out that people really want fundamentally different policies (like "fixed upper limit to the number of terms a given chair can service" vs. "as long as the WG is happy with him"), we'll see - maybe other WGs want to learn and adopt, maybe we just accept the fact that the WGs and the WGs' constituencys are just different.
I agree. Let evry WG solve the immediate problem (lack of procedure and transparency) for now and then we can have the other discussion in due time. Cheers, Daniel _________________________________________________________________________________ Daniel Stolpe Tel: 08 - 688 11 81 stolpe@resilans.se Resilans AB Fax: 08 - 55 00 21 63 http://www.resilans.se/ Box 45 094 556741-1193 104 30 Stockholm
On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 12:14:41PM +0100, Nick Hilliard wrote:
[...] The candidates will be different but there is no good reason not to have the same or a similar selection process.
if the RIPE community was a collective of otherwise independent or sovereign working groups, there might be such a reason, but that's not the case. Also, the WG chairs do have multiple roles: 1) "run" the WG meetings 2) process a PDP proposal through the PDP in their respective WG 3) participate in the "WG chairs collective" (*) 4) participate in "other" meetings This is mostly covered in RIPE 542 (which, although titled "Working Group Chair Job Description and Procedures", also covers part of the WG life cycle). The PDP was layed out in RIPE-500 at the time of publication of RIPE-542 but has been recently updated (RIPE-614), therefore the duties under (3) above have significantly changed. In any case, the WG chairs have a role in the PDP, so for good governance, their taking (and leaving) "office" should be in line with the PDP.
Firstly, you're voicing an implicit assumption that the WG chairs are responsible for deciding the baseline scope of this policy. In fact, this is a matter of general RIPE community policy and the opinion of the WG Chairs matters only insofar as they are also members of the RIPE community.
Well said, but from that it could be equally deduced that the group was free in their choice of accepting the work and eventually not move the result through the PDP.
The place to discuss this is not the WG lists, but ripe-list and at the plenary. If the RIPE community comes to some form of consensus that this should be devolved to the WGs, only then should this happen. Otherwise, this is subject to general RIPE community policy.
I do agree, but so far neither of us two nor anybody else has spoken up on that list?
The RIPE Community has a policy development process for deciding matters of community policy. Once again, it is being ignored because of top-down decisions which were made in private without reference to the wider RIPE community.
We're bootsptrapping. The proposed approach is better than what we have today, albeit far from ideal. If the community cares enough, we'll hopefully find someone who takes the draft (meanwhile having been posted at least to the anti-abuse-wg list) through the PDP. Honestly, though, as much as I prefer the 'design team' output over what has been started now, I believe the PDP has more important and serious issues than whether all WGs eventually arrive at the same process for WG chair inauguration. -Peter
On 5 Oct 2014, at 21:14, Peter Koch <pk@DENIC.DE> wrote:
In any case, the WG chairs have a role in the PDP, so for good governance, their taking (and leaving) "office" should be in line with the PDP.
IMO these are two very different things and they should not be conflated with each other. Please explain why these should be combined. For bonus points, please show how and why appointment of WG chairs have to be in line with the PDP. AFAICT there is no document or consensus decision which supports this position. You've made this claim a few times but as yet you've not presented a justification for that PoV. I also think it's unwise to attempt to retrospectively force everything at RIPE to be derived from the foundations of a somewhat flawed PDP. Further discussion of this topic does not belong in the AP list.
Hello Sander and Gert, I am very happy to see this announcement. I think this brings transparency to the RIPE community's WG Chair selection process. Thanks for taking the first steps for AP WG. I am curious about the selection methodology: How do you see using "consensus" for this selection process at the RIPE meeting session? Through show of hands, humming, silence? My thinking is that "consensus" is great for discussing ideas and via fine tuning processes around them, making them "livible with" for a community. However selecting an individual for a job is more about that person's fit for the job. Some may feel awkward about discussing/agreeing/disagreeing with someone's fitness as such in public. Can you explain your thoughts in this context and the reason for your choice of consensus over any other selection process which could be anonymous for those doing the selection? Cheers Filiz Sent from my iPhone
On 15 Sep 2014, at 19:22, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hello working group,
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following:
The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair. This will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to volunteers for the chair position, including the chair who offered to stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group.
Those who volunteer to chair the RIPE Address Policy Working Group should be aware of the responsibilities and work this involves. A generic description of the responsibilities of a RIPE working group chair can be found in RIPE-542 (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-542). Address policy working group chairs are also expected to coordinate with the RIPE NCC Registration Services department on issues and/or questions arising in the either the working group or the RIPE NCC regarding address policy.
As working group chairs are usually determined by consensus during the working group session at a RIPE meeting we will also determine consensus on this procedure there. Therefore please provide your feedback before or at the next RIPE meeting: RIPE 69 in London.
Sincerely, Gert & Sander
Hi, On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 10:57:08AM +0200, Filiz Yilmaz wrote:
Can you explain your thoughts in this context and the reason for your choice of consensus over any other selection process which could be anonymous for those doing the selection?
Well, the assumption is that we're not going to have an in-rush of volunteers, so in many cases it will be "one of the existing chairs is asking for re-affirmation and the WG is happy" or "one of the existing chairs is stepping down, and the WG is fine with the single volunteer for replacement". We do not want to spend large amounts of precious WG time on voting with paper ballots, counting, etc. - which could easily take half an hour or more. So, we go for "the participants agree on a candidate, in whatever form this will be expressed (humming, show of hands, withdrawal of the other candidates, ...)", and if that turns out to be non-working, we'll have to come up with a formal tie breaking mechanism by the next meeting. (This actually was one of the reasons why the WG chair collective could not agree on a common policy. Half of us wanted something lightweight and not time consuming, while the other half wanted "something more formal"). Gert Doering -- APWG chair -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Gert Doering <gert@space.net> wrote:
Well, the assumption is that we're not going to have an in-rush of volunteers, so in many cases it will be "one of the existing chairs is asking for re-affirmation and the WG is happy" or "one of the existing chairs is stepping down, and the WG is fine with the single volunteer for replacement".
We do not want to spend large amounts of precious WG time on voting with paper ballots, counting, etc. - which could easily take half an hour or more.
This is entirely reasonable.
So, we go for "the participants agree on a candidate, in whatever form this will be expressed (humming, show of hands, withdrawal of the other candidates, ...)", and if that turns out to be non-working, we'll have to come up with a formal tie breaking mechanism by the next meeting.
(This actually was one of the reasons why the WG chair collective could not agree on a common policy. Half of us wanted something lightweight and not time consuming, while the other half wanted "something more formal").
It's a bit puzzling, though, that there couldn't be a multi-tiered process, e.g.: 1. If there is only one candidate, and no controversy, take the model you're proposing. 2. If there are two candidates, hold an election with ballots and whatnot. 3. If there are three or more candidates, go Condorcet all the way, baby! -- Jan
Hi, On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:11:32AM +0200, Jan Ingvoldstad wrote:
It's a bit puzzling, though, that there couldn't be a multi-tiered process, e.g.:
1. If there is only one candidate, and no controversy, take the model you're proposing.
2. If there are two candidates, hold an election with ballots and whatnot.
3. If there are three or more candidates, go Condorcet all the way, baby!
There could, but we've decided to start easy and see whether we need the "full complication with well-defined specifics and such" at all. This is not set in stone, but something we as a group(!) define and refine as need arises. Gert -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
General support, but a few points which are not covered by the current text: * Can you have three chairs? * For how long can you have one chair if the other is hit by a bus? * How are new chairs bootstrapped in case both are hit by a bus? * Do chairs alternate in offering to step down? ** What if one chair is controversial and thus the other always is up for re-election? ** What if neither chair wants to step down? I tried to fix that (without reformatting to make diff'ing easier): The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two -Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will -offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair. This will be +Chairpersons whenever possible with two being the maximum. Once per year one of the chairs will +be open for re-election in alternating order. +In case both chairs become vacant at the same time, the RIPE NCC should appoint two temporary Chairpersons. +Open chairs and re-elections will be filled at the earliest oppurtunity. Both normal and extraordinary re-elections will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least -two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to -volunteers for the chair position, including the chair who offered to -stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group +two weeks before the start of the relevant RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to +volunteers for the chair position, including the Chairperson up for re-election. +At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of Or, even better and graphical and whatnot: https://github.com/RichiH/RIPE/commit/5bdc479ec0eb76a3ebc84795b48596cbe50e77... As an aside, Concordet voting is most likely the fairest approach to all. In this case, bootstrapping would need to be defined, though. I.e. do the first two win, do they stand as pairs, or would there be two rounds. RIchard PS: Yes, this is Git and a unified diff. Even IETF has started adopting Git for their WGs. We should, too.
Hi, On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:44:42AM +0200, Richard Hartmann wrote:
General support, but a few points which are not covered by the current text:
* Can you have three chairs?
Yes. We had in the past, but do not need three right now. Need may arise, if the workload goes up again (but this is arguably unlikely).
* For how long can you have one chair if the other is hit by a bus?
Well, "until the next meeting".
* How are new chairs bootstrapped in case both are hit by a bus?
The *RIPE* chair would appoint someone. Note that we can not have the *NCC* appoint APWG chairs, as that would make the NCC take part in AP policy making, which it does not do.
* Do chairs alternate in offering to step down?
That was the idea. I thought it was clear from the document, but maybe it wasn't carried over from the discussion.
** What if one chair is controversial and thus the other always is up for re-election? ** What if neither chair wants to step down?
This is both not an option. Chairs take turns in offering to step down, which is the whole point.
I tried to fix that (without reformatting to make diff'ing easier):
You're trying to overengineer :-) We might want to add a few words about "if there are any unforeseen circumstances, the RIPE chair will find a suitable interim WG chair", and clarify the alternating step-down. Besides that, I do not think we should be too specific about things. Gert Doering -- NetMaster -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:56 AM, Gert Doering <gert@space.net> wrote:
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:44:42AM +0200, Richard Hartmann wrote:
* Can you have three chairs?
Yes. We had in the past, but do not need three right now. Need may arise, if the workload goes up again (but this is arguably unlikely).
Didn't know that; trivial to amend. As written the policy could be interpreted to retain three chairs if no one wants to step down, though.
* For how long can you have one chair if the other is hit by a bus?
Well, "until the next meeting".
This is not specified in the Sander's and your text.
* How are new chairs bootstrapped in case both are hit by a bus?
The *RIPE* chair would appoint someone.
This is not specified in the Sander's and your text.
Note that we can not have the *NCC* appoint APWG chairs, as that would make the NCC take part in AP policy making, which it does not do.
Good point; agreed.
* Do chairs alternate in offering to step down?
That was the idea. I thought it was clear from the document, but maybe it wasn't carried over from the discussion.
It's not specified, no.
** What if one chair is controversial and thus the other always is up for re-election? ** What if neither chair wants to step down?
This is both not an option. Chairs take turns in offering to step down, which is the whole point.
Again, that's not specified.
I tried to fix that (without reformatting to make diff'ing easier):
You're trying to overengineer :-)
We might want to add a few words about "if there are any unforeseen circumstances, the RIPE chair will find a suitable interim WG chair", and clarify the alternating step-down. Besides that, I do not think we should be too specific about things.
I don't agree; as per definition, laws, contracts, regulations and the like must offer clear guidance in case of disagreements. I'd rather have something too specific while people agree than something too unspecific when people disagree. Richard
Hi Richard,
This is not specified in the Sander's and your text.
Indeed, and that is intentional. We are a loose group of people who need some people to volunteer to coordinate things. This is not a bureaucracy, anybody can participate and I think that trying to make very formal rules about how to run such a loose group will cause more trouble than it solves. We have always worked together with as few rules as possible. Going all the way to the opposite where we make very strict rules is a huge leap. Let's take smaller steps and see how it works for us. Cheers, Sander
Hi Sander, as I told Gert on IRC, I don't think my version is overly strict, it's just clearer in a few regards. If consensus is against those changes, I won't stand in the way and as I said initially, I do support the proposal. Yet, my personal opinion on if the currently proposed text is a bit too loosely defined is unlikely to change. Richard
Hi Richard,
as I told Gert on IRC, I don't think my version is overly strict, it's just clearer in a few regards. If consensus is against those changes, I won't stand in the way and as I said initially, I do support the proposal.
Yet, my personal opinion on if the currently proposed text is a bit too loosely defined is unlikely to change.
Ok, thanks for your feedback! I'll take another look at your proposed text. Thanks! Sander
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Ok, thanks for your feedback! I'll take another look at your proposed text.
JFTR, I am not married to the actual text; I'd just like to see the points addressed. But even without that, I generally support this proposal. Even more so if the WGs could agree to a common procedure ;) Richard
Hi Sander & Gert, First I would like to say that I like the idea of rotating chairs once in a while (even if it is going to be an extension of the term on paper ) .. And the proposed way might be a good start to look at it. Voting for WP-Chairs might not be the easiest to have them included in the current (electronic) voting system, as only members have access as far as I know to it to vote. However voting in the room (show of hands / paper), might actually not represent the community well enough. Having said this, I am always wondering how to and if I need to include our voting block in favor of certain decisions that are up for voting ... voting might be too restrictive on both options. As Filiz stated, discussing a persons reason at the microphone, why one thinks he or she might not be the best candidate for a position ... might not the be a fun thing to do.. However .. If you can't stand the heat .. stay out of the kitchen .. A discussion on one's personal flaws or having to answer his/her motivation on stage is probably the easiest discussion you might have to do as a WG Chair .. especially if a topic is getting a heated discussion ... I think that there could be a nice role for the NCC Chair on declaring consensus about a certain candidate .. based on the discussion and overall opinion / support shown at the microphone in the room. Overall, +1 for the effort on making this transparent and putting this into the community.. And +1 on the proposal. Regards, Erik Bais
Hello, Erik, not direct response to you, but your response triggered more thought, so responding on yours: On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:38 PM, Erik Bais <ebais@a2b-internet.com> wrote:
Hi Sander & Gert,
<cut>
As Filiz stated, discussing a persons reason at the microphone, why one thinks he or she might not be the best candidate for a position ... might not the be a fun thing to do.. However ..
If you can't stand the heat .. stay out of the kitchen ..
Actually my point was not about the candidate and the heat they may feel. It was for those who will be doing the selection. People know each other. It can get very awkward for those who are to raise their hands or not for a certain candidate while the candidate is watching the whole scene and the process openly. And this has the potential to have an impact on the outcome of course. And clearly this is of course more of an issue when the number of positions are less than the number of candidates. I do not know with how many chairs the AP WG wants to continue and how many candidates we will have on the day of the session during RIPE 69. This is not new in RIPE history by the way. RIPE PC selected members by show of hands in the room in the past. After that we turned it into anonymous electronic voting for similar concerns. But we often have more candidates than the number of available seats. I happen to think anonymous voting system helps getting more candidates stand up for a position and making it easier to choose one for everyone else too in general. It encourages new candidates to show interest in positions and facilitates participation to the selection process too, because no one find themselves to explain or to hear why or why not they voted for some colleague/friend/total stranger in any means. This is all about selecting a person. It is not to replace the consensus-building we deployed successfully when discussing proposals, ideas and concepts over the years. I think we as a community can differentiate the two very well. I see no need to over-engineer this part either. Filiz
On 16 Sep 2014, at 10:44, Richard Hartmann <richih.mailinglist@gmail.com> wrote:
Concordet voting is most likely the fairest approach to all.
Voting makes no sense in an open forum such as RIPE which has no membership and anyone can literally walk in off the street and vote.* Sorry. I'm OK with voting for members of the PC. That has no role in policy-making. RIPE works by consensus when it comes to policy matters. IMO it would be very unwise to abandon that. Voting for a WG chair would be the start of a slippery slope. Next, we'd be voting on policy proposals. Or voting on which proposals can get discussed in the WG. Pretty soon, the focus will be on process rather than policies. We'll end up turning into ICANN. Or even the ITU. * This was one of the issues the WG Chair Collective struggled with. Suppose a WG wanted to get rid of a WG Chair and he/she buses in enough "supporters" to win any vote.
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> wrote:
* This was one of the issues the WG Chair Collective struggled with. Suppose a WG wanted to get rid of a WG Chair and he/she buses in enough "supporters" to win any vote.
Is "you bussed in a lot of people" a valid argument again consensus? Or is it a sign that there's huge unrest in the community and things need to change? The point being that you can't _really_ guard against this either way if there's enough determination, and funding. Richard
On 16 Sep 2014, at 11:24, Richard Hartmann <richih.mailinglist@gmail.com> wrote:
Is "you bussed in a lot of people" a valid argument again consensus?
No. It's a valid argument against having votes in an open forum with no membership criteria. When we use consensus, it is fairly clear how to handle things if/when impostors try to interfere in WG decision-making. When the interlopers have votes... To repeat what I said before, consensus has served us well so far. There's no reason to stop using that approach. If this later turns out to be a mistake, we can deal with that once it's clear what has gone wrong and what would be the best way to fix it. What's been proposed is "good enough" -- perhaps with a little tweaking to deal with the nits that have been found. IMO I hope this WG can avoid inventing a lot of (unnecessary) complexity and process. The case for going down that path has yet to be established.
On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 12:47 PM, Jim Reid <jim@rfc1035.com> wrote:
To repeat what I said before, consensus has served us well so far. There's no reason to stop using that approach. If this later turns out to be a mistake, we can deal with that once it's clear what has gone wrong and what would be the best way to fix it. What's been proposed is "good enough" -- perhaps with a little tweaking to deal with the nits that have been found. IMO I hope this WG can avoid inventing a lot of (unnecessary) complexity and process. The case for going down that path has yet to be established
I agree completely. I think it's an important enough step forward that we're having this change, and as I understand it anyway, it's entirely up to us as the WG to decide if we want to change this yet again, even if we want a pony. (Nevermind that deciding that we want a pony won't necessarily _get_ us a pony.) -- Jan
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:22 PM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hello working group,
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following:
Hello and excellent suggestion, however one question from me <snip>
stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group.
So the mailinglist have nothing to say in who is going to be chair? Only people onsite in the room, or following it remote through any of the channels available? -- Roger Jorgensen | ROJO9-RIPE rogerj@gmail.com | - IPv6 is The Key! http://www.jorgensen.no | roger@jorgensen.no
Hi Roger,
<snip>
stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group.
So the mailinglist have nothing to say in who is going to be chair? Only people onsite in the room, or following it remote through any of the channels available?
We shouldn't exclude repot participants. I'll adjust the wording a bit for the next version of the text to make that clear. Thanks! Sander
On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 7:22 PM, Sander Steffann <sander@steffann.nl> wrote:
Hello working group,
The collective of RIPE working group chairpersons has decided that each RIPE working group should have some rules regarding the re-selection of the chairs. Gert and I have come up with the following:
The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair.
Question: doesn't 1 year cycle look too short? It's basically just two RIPE meetings and I believe that a new chair might need some time (at least one meeting) to get up to speed. As experienced WG chairs, could you tell us how the chair learning curve looks like? Besides that - LGTM. -- SY, Jen Linkova aka Furry
On 23 Sep 2014, at 16:41, Jen Linkova <furry13@gmail.com> wrote:
Question: doesn't 1 year cycle look too short?
IIUC, the intention is one chair position would be up for grabs once a year. ie Sander (say) or someone else would get appointed for N years this year, assuming this proposal is accepted by the WG. Next year Gert or someone else would get appointed for N years. N would/should be the number of WG Chairs/Co-chairs.
As experienced WG chairs, could you tell us how the chair learning curve looks like?
Depends on who's doing the learning I suppose. :-)
Hi, On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 05:41:04PM +0200, Jen Linkova wrote:
The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair.
Question: doesn't 1 year cycle look too short? It's basically just two RIPE meetings and I believe that a new chair might need some time (at least one meeting) to get up to speed.
Well, this is what Richard already commented on - it was clear to us that the chairs would be taking turns on this, so with 2 chairs, you'd serve for a 2-year-term, and so on. The next revision will be clearer here. Also, the assumption is that if a chair is happy with his job, and the WG is happy as well, this primarily serves to check that the WG is still fine, and it's not intended to forcibly change WG chair every time, just "if the situation makes it happen".
As experienced WG chairs, could you tell us how the chair learning curve looks like?
It really depends on the WG, I'd say. APWG is more policy-proposal oriented, that is, much more activity on the mailing lists and more coordination with the NCC than more "meeting oriented" WGs where most activity happens at the RIPE meeting... but neither is truly hard for someone who likes to organize stuff and work with people. Gert -- have you enabled IPv6 on something today...? SpaceNet AG Vorstand: Sebastian v. Bomhard Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 Aufsichtsratsvors.: A. Grundner-Culemann D-80807 Muenchen HRB: 136055 (AG Muenchen) Tel: +49 (0)89/32356-444 USt-IdNr.: DE813185279
Sander, On 15/09/2014 18:22, Sander Steffann wrote:
The RIPE Address Policy Working Group should attempt to maintain two Chairpersons whenever possible. Once per year one of the chairs will offer to stand down to allow new candidates to become chair.
You probably mean "one of the chairs will stand down...". Offering to stand down is very polite but probably not what you intend in this situation. Requiring a chair rotation event every very year is an unusual way to handle this. Most non-profit good governance guidelines suggest a term limit per candidate, normally 2-4 years, rather than handling this by mandating a ritual resignation every fixed period. It's more consistent and less easy to game this way.
This will be announced by sending an email to the working group mailing list at least two weeks before the start of a RIPE meeting. Anybody is allowed to volunteers for the chair position,
typo: "Anybody is allowed to volunteer", not "volunteers".
including the chair who offered to stand down. At the next RIPE meeting those present at the working group session will determine by consensus who will take the available chair position. If no consensus can be reached in the working group session then the current chairs will stay to ensure the continued stability of the working group.
Couple of comments here: - this is not a good idea because it opens up a hole in the wg chair selection process so that a sitting chair can remain sitting as long as they can engineer a small but noisy contingent of people prepared to create a ruckus every time there is an resignation/reselection process. Please bear in mind that defaulting to sitting chairs would normally be considered incompatible with good governance principles, and as a separate issue, there is now direct financial value in being able to swing APWG policy discussions one way or another by e.g. being a wg-chair. - this process disenfranchises people who are unable to attend meetings. This is a very difficult issue to address. At the very least it would help if the process included something that the candidate's name (or candidates' names) should be announced on the mailing list a short period before the reselection process. This will give remote participants more visibility and the ability to partake in the process. - there is no procedure for removing a WG chair. This may be especially relevant if the default process allows the chairperson to sit indefinitely in the case of dispute, rather than resign. Nick
participants (18)
-
Daniel Baeza (Red y Sistemas TVT) -
Daniel Stolpe -
Erik Bais -
Filiz Yilmaz -
Gert Doering -
Hannigan, Martin -
Hans Petter Holen -
Jan Ingvoldstad -
Jen Linkova -
Jim Reid -
Nick Hilliard -
Opteamax RIPE-Team -
Peter Koch -
Randy Bush -
Richard Hartmann -
Roger Jørgensen -
Sander Steffann -
Scott Leibrand