RIPE Community Plenary
RIPE 79
17 October 2019
4 p.m.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Welcome, everybody, to this very, very first RIPE Community Plenary.
So, we have an agenda. It's been published. I'll do a first introduction. Then the Chair of the NomCom, Daniel Karrenberg, will present the RIPE Chair selection process. Then the RIPE database tasks requirement Task Force will be presented by the co‑chair Shane, RIPE Code of Conduct, Brian Nisbet will present that and the next generation PDP, Pertrit had put together some interesting numbers for us. And of course the most important thing with the Community Plenary is that this is not just about the presentations. The presentations are supposed to be sort of a short introduction and there is opportunity for discussion. We may not solve all the world's problems here, but it will at least be a start of a conversation, and openfully we can agree on the path forward.
I have also set aside sometime at the end for an open mic, but I see that maybe some of these points can take a bit longer so we can see a bit how good I am with time management here.
So, before that, I was asked to remind you all to vote for the PC elections. How many of you have voted for the PC elections? Not too bad. The rest of you go to the RIPE 79 page, there is a button there that says vote now. If you don't know who to vote for, then you can click the other button which says "biographies" and read up and please cast your vote.
Community Plenary. What's that about?
RIPE Chair report.
And accountability Task Force report.
That's kind of the three things that I have prepared some slides on.
Years ago when I first attended RIPE meetings, we started off with Working Groups and then the Working Groups reported back to the Plenary and then we also had room in the Plenary to discuss other matters that didn't fit into our Working Group. We kind of lost that at some point because the European operators forum that was at the beginning was kind of over the years improved into the excellent programme that's managed by the programme committee today, and we kind of reduced the Plenary on Friday not to be a report from all the Working Groups because you have been been to the Working Groups that you were interested in, and then we lost the sort of community feeling and the Plenary that we had for open discussion. So this is an initiative to try to bring this back. It's been suggested at a couple of BoFs for the last couple of meetings and it's also maybe a solution to some of the findings in the accountability Task Force report.
So, what I have been doing since the last RIPE meeting.
Miriam helped me with writing an article and some of her colleagues on RIPE Labs with the summary of the last meeting. That's a habit that we will try to get into. I have attended a couple of RIPE Executive Board meetings. I have had a couple of coordination meetings in Amsterdam with the RIPE NCC staff, especially Miriam, we figured out that it's more efficient for me to go there and sit down with people and work things out rather than trying to coordinate things over e‑mail all the time.
I have been to the IETF in Montreal, in order to follow what's going on there. I'm not able to attend all IETF meetings, but I think it's important that the RIPE Chair understands and knows a bit about what's going on in the IETF standards process.
I visited the APNIC in Thailand and there were on two reasons for that. One was in five years I set out to visit all the other RIR meetings, not all of them all the time, but go to one in each region, and this is the final one of my full circle there.
Interesting to see how other communities work. It was also a RIPE NCC joint Board meeting and I joined also the RIPE NCC Exec Board meeting at that. There was also, which is interesting to my day job in security, and also something to think about for this community, was that the whole day was set aside for a first technical colloquium and first is an organisation of incident response teams. And I managed an incident response team in my organisation and they had sort of co‑hosted a full day track there. Now we had the Anti‑Abuse Working Group but this had a slightly different focus. That's an interesting learning.
I also went to the Europol Interpol cybercrime conference last week. That's really interesting to see what is on the mind of law enforcement agencies and how they work together and what their concerns are, so that is a really interesting exercise as well.
And a very brief overview of what I have been doing.
RIPE accountability Task Force, final report. That was published in July, and they had 15 recommendations. Now, the Task Force agreed on the report and published that, that doesn't mean that the community have agreed to implement any of these recommendations. But what I'm proposing to do is to add all these suggestions to a list of work items, and then tick them off one by one as we move forward.
So, not expecting you to read through all of them here, but just pointing out some of them.
The first one may actually be a very important one which kind of describes better the relationship between the RIPE community and the RIPE NCC as the membership organisation. There isn't much kind of written down on, yes, the RIPE NCC wants ‑‑ will implement all policies from the community, but there may be some cases they won't and how does all this work.
So how do we improve this? We will touch upon it in the PDP process when we start to discuss that. But it's kind of something that, yes, it's important, but I don't think we should start it right now. It may be better in the next year to look at that.
The second one, consider whether the RIPE Chair should be asked to disclose financial details. I have a slide on that later on.
Then there are some suggestions here on RIPE documents which are more sort of editorial things to look at.
Finalising the Chair replacement procedure. That's done. It's great, it's on the agenda later on.
And then reporting back to the community. Well, yes, well that's what I'm trying to do with my introduction here and also with the blog posts that I have done two of so far, and hope to be able to do more of. And then there are a bunch of suggestions around the Working Group Chairs, both making it easier for them to sort of be on boarded and training and so on.
And also, one thing that I think this format may be an answer to is this around the documenting what the Plenary does and provides. So I intend we have a scribe for this session and we intend to publish minutes for this session so we can go back and see what's been going on here. And this is what we used to do earlier on as well.
The last bullet point here. Review. Maybe that's a good idea, and since we are now starting a RIPE Chair selection process, maybe four years ahead in the last year of that ‑‑ of the RIPE what I remember it's good to do a review and then have some ideas or input to the next year's Chair selection process. Maybe that's the way. So this is a lot of hand waving.
My intent is then to publish this, get them out there in the work place so that you can all see what the status is on this, and if any of you are kind of, oh, I want to contribute to improve this, then you can sort of volunteer to start the Task Force to work on some of this.
RIPE Chair financial disclosure. Well, I discussed a bit with the Working Group Chairs earlier today. I mean, what kind of level of disclosure do you want to see? So what I put down is actually documenting the facts as I know them. Rob, my predecessor, was Chair for 25 years. He was working for NIKHEF until he retired, and his employer was very kind to donate a lot of his work time to spend on the RIPE community.
Travel costs have been paid for by the RIPE NCC according to the RIPE NCC travel policy.
Travel, that is the same for me. I'm working as the Chief Information Security Officer of Visma, which is a large company, so they expect me to work full‑time. So that means that while I do spend some work hours on this, I also spend a lot of my time and my vacation time or, as my family says, their time, so that's kind of the situation there. I don't get any payment from this at present. But it has been proposed that maybe the Chair position should be turned into a paid position, which is something that will have to be discussed and agreed upon in selecting a new Chair.
So, that is kind of a statement to at least make it public and clear, how the RIPE Chair is funded as of today.
Chair selection procedure has been published. There are three documents up there that are related to this and Daniel will talk more about this.
Chair reporting. RIPE Labs post and presentations at community in the Plenary. And I think maybe we should see how this goes over a couple of meetings before we tick it off and say that we have found a format that is suitable for the community here.
Plenary and documentation. We now have a RIPE Community Plenary on the agenda and I'm working with the RIPE NCC to set up sort of a page similar to the web pages for the Working Groups where we have the agendas, minutes and so on, so that we can refer back to it so that then we'll be able to tick that off as well.
And that was actually my introduction here. So, yes, I have spent my time, right. I have a time keeper here that tries to keep track of me. So then the question is: Can I remember what the next agenda item is. And of course that's Daniel and the RIPE Chair selection process.
JAN ZORZ: I think there are questions. Very, very short one.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I'm asking on behalf of Sasha Luck for himself. If the new RIPE considered to be Working Group mailing list for the Plenary committee.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: That's a very good question. What's the Working Group mailing list for this community and as of present it's the RIPE list. Whether that's a good idea or not, I guess is something that we should look at. But for the time being the RIPE list, yes.
DANIEL KARRENBERG: I didn't ‑‑ I decided not to venture into the clicker problems so I have no slides.
My name is Daniel Karrenberg, I am the Chair of the RIPE NomCom, the one, the first one. What is the RIPE NomCom? It's a group of ten volunteers that will select the next RIPE Chair and we have revived the function of vice‑chair, also a vice‑chair. So, there the purpose of the NomCom is to select two people to fill those roles.
We have, we have consensus on the process to do that. It makes about a year, but the committee doesn't work for a whole year, and three RIPE meetings. The first RIPE meeting we called the nominations meeting, which is actually this meeting, where we call for nominations for RIPE Chair and vice‑chair, and as the Chair of the NomCom, I just did that around lunch time, so if you follow the RIPE list, you should have seen that message.
Who is eligible to be RIPE Chair and vice‑chair? Basically anyone. Anyone according to the procedure who hasn't served two terms as either Chair or Vice‑Chair. Since no one has, actually everybody is eligible. There are a few exceptions: One is the members of the NomCom themselves; that would be really strange if they were to select themselves. And secondly, the members of the RIPE NCC Executive Board, because the Executive Board plays a role in this process, it works like this. When the NomCom has selected the two people, the RIPE NCC Executive Board will look at that result and the process that the NomCom followed and basically safeguard that the NomCom followed the procedure as we have all agreed.
The next RIPE meeting, in the sequence of three, is what we call the consultation RIPE meeting. At that meeting, the list of nominations will be known; it will be public. And the NomCom will go out to the community and solicit feedback on those nominees, as much as possible, so that we are sure that the people we select actually have what it takes in the first place, and in the second place, also have the backing of the community.
And that is where the main work of the NomCom will happen. So it will be maybe from a couple of months before the May meeting in Berlin to gather feedback from the community.
My personal plan, as a Chair, is then to work very quickly, hopefully within a couple of weeks, to actually make the selection. So, after Berlin, there will be a lot of work for this NomCom, but it will be over very quickly if everything goes to plan.
Once that is done, we will tell the RIPE NCC Board who we selected. They have a couple of weeks to decide on to confirm those people, and then at the third RIPE meeting, the autumn meeting next year, the new selected people will take their roles.
I have told you that the ten volunteers are going to make the selection. How do we get to the ten volunteers? We do it just like the IETF does it. This whole procedure is actually very much copied from the IETF nominations committee. We look for volunteers. So anybody in the RIPE community who has some idea about what a RIPE Chair does and who they should be, and above all, is also well‑connected in the community and can listen to what the community wants, should volunteer to be on the NomCom. The only prerequisite is that you have attended three of the five previous RIPE meetings, so including this one, three of the five meetings. You have to have actually attended. And as of now, for this procedure, the remote participation does not count.
I hope personally that we will have around 100 volunteers. So far, I checked this morning, we have 17, one, seven. So please consider this community service. The benefit is, you know, the more people that volunteer, the less likely it is that you actually get selected and have to do the work.
But as I said, it's not very much work. It's going to happen next year, it's going to happen maybe some period before the Berlin May meeting, during the Berlin May meeting and then quickly afterwards I hope to conclude the work of the NomCom.
The NomCom also has some non‑voting members; I'm one of them, I am the Chair, but I don't get the vote on the selection of the candidates. There is also liaison members from other bodies. So far I have asked the RIPE NCC Board to appoint a liaison and they have done so, it's Piotr Strzyewski who will be the liaison from the Board. I have asked the Programme Committee to provide a liaison and the Working Group Chairs collective to provide a liaison.
If any of you thinks there should be more liaisons, please let me know and I will work on that.
I am also in the process of designating one other person as an advisor, because the nominating committee can also have advisors, and that is the previous Chair of the NomCom. Now, you will ask yourself, how can that be right? We have a bootstrap problem here, but the procedure speaks so that I can appoint someone and I have a volunteer but I have to do it in consultation with the Chair of the RIPE NCC Executive Board, and they are so busy that I haven't been able to consult yet. But as soon as that consultation has finished, I'll tell you who the designated prior Chair is.
And that is about all. I should mention the deadlines. If you want to volunteer to be in the volunteer pool, to be randomly selected, then you have to do that by the middle of next month, so somewhere, 16th November or something like that, and if you want to nominate someone, you have to do it by the 15th December. So that's a month later.
And now before you ask, somebody may ask, how is the selection actually made from the pool of volunteers to the ten people? Well, it's a random selection, but it's a random selection that can be verified. So what I'll do is I'll make a list of all the volunteers, and I will say, I will take these lottery results that will happen in a week's time, and then I'll run an algorithm that's in some RFC, to sort of hash it and mash it and it will produce a list of volunteers and then the first ten who don't run away quickly enough will be the voting volunteers on the NomCom.
And that is all I have to say.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you Daniel. Any questions? I see nobody running to the microphones. One over here.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Stefan: How many people do you need so that random really works?
DANIEL KARRENBERG: Oh, that is a pretty subjective question. As I said, I would hope for a hundred. We did some studies that there will be roughly 300 ‑‑ between 300 and 400 people who meet the criteria. And I would hope that a third of them would, would be there. At the moment the ones that I have seen are not very diverse. Specifically gender diverse. So, I hope for a hundred as I said. I won't say what I personally consider the minimum. The absolute minimum is ten and we are already beyond that.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you Daniel for this.
(Applause)
And then I'll invite the co‑chair of the Database Requirements Task Force, Shane. The stage is yours and maybe you have slides as well.
SHANE KERR: Thank you. There are slides. So, I am Shane Kerr. I am here representing the new RIPE Database Requirements Task Force. I didn't know if I had known that like Daniel said I could do this without slides, I would have. But ‑‑
All right. So, these are the members of the RIPE Task Force, most of us are here this week, although not all of us. And you can read the people later, the slides are online.
So, what is it about? Well, the basic idea is we're going to look at the RIPE database and try to come up with a good set of requirements for what it should do. It's a bit weird that this hasn't been done at least in the recent years, but it hasn't and so we think this is an ‑‑ one of the most important activities of RIPE and the RIPE NCC, so let's start it now.
The idea is not for us to actually come up with designs or anything like that. The idea is that our output will be requirements document. We had our first in‑face meeting this week. We started discussions on the list. And as I said, the idea is we're going to produce a requirements document. Everything will be done as we like it, openly and transparently. The original plan was for us to produce a first draft of the document by the end of the calendar year, so by the end of 2019. We thought that was a bit aggressive of a timeline, so we're going to change our charter slightly, we're going to commit to producing an outline, a skeleton document, by the end of 2019, so you can kind of see the progress and what we think will be in the requirements document. Then we are going to commit to producing a first draft of the full requirements document, basically two months before the next RIPE meeting.
This should give people enough time to give feedback and discussion on the ‑‑ online, and then we can discuss it more in face‑to‑face at the meeting.
The ultimate goal is to have a final final version of the requirements document by RIPE 81, in a year.
And that's basically it. I think we have, looking at the number of people there, a good set of people who represent communities and are able to both personally bring requirements from those communities as well as interact with them in a kind of liaison. I think that's it.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Excellent. Thank you. There is a question already I think.
RANDY BUSH: A requirements document by committee. At least in many of the cultures I hang out in, it ends up trying to boil the ocean. How are you not going to do that?
SHANE KERR: Okay... anything else? All right. Thank you.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you very much and thank you for the volunteers.
(Applause)
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Then the next agenda item is an issue that is close to my heart, and that is code of conduct. Not because conduct is such close to my heart, but because openness, inclusiveness and diversity is something I care about. And I'll hand the floor to Brian and Sasha.
BRIAN NISBET: Hello. So, we're the representatives of the Diversity Task Force, and we want to talk about what we're doing but also specifically the Code of Conduct and the proposed Code of Conduct for the RIPE meeting and the RIPE meeting.
The goal of the Task Force is to increase diversity in the RIPE community. We aim to remove barriers that present participation particularly those that affect unrepresented groups in the community.
So last time I stood on stage to talk about this, we received a number of bits of feedback, some very positive, some very good constructive criticism and a number of people going, why is there a white sis Dude on stage talking about diversity? So I wanted to very briefly address that. Is because the sis white dudes have to talk about diversity. We are the ones who have the loud voices in this community and we should not be expecting those groups, you know, there is a number of phrases I could use here, minority groups, for want of a better phrase, and I apologise for that, we should not be expecting them to be doing the hard work of breaking in to what we have here. We, who are the people here, and I have been part of this community for around 15 years, Working Group Chair etc., etc, because I'm loud and volunteer, and yes, Daniel, I heard you ‑‑ but, this is really important that we stand up here and we talk about this. So, that's why I'm standing up here and I'm talking about this.
(Applause)
SASHA ROMIJN: I am Sasha and what we're basically trying to achieve with the Diverse Task Force is supporting a diverse and inclusive RIPE community because it makes a better RIPE community. There is a lot of research and data out there that consistently proves that diversity in organisations and communities increases their performance, their ability, the outputs, the quality they produce.
And if you look around the room or anywhere else in our spaces, it is very obvious that there is a lot of work to do in that area.
Diverse Task Force doesn't only work on Code of Conduct. That's sort of one of the big things right now, but there is also supporting a mentoring programme, childcare, bringing in new people through the RACI programmes and other ways to contribute. The last time there was a Slido pilot which makes asking questions more accessible to people. Making space for people who is less like the majority here.
We have a mailing list. It's been active for quite a while. It is very active. We had 500 e‑mails since June 2017. There is also quite a few people, like we compared it to ‑‑ we have had 43 people tribute to the mailing list. Some continuous since 2017, some on and off for a bit.
And why we're working on an improved Code of Conduct is that the current one is not very fit for purpose. So, we currently have the trusts contacts. I have had conflicting stories so far about exactly what they can do. But, there is definitely a consistent lack of process of Code of Conduct appropriate to training of clarity. I personally do not feel comfortable reporting a Code of Conduct incident at this meeting, because I just don't trust the process and don't want to spend the time.
In fact, I actually ‑‑ so far Working Groups there is a slightly different process. It is with the Working Group Chairs, on Tuesday, I mailed the chairs of one Working Group, that it has now been one year since I sent them a Code of Conduct report, and I have not received a reply and not to bother any more. I will not report again, of course, because it was evidently a waste of my time.
So, this is something we're trying to improve. We also did a survey, which was sent on October 8 to RIPE lists. Over 70 people responded, 38 percent of which said they had experienced harassment, intimidation and other unwanted behaviour while at a RIPE meeting.
52 different stories of incidents were shared. They include harassing behaviour at socials, this includes groping people, which is considered assault. Intimidation, not taking no for an answer if someone doesn't want to dance and keep on hassling them throughout the entire party. There is a bunch of unwanted messages or photos received. People in this community, who are possibly in this room, will send dick pics to other people in the community. This is a thing. I can't believe I'm saying it out loud on stage.
There is other like there is intimidating behaviour at microphones and there is a whole bunch of other stories, aggressive behaviour, and these numbers are high for me. I do a lot of Code of Conduct work in other communities. I have not seen numbers like this. So, this is something that we should work on. There is a problem here.
And there is basically insufficient process, insufficient clarity, insufficient trust building, people do not have the right resources, particularly Working Group Chairs like the incident I mentioned, I don't think that was a personal failure of the Working Group Chairs in question. I just think they haven't been given any resources to deal with this.
So, what we're going to do about it. This is why we're working on an improved Code of Conduct which has a much more structured process. And our goals with this specifically, this is also in the Code of Conduct, when we talk about it, there is often talks about consequences that may happen. This is a part of it but it starts way earlier. It starts with helping people feel safe and included; that if you come here and have a nasty experience, that you are more likely to feel that that is not the norm. That is not okay. That shouldn't happen and that you'll report it to someone.
It's also building trust in the Code of Conduct team. One of the things is that the whole process that the Code of Conduct team will follow ‑‑ I'll go into that a bit later ‑‑ that is known, you know exactly what you are going to do, how do we make decisions, what is the process and also specifically written to handle incidents about people in power. Because like, as a Code of Conduct response team you have to deal with a complaint possibly about one of your members. So, this is all worked out. It is sending expectation of behaviour and, of course, also to have the framework for reporting handling. Like when an incident happens, the Code of Conduct is like is this okay? Is this in scope? What should we do?
BRIAN NISBET: So, just very briefly go through where we are at this point in time. Now, I have been talking to the RIPE community about Codes of Conduct for sometime. Since the Athens meeting, which was a number that I can't remember. But this particular one here, October, so this time last year, really we talked about the improved Code of Conduct. There was a lot of discussion. There was some more discussion, we shared some minutes. Examples of response teams. Version 2 was shared in May on the RIPE list. A call for comments, which we got a bunch of, which, you know, thank you to everybody who participated in that discussion.
Now, a few weeks and we merged them all together, looked at that, so we have now got the updated draft which we have shared. And we have moved there from Version 2 ‑‑ as I said seven people, thank you very much ‑‑ to version 3, clarity for the response team and the appeals process, and this is very important information. And a second document for the Code of Conduct team in August and we have brought that in as well.
We'll talk about that in a second.
One thing I want to say, and we're going to say again, we now have version 3 and that's been shared on the RIPE list. We are still open to comments. Genuinely, please, open to comments, open to information from everyone in the community. Please don't be afraid to talk to us or to you know, e‑mail us or e‑mail us through somebody else if you want to input into that. We need as much as information as possible.
And the other point is that we will also, as part of this process, be asking the RIPE NCC, who obviously run these meetings and whose name is, you know, on the credit card receipts and things like that, for an Impact Analysis as part of this process. It's not the full PDP, but the Impact Analysis process is there and we think it's a wise step to take to ask them for that.
So that response team, again, when the current draft, when we get to the point that we're talking about there, it will be a call for volunteers sent out by the RIPE Chair. A four‑week period for people to step period. A four‑week period then for people to make objections to that Code of Conduct team. Because it has to be a team the community are comfortable with for a bunch of reasons. Then the RIPE Chair selects the team with input from the Diversity Task Force, certainly, but the RIPE Chair is fundamentally the person who is selecting that team. The team is four to six people who have been to at least three RIPE meetings, not the last three, it's at least three. And they will receive special third‑party training as part of that. That, again, is the proposal as it stands at the moment which we think is a good way of building a robust team like this.
I think, as Sasha said, we have the, you know, it's the process sets the norms and expectations, and then gives the Code of Conduct response team tools to respond to possible violations and there are a variety of tools. It's very easy to focus on one or two of them. But there is a variety of tools there.
Question, we have talked about people being possibly removed from RIPE meetings. And that's ‑‑ you know, it's in the Code of Conduct, as the last possible step, you know, the last possible tool there.
But we have to ask ourselves a question as a community, about what the balance is between removing someone who is problematic from the meeting or from the ability to go to meetings, versus what we have lost over the years of people who had bad experiences and choose never to come back to a meeting, or indeed those who would have their friends tell them do not go to this meeting, it's not a good one to go to.
SASHA ROMIJN: I'm not sure whether I come back for the next meeting. The whole process is not making me eager to be part of this community. I would not invite my friend this this community because I would feel responsible.
BRIAN NISBET: And when Sasha said that to me earlier, this is what kind of inspired a lot of this slide. Who can we bring to meetings in the future? I'm in my early forties now. It's that flipping point. We know at this meeting a number of people have said they are moving away from the community for lots ‑‑ they are changing their roles, whatever else. We have to look forwards the future. And really look and see how strong. The RIPE community is strong. There are problems. But really strong and we can make it even stronger and this is all part of that.
So, I think we would ask for everybody, when you are thinking about this, when you are looking at the Code of Conduct, when you are looking at the diversity work in general, because again, this is just one piece, is how many presenters are like you? How many people at the mic are like you? People commenting on mailing lists are like you? And do we reflect the diversity of Internet users on our meetings and the mailing lists? And I think the spoiler there is no, we really don't.
So, how do we remain? We talk about remaining relevant as an operator community. We talk about the database, we talk about all these other things. Let's talk about the people which are hugely important and we need to build that and make sure that safe space is clear to people.
And I think to finish, we just want to say, and repeat, the Code of Conduct is not the only thing the Diversity Task Force is working on. We have spent a lot of time on this. It's a big focus but we want to put this in place with the support of the community and move onto the other things, the other areas of diversity that we really ‑‑ there are many of them there, that we want to work on.
So, we have got some time for questions now and discussion. There is the mailing list. There is that input. There is talking to us in the corridors and around that. But, we really wanted to get this in place preferably, if at all possible, for RIPE 80 in Berlin and have it in place at that point in time or be that close, but not more meetings of discussion. And be able to move on and work on other elements of diversity and continuing to strengthen the community.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you very much, Sasha and Brian, for putting this in front of us and I now see that there are queues on the microphone.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi. My name is Chris Woodfield, I am with sales force. Not speaking for either but mainly speaking as a long time attendee and community member of a number of different conferences.
Speaking as a white male sis recently single person, it is a fact of life that at conferences, people meet, relationships happen, and that's just a fact of life. That is going to happen. The key is that if you come here looking for that, or expecting that and pursuing that, that's when it becomes a problem. So, if you're here looking to meet people, you are in the wrong place, and we'd rather you not come to a conference that I am running.
The second point I'll make is that, you know, a lot of white single men are actually a bit nervous about speaking to a woman in who are in a minority or you know, trans, binary. They don't bite. Really. I mean, get ‑‑ just, hey, hello. I mean, that's the best way to start these kinds of communications, and building the kind of community that we really want to have.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you for that.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: That wasn't a question.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: I was slightly puzzled because I come here to meet people, but probably not in the sense that you think about it.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: When I mean meet people, I mean meet people.
BRIAN NISBET: There are a variety of Internet applications that are apparently available. My 7th wedding anniversary this weekend, so I don't know.
ANNA WILSON: Thank you to the Task Force for working on this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm not on the Diversity Task Force mailing list because sometimes it's nice to be the customer and not the provider. I have had this conversation so many times in every community in my working life and in my hobbies, and I am so glad that other people are working on it here. So, I'm very grateful for that. And I like the work that's going on.
I do see some debate around this and so I'm back up at the microphone. But when I ‑‑ in situations like this, I like to try and see is it some reality we can point to that reduces the problem space. There are two things that I think are very important around this.
As much as we see this as a community‑run event, there is an organiser of the RIPE meetings, it is the RIPE NCC. When something goes wrong, we all know, and the stark numbers we see bring it home, that it's "when" not "if." People look to the organisers to do something about that. That means a responsibility ultimately lands on the RIPE NCC, and we can't change that. We can have opinions about it, but the RIPE NCC do end up with responsibility there. So they have to do things about this and we have to make sure they are able to do things about this.
Some sort of process helps, but ultimately they need to be able to do that. And that ‑‑ that's why I think the process of having the community input to this and then having an Impact Analysis, a good way about it, I look forward to seeing that.
But the second thing is that process has to be robust. It has to be fit for the purpose which you have described. And it needs to be robust not for theoretical reasons but because if it doesn't work, we're going to be out of step with other communities in tech. The other communities I see are not standing still on this. And we will just lose people to other areas and that's a very selfish argument, because I have been in this community a long time and I love this community, so it's easy for me to say that. But that's a selfish arguement. There is also some less selfish arguments along the lines of it's the right thing to do.
So, I want to emphasise those are two things I think we can't change. We can wish they were different if we want. We can try and work around them, but I think it's going to be a lot easier if we work with them. If we fail to work with them, please bear in mind that the last people who notice that it has gone wrong will be the people who are here the longest. Thank you.
(Applause)
HANS PETTER HOLEN: So I see we now have several people here and I tried to distribute the time evenly. We also have some time for any other business, so I'll be a bit flexible with the time here to let everybody at the microphone now speak, so I'll go to my far right first.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Alexis coney, I work with GitHub. I am speaking independently of them but I am part of the LGBTQERG within the organisation and work extensively with the ERG as it stands among multiem demographics. There is a lot of conversations we have around this, we send a lot of people to conferences within, for example, Women in Tech and Women in Communities. One of the things that we're having conversations around within our ERGs and that I have had with other ERGs in the tech community are around having an internal conversation of if a conference is not have a Code of Conduct that prospects and enables under‑represented communities to feel safe and welcome in those communities, that they don't send their employees to go and speak at them, so you start to lose some of the extensive technical experience and the people that are presenting, you aren't going to have that if you don't protect people from being able to show up and be safe. It's extremely important. And I appreciate all the work that the community has done on this. And I just hope to see continuing work and continued effort in this realm. So thank you for your work so far. And I look forward to seeing you at the next RIPE meeting.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you very much for that. And I just want to ‑‑ want to underline one thing. We do have a Code of Conduct. It is however slightly naive and as pointed out here what's missing is the mechanisms, what's the consequences of breaching it.
SASHA ROMIJN: It is good, I have seen this from several organisations where they just have a hard rule. Nobody, we will never pay, we will not sponsor, we will not speak at conferences that don't have a solid Code of Conduct. I don't have any names off the top of my head, but I'm seeing this increasingly that that's just a hard rule and you will miss out on these people entirely.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you.
DANIEL KARRENBERG: If I'm next in line. Whatever everybody else has said. Thank you for picking up this thing and working on it.
I wonder if you agree with my analysis that a lot of the resistance you are seeing between this and the previous draft is about the sanctions rather than about the idea of having a Code of Conduct, that the things that are there about supporting people, about what undesired behaviour is and so on. When I read this, and it's mostly about the organisation of the sanctions.
Is a way forward ‑‑ and I'm sorry, I share, absolutely share your frustration about the lack of progress here. On the other hand, we have to be careful not to put procedures in place that hurt us in the end. And I heard you say something like this also. So, wouldn't a way forward be to start slow and include ‑‑ only include some of the sanctions that are easier to handle, to administer. Then things like the more drastic ones, banning people from RIPE for life and things like that, couldn't we work sort of on a first version and then evolve from there? Because then I think there is a chance that we will have something by Berlin, by the next RIPE meeting.
With my experience about designing procedures, and specifically if the RIPE NCC has to implement them and has to stand up for it legally and with all the risks that are there, I think we will not make progress very quickly. So, is a way forward to say, okay, let's do a sanctions‑light version with the explicit note that it might be ‑‑ it's the light version and we'll evolve it in order to make progress to have something for Berlin.
BRIAN NISBET: So ‑‑ and if that's okay, Sasha, if I just ‑‑ this community is great. It's not special. We're human beings. I had the privilege and pleasure of being involved in the World Science Phishing Convention in Dublin this year, which is totally volunteer run, in a not hugely dissimilar way to bits of the RIPE community and the Code of Conduct there is this, is what we're talking about. Now, there is differences and things like that. This is a bunch of volunteers, conventions these sci‑fi and fancy conventions all have this, tech communities all have this. As I said, started this in Athens, however many years ago that was. This is the slow version. And we have got to to a point where we have a Code of Conduct with very light sanctions, and sanctions ‑‑ I hate that word. The problem is if you put any sort of code in place there has to be some consequence to break it. It's not the focus of the code it's what some people are focused on but it has solve some consequences or there is no point to it or we are where we are at the moment where it doesn't really do its job and can just get lost.
So many events, communities, be they technical, be they professional, be they voluntary, are already where we're trying to get to, we're doing the really slow version here. And I think it's a pity that whatever, you know, the communication, and things like that, but we sit there and we get to Berlin and go we have got a Code of Conduct which sure, you break it, and Hans Petter will give out to you. And then the following day, and let's talk extreme circumstances here, and you sit down and in the Plenary room the next day with the person who harassed you on the dance floor the previous night that you reported, and at that point you turn around and go, this community doesn't care about me and you walk out the door.
So, I understand, I do genuinely understand where you're coming from, Daniel, and I'm listening, but this is the slow version. I think that's where we are.
SASHA ROMIJN: I entirely agree. It's just like it will not have enough teeth. Like the stories include sexual assault on people, one within this community on other people. We then say like have a serious conversation with you, because we can't do anything harsher, that is teethless. To give you an example in other teams, the most recent case where the team decided to not allow someone back to the community forever, was because I sent them a Code of Conduct e‑mail from the Code of Conduct team and then they threatened to murder me gruesomely, and so that was their response to a reprimand as we call it. If your response is, I'm going to threaten to murder someone, it is probably good that you don't come back. And that's why we need that option also. It's rare though.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Okay. So I'm trying to do time management here. We're out of time, but I do have some flexibility in any other business so I'm going to allow some of that. So I see two at the back, one there, one there, and I would like to close the mics after that offer the floor, if you sort of be a minute each, I think we're good. So, I think Salam.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Salam: On behalf of the Board I would like to thank you for all the work that is being done, the important work that you are doing, and the progress that you are doing. I know it's slow, but I mean we see very good progress. And we are following this very closely.
On my personal behalf I'd like just to remind everyone that also the Code of Conduct should be ‑‑ has inclusivity in it and please do not forget also the young and the old and the people from other regions. Okay. It's also a mind shift for them to come to this community. We want them to come and so, please don't forget them.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Alexander: I came from region where values of this place of western Europe are still not very well recognised. But maybe that's my English is not very good, so, I couldn't be as polite as Daniel and maybe Salam. But I would like to mention that some people from other regions, from other parts of RIPE NCC and RIPE region, may not completely understand a Code of Conduct and diversity purposes from the first attempt. We may even think that now this meeting is not about technical issues of RIPE community but more about keeping diversity. So, please try to keep these activities ‑‑ I really appreciate it, it's really interesting for me as a foreigner to see how it's going on, and follow them ‑‑ that such activities and such documents are not pushing out people who do not understand them from the first time. So please be accurate in how it's written and especially in word sanctions, yes, I support Daniel.
SASHA ROMIJN: The word sanctions is not in the Code of Conduct. We are careful about how we pick our words. It's a response team because it responds. Sometimes by saying this wasn't a Code of Conduct violation, also an option. Also the same way, yeah, sanctions, enforcements, the wording is careful for this reason also.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: English is not native language or very well known language for all in this region. Please be careful. Thank you.
SASHA ROMIJN: An option could be once the document is final, we have translations. That doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Maria from the RIPE NCC Executive Board and also CEO for the Swedish university network. I would also like to say on behalf of the Executive Board and behalf of me as a member of community thank you so much to your super valuable work. And I don't want to be lengthy because we have a time issue here. As I say because there is so many other good words being said here, so I don't have to repeat that. But I think it's so important that so many people come to the meeting. We have so many other external threats coming at us in our community. So please everybody, Sasha and everybody else, please come to the meetings, we need you.
(Applause)
ANNA WILSON: On the responses, I don't know if I can say something better more eloquent than what was said from the stage a moment ago, but I do also want to mention that while I really appreciate the spirit of compromise and trying to find a gentle road in here, and I genuinely acknowledge that, I do see that what we have right now is ‑‑ we are trying to formalise a process which is currently ambiguous, and the ambiguity is a problem. If we formalise it in such a way that we then restrict ourselves from having certain options, and by "ourselves" I mean the people who would be held responsible for running this meeting, if we restrict ourselves from having certain options and we suddenly find ourselves in the unfortunate position that we, after all, need to be able to use them, we will be in a very bad place and that would not turn out to be a conservative approach. The conservative approach is to leave things more open, not less, in terms of what options are available in a situation. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: RIPE NCC, relaying back some comments from the remote chat. The first one is from and dress from DEIC, he was talking about how this is a conversation that really needs to be had. There are other comments, but for the sake of time, this is the gist of it.
There is another one from Julia Freeman, that is talking about her experience ‑‑ from the RIPE Diversity Task Force, and she talks a little bit about her experience, and she also mentioned that she spent RIPE 77 avoiding the guy who reduced her to tears in the diversity lunch because there was nothing that could be done and she also asked the question to Darren saying, our procedure we have now, our procedure we have now are hurting people. It's hurting the people who are on the receiving end of the things, the Code of Conduct should hopefully stop. You said to go slow. I ask: Are we going fast enough? How can we make it faster? Are we too late?
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you very much for those comments. And it makes me really sad that you have experienced that and that we really have to discuss how to solve that. We really need a solution to this.
Then last word to you Filiz.
FILIZ YILMAZ: I didn't mean for that. I have been in and out of these, in fact, always in, since 1996 in these environments where it is not for profit, community work, there is a forum. So, I have seen enough of hostile, unexpected behaviour, that behaviour in my own time.
We don't like this. The reason, first of all, why we need this and with this ‑‑ I mean, I agree with Sasha, a Code of Conduct or an expected behaviour document. Say not only people respect each other, that's great. No, we need to list that this is ‑‑ there are consequences, possible consequences that an offender may face if the receiving end would like to make a complaint about that. But even before, having that document, it may not end up with sanctions as we are all generalising here. It will give the power to people to say "Hey, person, I'm not going to use any gender‑related word ‑‑ hey, person, you are making me uncomfortable. What I'm experiencing now doesn't fit in what I see in this document. Please stop." We are not even giving that power at the moment to those people who are in the receiving end. So, they are out there trying to talk to people, get support here, and we are making them even more vulnerable. So having something, I don't like the word "sanctions" because just it bears legality and we need to deal with many legal constitutions here, right, but we have a legal team at the RIPE NCC, they can easily review that from that point of view and come up with the right wording. But thank you. Let's put something and then empower people to say this is not okay. Otherwise we will end up protecting this behaviour, and that means not ‑‑ that also means ruining other people's career paths, and etc. Because if they are not here, it's not only us losing but they might be having some damage in their own career paths as well. Thank you.
(Applause)
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you for that. Final words for, from you or ‑‑ I can thank you from all my heart for driving this. I see that this is really running up hill. And if my summary is going to be on the path ahead, if I do a backwards calculation from your process and appointing, we actually have a timeline that is fairly aggressive, I would like to work with the Task Force to see if we can meet that. I would really like to see that happen. I do hear all the concerns here, but I think that this is a challenge that the society is facing as well. I mean, this is not unique to this. And I trust that the ‑‑ that we're able to achieve consensus on something. If we're not, it's been explained to me that there are two other options. One would be that the RIPE Chair stand up and signs off on this. And if you don't like that, well then, the NomCom selects ‑‑ can select somebody else as Chair for the next five years. That's one way of moving ahead.
The second way of moving ahead would be that the RIPE NCC, who is legally organising these meetings, would step up and enforce something like this on the community, which is something they don't like to do, but it's kind of options that will have been brought on my table and I don't really want to see them. I really trust that the community can come to some consensus, but we will see. So thank you very much for the work.
(Applause)
So, Pertrit, where are you? While he is walking up, I'll give a brief introduction. We have a policy development process, and the question has been asked, is it still fit for purpose? So we're developing policies, the RIPE NCC now has 20,000 members, 25,000 LIRs, I mean it's enormous numbers. We're 800 people in these meetings. So we have a really solid meeting but there is still order of magnitudes between people at the meeting and the members. And then the question is then how do we adapt to the changing environments, more people wanting to get involved
PETRIT HASANI: I'm the new policy officer to the RIPE NCC. I am part of the RIPE NCC for the past for years and part of the community for the past eight years. So to give you a possibility to see if the PDP process is fit for purpose or if it's doing a good job, we thought that we'd share with you some numbers so you can better evaluate yourself and come to a conclusion how well we're doing with this process.
So, I'll start with the numbers of mailing lists subscribers, and for this I chose two of the mailing lists which have been most active during the last few months: The Anti‑Abuse Working Group and the Address Policy Working Group. And the Anti‑Abuse Working Group has about 1,260 subscribers, which is quite a good number; whilst the Address Policy Working Group has a much bigger number, about 2,260 subscribers.
The policy announced is the Working Group where we announce all policy changes, and actually I expected the number of this mailing list to be very big. Unfortunately, only about 600 subscribers are on the policy announced mailing list. So unfortunately, not a lot of people are finding out what policies are being discussed in other Working Groups.
So let's have a look at two of the latest policy proposals which were discussed. So, 2019‑02, the waiting list implementation was discussed in the Address Policy Working Group. And it was accepted by the community.
So there were about 33 participants and about 117 posts. Keep in mind that in the Address Policy Working Group there are about 2,260 participants, so that's about 1.5%. And I tried to find out where are the participants coming from; that was no easy task because a lot of people use personal e‑mail addresses with dotcom, so it's hard to map them, and it seems that we don't use signatures as well. In meetings, when we talk, we state who we are and which organisation we work for. But it seems that in the mailing list we just say, it's Peter, or sometimes I even saw A, so I need to find who A is and his e‑mail address is IPv6 at blah, blah, dotcom. So it was really hard to map. And I have been browsing your LinkedIn to try it find you, so, if you saw me, that's why I was there.
So, this is the map for the participants in this policy proposal. As you can see, western Europe is fairly nicely represented. Russia as well. But especially southeast Europe, the Middle East and...is not represented as well here.
So the next policy is 2019‑03 hijacking is a policy violation. And it was discussed in the anti‑abuse mailing list and it was withdrawn policy.
And even though it was double of the participants considering the previous policy, it came only from 21 countries. So, we can see that Portugal and Ireland ‑‑ sorry, I didn't mention it before, the darker the colour, the more participants from that country. So, Portugal and Ireland were very active, whilst, again, in this case, Norway, Sweden and Finland didn't decide to participate. They seemed not to be the subject of anti‑abuse does not seem to relate to them.
But how was the whole PDP participation in 2019?
It looks a bit better. There were about 130 participants from 33 countries. And it looks a lot more inclusive, but still, the southeast Europe, the Balkan area remains, Middle East remains unrepresented.
So, looking at these numbers I decided, let me have a look at the RIPE meeting, how are we doing there? And to compare between the two.
So I had to look at the RIPE 79 registration that people checked in yesterday and the numbers may be a bit different from Martina because I removed the RIPE NCC staff from there. So, there were about 630 people checked in from 55 countries. And the map looks a lot better. Very much better. So, I'm not sure why is that and why people are coming to the meeting but not participating as much in the mailing list. But I think this is up for you to decide, and so, I bring the question to you.
Are we doing well? Is the PDP process working? Do we need to change something?
HANS PETTER HOLEN: So I think there are some very interesting data point in here, and I'm kind of wondering what are the right questions to ask. One thing I thought about here is that oh, we call for consensus on the mailing list. That seems to be completely wrong, we should do it in the meetings because there are more people present in the meetings, right? That would be a controversial ‑‑ I mean, there are reasons not to do that, but I mean if we just, for the numbers, that would give more legitimacy to the process, right? Who participates? You say IPv6 at something something dotcom. Who is that? But I mean, that's a question I get asked. Who is this? Who are the people who actually contributes here? Are they representing anybody? Oh, no, they are just individuals. Oh, but there is a multibillion company funding that person to make sure that this company comes through, right. Because he is doing consultancy for them or, you know, me, I am working for Visma, so you can then wonder what are my motives for driving a process in a certain direction. At least you know who I work for. For a lot of participants, especially on the mailing list, if they are anonymous or have strange e‑mails addresses, it's not possible to know. I'll give the word to the microphone at the back first.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: So Will, taking his hat, I discovered the policy ad and had an opportunity to go and submit a policy this year. And so it was my first time even though I am participating to the RIPE meeting for sometime now. So, I guess it's a matter of like when the needs come then that I could go and actually do something and discover that oh, I'm not on the right mailing list and so on. So, it took sometime for me. So besides that it's working really well but it took sometime for me to discover, or like to get the need to to do it.
JORDI PALET: I did some more numbers, because I have in my head during the last two or three years contributing the regions, the same thinking, why we have so small participation. So, I just looked at the membership of each registry, which is 89,000, APINIC, 18,000 RIPE, 25,000, roughly, LACNIC 10,000, AFRINIC 1,700. And if I look at the participation of the mailing list at every region at the end average, we should not count the BGP hijacking proposal because that breaks the average. But average, some regions which looks like more contributing than others, more participants than others like RIPE and Aideen are actually worst. We get in proportion to the membership I'm not looking at the community which is bigger probably but in comparison to the membership, we are performing lower than APNIC, well APNIC is a special case because in APNIC you get three people contributing. But in AFRINIC or in LACNIC, you get actually in proportion to the membership much better than here or in ARIN. It's surprising, but we really need to do something.
I don't think the right way to go is taking the decisionings in the meeting. I will not go for that. But it's interesting to have my figures checked by the staff of the registries and look a little bit much better on this.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: I'll move onto the right.
CARLOS FRIACAS: What I have learned from recent experience is that talking in events at your local communities, in your local language, also helps a bit, and if you are persuasive enough, and if people are interested in the topics on the proposals, they can join the list because the lists are open to everyone. So, ultimately, it's the Internet users that can also have a voice. But somehow we need to replicate these inside our communities, spread the word about what is going on regarding policy development.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you. So, to the left.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Rudiger Volk: Really nice to have the community slot again. And I recently was thinking about how adequate the traditional PDP process is. Well, okay, rather seeing problems. Actually, I think it would make a lot of sense and will result in training in very much improved policy making, to take a step back and think about, well, okay, what are actually the requirements? What kind of policies are needed? And what are the participants that need to be involved? And statistics are nice, but kind of, well, okay, in physics experiments, the numbers are kind of everything. In understanding social processes, and the policy making is a social process, the numbers may not help to understand anything.
One thing that I came around to consider and pinpoint as a problem spot certainly did not show up in any of the statistics, and that is, I was thinking after using the process for some 20 years I think, the community has changed a lot, and the impact that the policies have has changed a lot. And well, okay, so the people who actually should watch the process and have some insight into the discussion actually are much more diverse and I think people who are not regularly showing up and having the time to spend on long mailing lists trails actually will have ‑‑ will feel a big impact and so, well, okay, are our processes as they actually work in the mailing lists, so that an innocent person that has not the networking stuff at its core actually can follow something that is relevant for him.
And I think just looking at the pain level that certain mailing lists invoke, it is quite clear that the answer to: Can all those people be expected to participate but just by reading, so that they can send an alarm to their colleague who is closer to actually manage networking stuff cannot be done. So I think a very solid investigation of what requirements should we take into view and how do really change the requirements on the process.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: I think that's a very good advice and we will take that at heart. So, requirements, we will definitely look at that. I see now that I have roughly five minutes left and five people speaking, so I will close the microphones after the ones on the floor now. So, I think Peter.
PETER KOCH: I love numbers. They are great. But they are a nice distraction, and actually in this case I think they might even give ammunition to the enemies of our processes. So we might want to be a bit careful in what we suggest in prepending these numbers. What I'm especially nervous about is, for example, colouring the countries by names of ‑‑ by numbers of participation without weighing in the population or the size of the community and so on and so forth.
Also, sending a plus‑one to a mailing list is not participation. It's bullshit. Period. And this is a thing that we should look into. I have suggested a couple of times over the previous years that it would be very, very helpful if we had a scientific ‑‑ and I mean really scientific ‑‑ evaluation of the governance of the processes that we apply, and we also night need to accept that we are facing some problems that this community either doesn't have jurisdiction over, or that we're facing problems that are not open to consensus building, because consensus building is not counting heads. It's working towards compromise which again is rarely happening by sending plus‑ones to a mailing list. Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Nurani Nimpuno, are we doing okay? Probably. Are we doing well enough so we don't need to improve? Definitely not. And I guess we're somewhere in between there. And I agree that, you know, we love numbers in this community, you know, I think ‑‑ I get off on my numbers myself. But we fool ourselves if we think that numbers can be a good measurement of enough participation in the policy process. There is so many different factors we need to take into consideration. And just like I have said about accountability; that accountability is not something you obtain, it's something you strife for. I think we should see this the same way. It's about reaching out to those who are not represented, and it's also about trying to actually take more a qualitative approach where we have consultations and we talk to people and we sort of put our finger on the pulse and get a sense of that.
And if we ever think that we have developed the perfect processes so our work is done, then I think that really means we need to take a hard look at ourselves. Thanks.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: I want to speak in my personal capacity. It was an interesting presentation and interesting discussion, so two or three points because I have diverse experience. From the experience of somebody who proposed a policy, on the anti‑abuse and I had a discussion, so with Brian, so it was about the problem of anonymous e‑mailer, you spoke about. So we have to take into consideration what mail is made on the person, but for me it's a personal point of view, I think it's a problem. It's a problem to have an anonymous thing because so when you are here publicly, you state your name, what you are, etc. And I think it could be, or also the same in the mailing list discussion, but one more time, it's personal.
After when you try to read and to follow the different discussion, there is a problem of the different mailing list, and it happened, I missed some discussion on ‑‑ I discovered after I would say two or three weeks, there was another discussion about another proposal. I was not aware. So I think we could think about that and so you take that.
And there was another thing that it was mentioned as well, sometimes the difficulty to read all the discussion when there are a lot on, the problem of the formalities of the different messages, etc. And one more time when you want to put something to a colleague, you could be aware of that, it's very difficult to summarise and I get this problem. So not very long ago, so I think there are a lot perhaps some issues to discuss about. Thank you very much.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: My name is Abdukarim Oloyede, I am one of the co‑chairs for the AFRINIC developing Working Group. I think Moses is kind of in the room. So we decided to come here to come and learn from you guys because we are having the same problem in AFRINIC which is low participation. I think we're in the wrong place now, because there is the problem also exists here.
So, one of the reasons why AFRINIC decided to send us here is to come and see how things are done. Unfortunately, I will be giving you some solutions. I'll be bringing some solutions which is one thing we have done at AFRINIC, which is to organise webinars, so we decided to come up with something which is to organise a webinar once in a month where policy proposers would come up and explain their policies to people and we are hoping to see ‑‑ I can't give you numbers now, what we're hoping to see is increased participation because of these. So we're not here to learn, we're here to give to you solutions.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Excellent. Thank you for that. And I think that's excellent advice, both to look to other regions and also to other organisations on how they organise policy processes like this, even though we have done it a long time. And I agree with Nurani that we are probably not doing too bad but we can definitely improve.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Remote comments: Sasha Lack, representing himself, says this bears out the argument that all policies should be debated on one mailing list. That's the way it is done in the other RIR communities. He also goes on to say, and he is pleased to convey his pleasure that we are having this PDP forum finally happening.
HANS PETTER HOLEN: Thank you for that.
So thank you for all your contributions on that and thank you for Pertrit for putting this together.
(Applause)
My takeaways from this is that there are definitely something that we need to be done. It's not entirely clear to me what to be done. So, I would like to sort of think a bit about that. Read the minutes from this session and then who would be surprised if I proposed a task force charter for making improvements for this process. I think that's probably the most appropriate way forward here.
Then, I have almost run out of time but I did promise you an open mic at the end. So if anybody is not too thirsty for coffee, are there any other business? Anything you want to bring to the microphone?
Okay, none, I have one item that's been relayed to me separately. And if you remember from my list of tasks from the accountability Task Force, there was a group of them surrounding the Working Group Chairs. And the Working Group Chairs discussed that maybe we should take the lead here and start to work on some of these issues. And then it was also suggested that maybe there is somebody outside the Working Group Chairs Council that wants to participate as well, so if there are any volunteers to participate in such a task force, then think about it and let me know. Okay.
With that, I will thank you so much for your participation and engagement in this forum. And you can now go for coffee.
(Applause)
LIVE CAPTIONING BY
MARY McKEON, RMR, CRR, CBC
DUBLIN, IRELAND.
