RIPE 88 Working Group Chair Meeting Summary

23 May 2024

Metropolo Hotel, Krakow

Attendees: Erik Bais, Markus de Brün, Massimo Candela, Ben Cartwright-Cox, Rob Evans, Will van Gulik, Doris Hauser, Julf Helsingius, Alex le Heux, Paul Hoogsteder, Raymond Jetten, Stavros Konstantaras, Florence Lavroff, Franziska Lichtblau, Jen Linkova, Desiree Miloshevic, Moritz Müller, Brian Nisbet, Niall O'Reilly, Cynthia Revström, Sasha Romijn, Marcos Sanz, Nico Schottelius, Christian Seitz, Stephen Strowes, William Sylvester, David Tatlisu, Leo Vegoda, Denis Walker, Martin Winter, Peter Wehrle, János Zsakó

Chair: Mirjam Kühne

RIPE NCC staff: Sandra Gijzen, Wan-Min Huang, Hisham Ibrahim, Gergana Petrova, Phillip Oldham, Marita Phelan

Scribe: Antony Gollan

1. Welcome to new WG co-chairs

New WG Chairs were welcomed: Peter Hessler (Database), Nico Schottelius (IPv6), Paul Hoogsteder (Connect), and Stavros Konstantaras (Connect).

Outgoing chairs Denis Walker (Database), Jen Linkova (IPv6), Florence Lavroff (Connect), and Remco van Mook (Connect) were thanked for their work.

2. Interaction with Code of Conduct Team

Mirjam invited Cynthia and Franziska from the Code of Conduct Team to discuss communication and responsibilities. The Code of Conduct Team was not monitoring mailing list discussions and so they needed to be informed if there were significant issues. This was important from a record-keeping perspective, but also because people sometimes came to them and it helped if they knew whether action was being taken. Most of what they’d seen so far was pretty marginal, corner-case stuff. There was a discussion on whether to notify the WG mailing list about actions that had been taken. This would always be on a case-by-case basis, but it was generally good to share outcomes where appropriate.

3. PC Submission System (PCSS)

Phillip Oldham from the RIPE NCC said they would be running the updated PCSS on a private instance ahead of RIPE 89, and the chairs could contact him if there was anything they wanted to see in relation to this.

4. Relation between the RIPE NCC and RIPE

Mirjam suggested they make the community’s relationship with the RIPE NCC more explicit in the WG charters where necessary or appropriate. There was a discussion on defining roles more clearly, including having a RIPE NCC staff liaison or "product owner" for each WG, and it was agreed that the RIPE NCC would share a list of names with the chairs.

5. RIPE WG Chair selection process

Mirjam said she was receiving a lot of feedback from community members that they should make the various WG Chair selection processes more aligned. There seemed to be consensus that they should all have term-limits, rotations, and periodic calls for new volunteers – but there should also be some flexibility as well. In the past they had said new chairs were selected on the mailing list, which appeared to work well for some WGs but not all. Some had experimented with humming or using Meetecho, both of which seemed to have their own problems. The overall goal was to make this easy to understand, fair, and accessible to everyone. The goal was also to avoid confusion regarding timelines or where the decision was made (on the list or during the session). While some warned not to over-engineer the process, it was agreed the RIPE NCC could provide administrative support to make it easier for the WG chairs and the community.

6. Feedback from RIPE 88

Issues raised: the lack of power outlets between chairs (for charging devices), inconsistent use of the Meetecho queue for questions, issues with remote presenters, having more seating options in the corridors/common areas.

7. AOB

There were no AOBs.