RIPE 88 Programme Committee Meeting

Date: Wednesday, 22 May 2024

Present:

PC Chair: Massimilano Stucchi

PC Members: Pawel Kusmierksi, Franziska Lichtblau, Brian Nisbet, Antonio Prado, Moin Rahman, Wolfgang Tremmel, Clara Wade, Jan Žorž

RIPE Chair Team: Mirjam Kühne, Niall O’Reilly

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

Minutes: Kjerstin Burdiek

1. Feedback from RIPE 88

The PC discussed feedback they had heard about the meeting and their own impressions. Almost all feedback so far had been positive. There had been praise for the quality of the presentations, and some praise for the hotel meeting area, accessibility and amenities like the food. There were some small problems like availability of water and soft drinks and the small font size on badges. Mirjam shared that she was very happy with the work of the PC and appreciated all the preparation and coordination work they had put in before and during the meeting.

One issue had been the stenography, which was on a small screen and had also been very delayed at points due to a technical problem. The PC considered ways to make the stenography more visible but ultimately decided this was the best setup to also include remote speakers.

The PC discussed how there were a lot of attendees in the networking or coffee break areas even while sessions were ongoing. Some PC members felt this was fine so that the meeting rooms were not crowded, but others felt more could be accommodated in the rooms without issue. The PC asked the RIPE NCC to count the number of people in certain sessions to have a better idea of the distribution. This would help them determine what venue size would be suitable for future meetings.

One concern was that the photographer had been taking photos of people with yellow lanyards, including a speaker with one. Hisham said that according to the terms and conditions of RIPE Meeting attendance, presenters can be photographed, although the yellow lanyard should still be respected when not presenting. He clarified that the RIPE NCC would delete photos of attendees wearing this lanyard. The PC also discussed what new photos would be good for the photographer to take; one possibility would be to offer presenters a moment to pose for a photograph on stage. It was also advised that PC members get updated photos.

2. Meeting Programme and Planning

The PC members were generally happy with the programme. Some members suggested that speakers could still be more diverse, especially in terms of including more women, although this depended on who was submitting talks to begin with. It was suggested that PC members reach out to their networks to encourage more submissions. Some PC members also advised that the PC should be more mindful about presentation slides that were submitted and if they were appropriate.

The PC also considered whether there should be chairs for BoF sessions. Unstructured BoFs could work well, but some topics might lead to more heated discussions that would benefit from having a chair. The PC decided to keep chairs optional but to make sure to offer BoF organisers a chair for their sessions.

The PC discussed whether to continue labelling RACI submissions as such. This could make people question what RACI was, but this could be positive as the label helped to frame the talks. The PC felt it was best to keep the label and possibly link it to the RACI page.

3. Changes to Meeting Submission Process

The PC also discussed how to give feedback to rejected submissions to help submitters understand the reasons for the rejection and how to improve. One possibility was to include this information in the comments field of the meeting submission system. Some PC members were concerned about the extra time and effort this would take, but the group decided splitting this task up would be doable. The PC decided to try this out for the next meeting for at least the first round of submissions.

The PC considered how best to organise the meeting programme based on presenters’ availability. They discussed how to get this information from presenters. It was suggested to reach out to presenters while setting up the agenda to see if the schedule worked. The PC decided that the easiest option would be to ask presenters to include their availability in the submission comments and confirm it in the acceptance email. Marita said it would be possible to update the email template for this.

Phillip shared that the RIPE NCC’s Web Services team recommended pretalx for the new meeting submission system. The PC members had no objections, so Phillip shared that the team would set this up soon after this meeting. They planned to mirror it for the next meetings to check for any problems while continuing to use the old system for the next few regional meetings, RIPE 89 and RIPE 90. Marita was the product manager for this, and the PC members could reach out to her in the event of problems.