[address-policy-wg] WG chair re-selection procedure

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