[coc-tf] Draft Minutes - Code of Conduct TF: Fifth Call

Dear TF members,

Sorry for the delay here. Below are the mintes from our last call.

As always, corrections welcome.

Cheers

Ant

***

*Draft Minutes - Code of Conduct TF: **Fifth**Call
**4****December 2020**, 1**6**:30-1**7**:30 (UTC+1)*

*Present:
*Denesh Bhabuta, Athina Fragkouli, Antony Gollan, Brian Nisbet, Leo 
Vegoda, Salam Yamout


*Summary:*
The TF reviewed feedback from the Trusted Contacts on the reports it has 
received. The group noted that the CoC should make it clear that 
discussion/mediation was the ideal outcome. At the same time, the 
community needed something for cases where this wouldn’t be enough. The 
group agreed that data handling information should be covered in the CoC 
documents rather than referenced separately. The group discussed 
feedback from the RIPE Chair Team on the role of a future CoC Team 
within RIPE NCC Executive Board Elections. This is not an absolute 
requirement and it might be that another group performs this role. There 
was some discussion on scope, and it was noted that this would always be 
a complicated issue in terms of corner cases. The TF agreed to review 
and make comments on the draft first document, and to then decide 
whether this was ready to share with the community.


*1.**Minutes*

**

The draft minutes from the previous call were accepted without changes.

*2.**Agenda*

**

Leo noted that he had updated the agenda slightly from what he had sent 
to the list. There were no further changes suggested by the group.

*3.**Actions *

**

-*RIPE NCC to request statistical information from trusted contacts*

**

Antony shared some statistics with the group, sorted by year. In total, 
the Trusted Contacts had received eight reports since 2018; all relating 
to behaviour during RIPE Meetings. Of these, three involved mailing list 
behaviour, three involved offensive comments at RIPE Meetings, one 
involved social media content, and one involved behaviour alongside the 
meeting venue.

Antony said there was no formal record-keeping (mainly due to privacy 
concerns) and so things became hazy further back than this. He 
referenced a couple of other cases he knew of. He noted that this 
excluded one person who had recently caused a lot of disruption on the 
mailing lists for an extended period.

In terms of estimated workload, the Trusted Contacts had said this was 
difficult to answer. This was because their role was different from what 
they hoped the role of a future CoC Team would be. The current Trusted 
Contacts had received training on how to comfort people who were in 
distress and were there to provide advice. They did not conduct 
investigations or perform interviews, which was something they thought 
the CoC Team would probably do. The Trusted Contacts had also noted a 
lack of clarity around roles often made things complicated – it was 
sometimes unclear if it was the Trusted Contacts, WG Chairs, or other 
parties who should be responsible for dealing with inappropriate behaviour.

Leo said one thing that came through clearly was that there was a 
distinction between formal and informal reports. This was something they 
might want to look at later in the process when they considered things 
like record-keeping and tools.

Athina said this also highlighted a lack of structure around the CoC, as 
the Trusted Contacts didn’t have something to base their actions on. 
This was something that could be addressed. Another thing she noticed 
was that in some cases there had been a discussion as a result of the 
report. She thought this was a good solution. The CoC Team didn’t have 
to default to a legalistic approach; it could also be a mediator and 
seek to resolve misunderstandings by bringing people together.

Denesh agreed with Athina and related back to his point from an earlier 
call – if they were going to be prescriptive, they would have to be 
careful to define the terms they used. Terms like “acceptable behaviour” 
and “respect” could be subjective depending on someone’s background.

Brian said any CoC Team should seek to mediate first. This was the core 
piece and they needed to this make clear to the community. In many 
cases, people could talk with one another and reach an agreement. But 
the other side was that they were also seeking something that went 
beyond mediation, for cases where this was needed. He added that they 
needed to be careful with the cultural element, because people could 
often use this as an excuse, and there was a line.

Salam said she agreed with these comments. She wanted to differentiate 
between the CoC, which could address elements of what Athina had spoken 
about, and other awareness or educational efforts that were separate 
from the CoC but could promote understanding around what good behaviour 
was. She wasn’t sure if this was something for the Diversity TF or the 
CoC TF to look at.

Salam said she wanted to know more about how much time it was taking the 
Trusted Contacts to serve in their roles right now.

Antony said he understood this was what they were after and had 
approached the Trusted Contacts with this in mind. However, they had 
found it hard to give an answer – as it could vary depending on the 
cases that were reported. He said he could go back to them again. He 
noted that much of this was also based on recollection.

*Action: RIPE NCC to request more detail from the Trusted Contacts on 
workload.*

Leo said it might be fair to say the workload would be highly variable.

Athina said they saw this with the RIPE NCC Arbiters Panel – some years 
they had relatively few cases while in others there were a lot. 
Individual cases could also vary in terms of how much work was required. 
It was difficult to predict.

-*TF members to review document and provide comments on structure*

Leo said everyone had looked at this and made comments, so they could 
mark it as complete.

-*Leo to put together initial text regarding record-keeping*

**

Leo said he had put together some text on record-keeping. He had also 
changed the structure of the document into three parts: 1) the CoC 
itself, 2) process, 3) everything else.

Salam asked if this covered data and record-keeping – this could be a 
document in itself.

Leo said he wasn’t sure if this should be a RIPE Document or a RIPE NCC 
procedural document. He had wanted to get this down early, because it 
mentioned controls and tools and he thought they had a responsibility to 
give the RIPE NCC as much notice as possible, so it could do some 
thinking. It would be good to know that the RIPE NCC could look at this 
closely and identify the controls it thought were necessary along with 
the tools it proposed they use.

Salam asked if the TF would produce three documents or four, and whether 
the CoC would link to this process information.

Leo said there would be three documents. The first would be the CoC 
itself. The second would be the CoC Team – how it was recruited, how big 
it would be, and so on. The third document would cover how to make a 
report and how reports were handled.

Salam suggested a fourth document on how the data was handled. She 
thought this information should be there but didn’t think it should be 
in the CoC itself.

Brian said he disagreed. The data aspects were spread throughout the 
process document and there would be many places where this came up. If 
they had this in a separate document, people might interpret it as 
simply another GDPR statement and their eyes would glaze over.

Salam said she was fine with having this in the process document, she 
just didn’t want it in the main CoC document.

Denesh asked if all of the information about data handling should be in 
a central RIPE NCC procedural document. That way anything about data 
handling in the process document could simply point there.

Athina said if data was kept for specific CoC-related purposes, it made 
sense for it to be in the CoC documents. The important part about 
personal data was the purpose – there was not a unified way of handling 
data.

Denesh said he was thinking if there was a company-wide document, they 
could say: “This follows the RIPE NCC’s general GDPR principles, which 
you can find here.” He imagined they could have a single document with 
all of these different purposes. That depended on how the RIPE NCC 
wanted to handle things, of course.

Athina said they had their privacy statement for RIPE NCC services, 
which followed this logic. However, as the CoC would sit outside of 
this, she thought it needed to be separate. And while the principles 
were always the same, they were obliged to repeat them every time.

-*Leo to ask for RIPE Chair Team’s perspective on CoC/RIPE NCC board 
elections. *

Leo said he could report back on this, as he and Denesh had recently met 
with the RIPE Chair Team. He also noted that other TF members were 
welcome to join future calls if they wished.

Regarding the issue of the RIPE CoC and RIPE NCC Executive Board 
elections, the view of the RIPE Chair team was similar to what Athina 
had said on their last call: the RIPE NCC Executive Board would use 
their CoC for its elections, but this would be a separate 
implementation. There was no requirement that the CoC Team had to play a 
role in this.

Brian said this was great. He asked if they could therefore say that the 
RIPE CoC Team would definitely not be used in board elections.

Denesh said he thought they had agreed (on their call with the RIPE 
Chair Team) that it would in fact be a separate team for this.

Leo said they should make sure to communicate this clearly when they 
published their draft, as it appeared to be something that some people 
in the community found concerning.

Athina said they had a board meeting next week, and these concerns would 
be discussed there. What was currently on the table was to have a CoC 
for the board elections (nothing more), and the evaluation of possible 
violations would be done either by the Trusted Contacts or another third 
party that was agreed-upon before the election process began. Perhaps 
the CoC Team might feel confident performing this role in the future, so 
she wondered if it was better to leave this open.

Leo asked if they needed to decide this now. He wondered if they might 
end up with a similar situation to what they had with the NRO NC / ASO 
AC where you had the same group of people in separate but overlapping roles.

Brian said what he wanted to avoid was people who were discouraged from 
joining the CoC Team because they want to stay out of RIPE NCC politics. 
He wanted them to be clear that this was a group for the RIPE community. 
If the board later created a group ahead of its election, perhaps the 
same people might volunteer to join that as well. Perhaps in the future 
they would end up with a situation where the RIPE NCC needed a handful 
of people for this role, and there were enough people on the CoC Team 
willing to step forward, and this became more established over time.

Salam agreed with Brian’s point.

Leo said they would make sure it was clear in their communication that 
these were separate implementations. So, the same people might volunteer 
to join the board’s process, but it would be separate from the community’s.

Brian said he was fine with that approach for now. If they got some 
pushback from community, they might want to take a more explicit step.

Leo said the other thing they had discussed was that they were heading 
into December and might need to think about communication with the 
community. The RIPE Chair Team was also concerned that the TF would blur 
the documents together and so he had updated their draft to clearly mark 
the three separate documents. He asked the TF to think about how much 
progress they could make and whether they could share something with the 
community before the end of the year – either they could share a rough 
draft along with some leading questions, or they could say that they now 
expected their first draft to be ready in January.

Brian said he thought the first document (the CoC itself) was in pretty 
good shape. Certainly, it was enough to share with the community to show 
where they were. One change he wanted to see was on the list of 
unacceptable behaviour – he thought this could be a bulleted list 
instead of a paragraph as it currently was.

Athina liked Brian’s suggestion. One thing she wanted more clarity on 
was the scope. She expected questions on whether ENOG/MENOG were 
covered, or RIPE NCC General Meetings. The same with social media – did 
the CoC apply only if a discussion took place under a RIPE NCC account, 
or was it by topic? She thought this could use some clarity.

Denesh said one of his comments in the document was that it should cover 
everything related to the RIPE community or the RIPE NCC, and so social 
media was very much a part of it.

Leo said they he wondered if they could have both the RIPE CoC and the 
RIPE NCC could have its own for the non-RIPE events that it organised. 
If ENOG was part of RIPE, then the community’s CoC would apply. If it 
wasn’t, then the RIPE NCC’s CoC could have this as a separate 
implementation (based on the community’s CoC). The CoC could end up 
being a best practice document that was picked up by other groups, such 
as NOGs.

Athina asked about corner cases. She asked what happened if two 
attendees ran into trouble at an ARIN Meeting and tried to invoke the 
RIPE CoC.

Brian said every CoC he had ever seen would say this was out of scope. 
In some cases, they explicitly stated that this only applied to events 
they were organising. In his own experience, there were cases where they 
organised events within larger events for PR. Here, they explicitly 
stated that the wider event’s CoC applied instead of their own. This was 
especially important as their own CoC Team wouldn’t be present.

Salam said when she reviewed the document, she thought it applied to 
people present at RIPE Meetings and related activities, as well as 
mailing lists. Maybe they could include social media, but that was it. 
She didn’t see what the issue was here.

Athina said that might have been a bad example. She asked what happened 
if people got into a very heated discussion in a bar near the RIPE 
Meeting venue.

Salam said they also had to look at existing behaviour. These people 
were bound together at a time and place due to the RIPE Meeting, but 
they would often go to a bar across the street. She asked if they needed 
to worry about this.

Athina said it might be good to have some examples. She offered to come 
up with a list.

Brian said there would be a lot of corner cases and they would never 
answer them all. This was where the emphasis on mediation role of the 
CoC Team would be important. If two people had an argument in a bar, it 
would probably not end there and might enter the meeting. This is where 
the CoC Team could help, and it might become a conversation. The 
question of whether they CoC Team would then ban one of them from 
attending the meeting might depend on the guidelines they set for the 
community.

Antony noted that the previous version had used a lot of inconsistent 
language in terms of “attendees” and “participants” who were “at” the 
RIPE Meeting – but the CoC obviously applied in a much wider sense, as 
it also applied to mailing lists and so there was not really a clear 
start or end.

Leo said they were trying to reach an agreement on what they meant. They 
would then rely on him to help them with the wording and make that 
clear. Their charter was for everything RIPE-related – including things 
like webinars, Mattermost servers, and so on. They wouldn’t get it right 
the first time, and the CoC would likely need to be updated as people 
and society changed over time. But they should not let the pursuit of 
perfection stand in the way and if they produced something that was 
better than what they had now – then they had achieved some measure of 
success.

Leo also referred Athina to the questions document they had looked at 
earlier in the process, which covered some of her points around scope. 
He encouraged her to make comments or pose additional questions there, 
as it would be easier if this was all in one place.

*Action: RIPE NCC to provide some examples of corner cases.*

**

Salam asked if Leo could update the table of contents for the draft to 
match the new structure of the document.

Leo noted that Brian had already said he thought the document was in 
pretty good shape. He suggested they work on the document online and 
make any changes or comments, and discuss on the mailing list when they 
wanted to send this to Antony to turn into a draft they could work on 
together. He asked the group to do this by next Friday and then on 
Monday they could have a mailing list discussion on what they wanted to 
do. He thought they could then decide “go/no-go” at their next meeting.

*Action: TF members to review CoC doc and propose changes. *

*4.**AOB*

The group agreed to have its next meeting on Thursday, 17 December at 
16:30 (UTC+1).

Leo said he would prepare a draft update for the community.

Brian said he thought they would know if their document was ready to 
share with the community in about a week’s time. He thought they had 
some flexibility in Europe around when people would start shutting down 
for Christmas. His feeling was that around 15 or 16 December would be an 
okay time to share an update.

*Action: Leo to draft an update for the community *

*5.**Review Actions*

*Action: RIPE NCC to request more detail from the Trusted Contacts on 
workload.*

**

*Action: Athina to provide some examples of corner cases.*

**

*Action: TF members to review CoC doc and propose changes.*

**

*Action: Leo to draft an update for the community.*

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </ripe/mail/archives/coc-tf/attachments/20201215/7ed0968d/attachment-0001.html>