<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml; charset=utf-8"> </head> <body> <div style="font-family:sans-serif"><div style="white-space:normal"> On Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 10:14 AM Leo Vegoda <a href="mailto:leo@vegoda.org" style="color:#3983C4">leo@vegoda.org</a> wrote: </div><div style="white-space:normal"><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid #777; color:#777; margin:0 0 5px; padding-left:5px">Dear TF and RIPE Chair Team, Thank you all for a very interesting discussion earlier today. The action item we took away for us all to think over was the balance between the authority delegated to the team that performs the initial investigation in suggesting a consequence and oversight by people with broader responsibilities. Greater oversight at an earlier stage could reduce the options for escalation. In other words, what is the balance between judgement and process? </blockquote></div> <div style="white-space:normal"> I think it would be useful to think about the problem along other “axes” too, including: <ul> <li>oversight (as mentioned in the action item);</li> <li>context (RIPE meeting, webinar, mailing list, …);</li> <li>documentation (case dossier);</li> <li>communication/notification;</li> <li>limits on the severity of the immediate sanction;</li> <li>possibility of recommending additional sanctions;</li> <li>protection of the appeal process.</li> </ul> My suggestion is to avoid oversight, as I feel it is likely both to undermine the authority of the assessment team and to compromise the appeal process. Besides, as Brian has pointed out, it introduces the possibility of cronyism at a higher level of authority. I think the combination of (a) limiting the severity of sanction for which the assessment team has summary competence and (b) allowing them to recommend additional sanctions would allow both effective immediate intervention and a means to deal appropriately with more egregious offences. For example, for an incident at a RIPE meeting, the severity of the immediate sanction might be limited to exclusion from the remainder of the meeting. On the other hand, lifetime exclusion would be a sanction which the assessing team could only recommend. I haven’t thought about appropriate matching between the context of the incident and that of the applied sanction. In case of an incident on a mailing list, should the sanction extend beyond that mailing list? And conversely, for an incident at a RIPE meeting, should mailing-list access be restricted or even denied? In case it may be useful, and encouraged by Brian’s reference to Rugby, here are links to the current edition of the document I mentioned on Friday; the French edition, if you can read it, is clearer on some points. <a href="https://static.fie.org/uploads/26/131735-technical%20rules%20ang.pdf" style="color:#3983C4">https://static.fie.org/uploads/26/131735-technical%20rules%20ang.pdf</a> <a href="https://static.fie.org/uploads/26/131727-Technique%20fra.pdf" style="color:#3983C4">https://static.fie.org/uploads/26/131727-Technique%20fra.pdf</a> In particular, article t.137 makes clear the distinction between sanctions which a referee may impose immediately and those which they must recommend to a higher authority. I hope this helps a little. Niall </div></div> </body> </html>