[diversity] On the RIPE community CoC

Sasha,

First off, thanks for this email, but also I'm sorry you had to write it. This response is partially on my own behalf (the bit at the beginning) and part of it is on behalf of the wider TF, based on conversations in Amsterdam and more recently.

From a personal point of view, as a human, a RIPE Community Member and a WG Chair, I'm very sorry that this has happened, both the incident and the experience reporting. It's good that Hans Petter will take action now, but obviously it would be better if such a prompt wasn't needed and the process was greatly improved. I think it very much shows that the point of evolution we've reached with the CoC, which is an evolution from where it was, it not close to far enough.

Now, moving away from the purely personal to respond more on behalf of the TF (which is a nebulous beast, but still...):

I do know, not that it helps you or reduces the issues you and possibly others have had with the process, that there have been some issues reported that have worked through the system in a far "better" fashion. I say this not to minimise your experience or the problems, rather to say that the failure is not total across the board. However it does highlight that there is far, far too high a risk of failure for a number of reasons, not limited to individual reactions and a range of other points that you've raised. Again, this is a point of note, nothing more.

Now for the concrete actions and points!

My notes from what the TF agreed in Amsterdam are:

RIPE CoC:
- Trusted Contacts received training from Hubert Consult, Vesna to send the details to the list
- Need to review and improve at this point in time
- Especially in regards to the procedure around dealing with reports and who can take the action to remove someone from the meeting?
- Sasha has a template for a possible changes to/rewrite of the CoC
- Sasha will send an email to the list with the JangoCon Europe information and we can file off the relevant serial numbers
- TF to consider how to make updating the CoC and associated procedures easier
- Brian & Shane to inform the PC and WG Chairs that this work is ongoing

So I think the TF is already agreed on a lot of what you've said, we just need to get going on it. 

It feels wrong at this point to put the work of the template and the communications with JangoCon back on you, but we do also want to find the best material for the CoC. Perhaps the Write the Docs CoC might be a better starting point at this time? Certainly I would be very happy to work on adapting this with you or others, but there's no question it is already an agreed action of the TF and we've flagged it to the PC and the WG Chairs.

Importantly in this will be consequences for violations, something which is clearly missing at present.

I think that we, as a TF, can ask the Trusted Contacts now and in the future to prepare a report after each meeting, which would, at a suitable level of obfuscation, given information on reports made. It's possible this can also encompass reports made between meetings or based on other RIPE community events or for a, that's something we can determine.

The TF will also (and again, I don't think I'm deviating hugely from our decisions in Amsterdam or more recent conversations) work with the WG Chairs and the RIPE Chair to have CoC related text included in the WG Chairs job description and work with the NCC to provide training for them in regards to upholding the improved CoC. I think we need to look at how we can do the same for the Programme Committee.

I hope this is useful to you, but obviously your input (and everyone else's!) is vital in pushing this forward in the right way for the community. Amanda is going to take a look at arranging a TF VC soon to discuss this further in real time and I'm very much hoping you can join that call.

Thanks,

Brian

Brian Nisbet 
Service Operations Manager
HEAnet CLG, Ireland's National Education and Research Network
1st Floor, 5 George's Dock, IFSC, Dublin D01 X8N7, Ireland
+35316609040 brian.nisbet at heanet.ie www.heanet.ie
Registered in Ireland, No. 275301. CRA No. 20036270

> -----Original Message-----
> From: diversity <diversity-bounces at ripe.net> On Behalf Of Sasha Romijn
> Sent: Monday 11 February 2019 16:53
> To: diversity at ripe.net
> Subject: [diversity] On the RIPE community CoC
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> At the last RIPE meeting, we talked about our Code of Conduct. I offered to
> send a good example. I’ve since also actually reported a CoC incident in the
> RIPE community, and want to share some thoughts on that experience.
> 
> Sending a CoC example took some time, as I’ve been refactoring and
> improving the CoC for the Write the Docs community. Our new CoC is:
> http://www.writethedocs.org/code-of-conduct/
> http://www.writethedocs.org/code-of-conduct-response/
> And these are the most significant changes:
> http://www.writethedocs.org/blog/new-community-coc-2019/
> I’m happy to further explain the decisions behind it, if you have any
> questions.
> 
> I will not share the full details of the incident I reported in the RIPE
> community, because I prefer not to be identified as the reporter. About four
> months have passed since my report, and I have not received any reply from
> the wg chairs or the RIPE chair, who are the designated contacts, other than
> two notes that it was being worked on. I initially reported to the relevant
> working group chairs, and then escalated to the RIPE chair, as documented in
> the RIPE community CoC. To my knowledge, no action has been taken.
> 
> My general impression is that none of the people listed as CoC contacts in
> any part of the RIPE community are able to effectively take action on a CoC
> incident. Either because this is explicitly not part of their task (trusted
> contacts) or, I suspect, they lack any kind of resources or possibly time to
> handle an incident. That is *not* a failure on the part of any of these people
> individually, but rather caused by a flawed and mostly absent process and
> mandate to act.
> 
> In addition, confidentiality of CoC reports is violated in every single report.
> Both wg chair mailing lists and the trusted contacts address are moderated by
> NCC staff, which means an unknown person(s) can also see the report, and
> reporters are not made aware of this in advance. This can have severe
> consequences, and makes reporting unsafe. The RIPE chair doesn’t seem to
> have any publicly listed contact address at all.
> 
> Personally I feel that the ability of the RIPE community to handle a CoC
> incident is so abysmal, that we would be better off not publishing one at all,
> as we are now creating a false sense of security.
> 
> I should also note that this was a fairly minor incident, pretty much the most
> trivial kind of incident a CoC contact has to deal with. The consequences of
> the lack of ability to respond properly could be very severe in case of a more
> serious incident - which have taken place in the RIPE community as well.
> 
> The updated Code of Conduct for Write the Docs, along with our response
> guide, handles many of these concerns specifically, so I suggest you have a
> look at it, and see how it can be adopted for the RIPE community. However,
> in order to have an effective CoC process, it will also require setting up one or
> more response teams, which can be contacted privately, with publicly listed
> membership, and most importantly, a mandate to act. Including, if needed,
> immediate removal of a community member, including those in a position of
> power.
> From my personal experience, this is a quite rare measure, but it needs to be
> on the table for the CoC to be effective.
> 
> I’m not sure what the process would be to continue with this, or how others
> feel - I’m curious to hear your ideas. But the apparent fact that the RIPE
> community is currently unable to handle even the most trivial CoC reports,
> makes it inherently unsafe.
> 
> Sasha
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