[diversity] Two Documents from the Code of Conduct Task Force

I will briefly reiterate my view that this process is unfair to the subject of a complaint and potentially a means of abuse in its own right.

This has not changed since the previous version, so I shall not elaborate in detail. However I shall summarise some key problems that the complaint subject may face.

The sanctions the CoC team are authorised to apply include those that would be devastating to the reputation and career of the accused, such as loss of office, publicly labelling them a racist or a sex attacker, or formally barring them from the RIPE community. It is therefore alarming to recognise:

* The CoC team are not required to even explain the nature or circumstances of the complaint to the accused person. This is both unfair to the accused, and undermines any potential the process has to act in a corrective, rather than punitive, fashion.

* The CoC team are not required to give the person who is the subject of the complaint an opportunity to explain themselves, or to deny, justify or excuse their actions, or to provide necessary context. This is inherently unfair and will undoubtedly lead to unjust and insupportable outcomes.

* The complaint may be made anonymously. In itself this is unfair to the subject, who may well be unable to understand or recognise the incident referred to without this information, and who certainly will be deprived of the opportunity to identify abusive and malicious complaints.

* The CoC team are not required to render a reasoned decision, only an outcome. So the accused may never know either what he was accused of, or what the CoC team believed or disbelieved.

* The process does not impose any duty of fair treatment, honesty impartiality or independence on the CoC investigators

* Because the complaint is made anonymously, and there is no duty of independence on the CoC team, the CoC team investigating a complaint and rendering a decision may include the person who raised the complaint, and without even realising this.

* The process does not adopt a standard of proof, and leaves the CoC team free to adopt a "guilty until proven innocent" standard - and in a context where the accused doesn't even have the opportunity to prove themselves innocent because they might never be consulted or even contacted before a final decision is rendered.

* The process does not adopt a standard for assessing the gravity of complaints, and leaves the CoC team free to adopt arbitrary standards and apply them inconsistently between one complaint and another.

These features alone make this process entirely unfair and inappropriate for a procedure that may have serious professional, social and reputational consequences for the person who is the subject of the complaint. I expect that with further study additional serious deficiencies could be identified. It reads like a procedure for a preliminary triage of less serious and informal complaints that will be resolved amicably, not for a process that could bar someone from the community and potentially end their career. 

I do not believe any person could feel "safe and included" in a community that applies such a process. I certainly do not.

My recommendation would be that this process is immediately rescinded, and RIPE NCC Legal are invited to draft a disciplinary process that upholds basic standards of fairness and due process, while seeking to apply the aspirations of the Code of Conduct. I would suggest that they take as guidance the objective of developing a process that would be lawful in the context of an HR disciplinary process for employees, when administered by community members. I recognise that this is not literally an employment process, and RIPE community members do not enjoy the legal rights of employees, but it is useful to have some kind of standard to apply and best not to try to reinvent the wheel; if there are particular features of employment protection that do not seem to RIPE Legal to be appropriate to apply in this context they should of course be free to disapply them. Once written, NCC Legal's proposal would then be remitted for consideration for adoption by this community.

Kind Regards,

Malcolm.

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-----Original Message-----
From: diversity <diversity-bounces at ripe.net> On Behalf Of Leo Vegoda
Sent: 13 September 2022 16:47
To: ripe-list at ripe.net
Cc: diversity at ripe.net
Subject: [diversity] Two Documents from the Code of Conduct Task Force

Dear RIPE community,

Earlier today, the Code of Conduct TF published two documents for the community's review.

We updated the document describing the Code of Conduct Team's operational procedures based on community input. We have also published a document describing a selection process for the Code of Conduct Team.

You can find a blog post summarising the changes and linking to the drafts here:

https://labs.ripe.net/author/leo_vegoda/two-documents-from-the-code-of-conduct-task-force/

Please review the documents and share feedback by the end of September.

Comments on any aspects of either document are welcome. We're particularly keen to get feedback on the term length for the Code of Conduct Team.

Kind regards,

Leo Vegoda for the Code of Conduct TF

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