[ipv6-wg] Proposed procedure for ipv6 working group cochair selection process

All,

As mentioned earlier, I would like to write down our approach for
co-chair selection. This would help us to have an open and transparent
process to get a cochair appointed, but also help in the future for
other working groups as either an example or at the minimum that they
can use the same set of principles.

I believe that this request already has resulted in a quite bit useful
discussion on a few things that we should, or shouldn't do and many of
you mentioned that it would be useful if we don't wait too long as our
new charter would also be a good starting point for the appointment of
(an) additional cochair(s).

Below, I will summarize some of the key principles that I came away
with and my initial idea on how to start the process. Since these are
initial ideas, I very much welcome your input or if you would be
interested in volunteering to work out the text further.

At the same time, there doesn't seem to be much disagreement about the
first step of the process so I would like to start with that step
right away: an open call for candidates. 

I realize that there is a bit of risk involved on starting this before
we have agreed on the full process: however, there has been already
quite a bit discussion on the list on the general direction and I have
confidence in our community that we will be able to find a workable
solution along the way.

I will send a seperate mail with an official call for nominations.

David Kessens
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Date: Thu Jan 21 21:36:39 PST 2010

Draft Proposal on handling of chair position selection 
within the RIPE community


RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collaborative forum open to a
parties interested in wide area IP networks in Europe and beyond.

Work is carried out within a variety of working groups. Each of these
working groups has more than one co-chair.

The selection process for a chair position is deliberately left to the
working group, so that at any given time, the community is free to
select the organisational structure that best reflects the work they
want to do at that time.

Working group chairs are responsible for organizing the working groups
activities as defined in their charters. In addition, they are
required to participate in the policy making process to judge and
ensure that the RIPE policy making process has been properly followed
after new policy proposals have been accepted by a working group
(http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/pdp.html).

While the actual implementation of the chair position selection
process is on purpose not codified in any process document, it is
expected that such a process follows the same principles as outlined
in the RIPE policy development process:

   1. It is open to all and follows an established, bottom-up process
      of collaboration. Everyone interested in the well-being of the
      Internet may propose a policy and take part in the discussions that
      follow on from the proposal.
   2. It is transparent. All discussions and resulting actions are
      documented and freely available to all.
   3. Conclusions are reached by consensus.
   4. All policies are documented within RIPE Documents and placed
      in the RIPE Document Store

The same dispute resolution process as used for the policy development
applies to cochair selection process or results of the process.


The Process

As there is no standardized process for working group selection, this
section serves as an example only and describes on how the IPv6
working group is currently selecting its co-chairs.

The following is a proposal only and it has not been decided on how to
continue after the nomination step.

- Call for nominations of more than 7 days (self nominations being ok)

- During the same time period:
  1) The nominees are given a chance to determine whether they want
     to be considered or withdraw as they decided that there are other
     good candidates already available
  2) The community may express opinions that could help the
     candidates to come to a decision on whether they want to be
     continued to be considered as a candidate
     - the community may consider appointing more than one co-chair
       in case of several good candidates

- If the discussion period seems to result in a consensus decision, a
  last call of more than 7 days is issued
  
  or  

  - Each nominee writes a short statement to the WG Mailinglist
 
  - Election using single transferable vote
    (we need to figure out whether we can do this online or wheter this
     is better done at the meeting)

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