[ripe-chair-discuss] The RIPE Chair Selection Process - v0.4

Esteemed colleagues,

Based on recent discussions about the RIPE Chair selection, Anna,
Mirjam, Hans Petter and I have been drafting language that will move us
forward. Below you find the first document that is ready enough for
discussion. It deals with the procedure and the time-line.

We are still working on the second document which will describe the
selection committee in detail. This will be modelled very closely on
the IETF NomCom as described in BCP10.

We feel that doing this in two steps is a logical split and will keep
the discussion both alive and somewhat focussed; drawing hope from the
way we got ripe-714 done on this list ;-).  Also we may want to re-use
the selection committee for other purposes in the future; in that case
it will be better to have it described in a separate document. Of course
we can only reach final consensus after discussing both documents.

We welcome comments and suggestions from all of you. It will help
greatly if you suggest concrete changes to the draft.

Thank you, in the name of all authors and participants on this list!

Daniel





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The RIPE Chair Selection Process

Hans Petter Holen
Mirjam Kuehne
Daniel Karrenberg
Anna Wilson

ripe-yyy

Version 0.4

March 2019



Scope

This document describes the selection
of the RIPE Chair and the RIPE Vice Chair.
The role of RIPE Chair is described in ripe-714.
The selection committee is described in ripe-xxx.


Background

The first Chair of RIPE, Rob Blokzijl, was selected informally.
The community did not establish a formal mechanism to select
a person for this role before the present time.
When Rob asked Hans Petter Holen to assume the role of RIPE Chair
he also suggested that RIPE should establish
a more formal selection procedure.
This document describes that procedure.
For details see Appendix G.


Principles

The following broad principles emerged from an extensive community
discussion:

A selection committee drawn from the community selects persons
for the role of RIPE Chair for a period of five years with a two term limit.
The selection committee is selected randomly from the community
volunteers and modelled roughly after the IETF NomCom.
There role of the RIPE Vice Chair should be re-established.
The persons selected for the roles of RIPE Chair and RIPE Vice Chair
must both be suitable for the role and have the support of the RIPE
Community.
For details about the community discussions see Appendix G.


RIPE Meeting

A RIPE Meeting is an event where Internet Service Providers (ISPs),
network operators and other interested parties gather
to discuss issues of interest to the Internet community.
This document assumes that there are two RIPE meetings each year.

The RIPE Chair

The role of RIPE Chair is described in ripe-714.
This document describes the selection of a person for that role.
We also describe the tasks of the current RIPE Chair in the process.


The RIPE Vice Chair

This document re-introduces the role of RIPE Vice Chair.
The purpose of that role is to provide continuity in
case the RIPE Chair resigns or is not able to perform their role.
The RIPE Chair may also delegate some of their duties
to the RIPE Vice Chair as described in ripe-714.


The RIPE Selection Committee

The RIPE Selection Committee (SelCom) selects persons for the
RIPE Chair and RIPE Vice Chair roles.
The selection committee consists of randomly selected
community volunteers.
The RIPE Selection Committee is described in ripe-xxx.


The Working Group Chairs Collective

In exceptional circumstances this document
calls on the RIPE working group chairs collective
whenever timely action or consultation is needed.


General Time-Line

The whole process takes roughly one year and two RIPE meetings.
First a call for nominations is issued and the selection committee
established.
Then the list of nominees willing to be selected is published
and the selection committee collects community input;
this phase should include one RIPE meeting in order to provide the
opportunity
for personal interactions with the selection committee.
We call this meeting the "consultation RIPE meeting".
After the consultation meeting the selection committee publishes their
selection.
Finally, the newly selected persons take on their role;
this happens at a RIPE meeting,
so that the community can confirm their support for the selected persons.


Eligibility and Term Limit

Any natural person is eligible for selection
unless they have already been selected twice for their current role.
It does not matter whether or not the terms are consecutive.

Term

The RIPE Chair and RIPE Vice Chair serve
until the RIPE meeting closest to
the fifth anniversary of taking on their role.


Nominations

Around the fourth anniversary of taking on their role the RIPE Chair starts
the new selection procedure by initiating the establishment  of the
selection committee,
making a call for nominations and setting a deadline for nominations
about eight weeks prior to the subsequent RIPE meeting,
the consultation RIPE meeting.

The SelCom checks the eligibility of the nominated persons,
confirms whether the nominated persons wish to serve
and publishes the list of nominees willing to serve
no later than 2 weeks prior to the consultation RIPE meeting.


Community Consultation

The SelCom actively solicits input from the entire community.
It does so as much as possible in an open and transparent manner while
adequately protecting personal information about the candidates.


Selection

The SelCom then selects one person to serve as RIPE Chair and
another person to serve as RIPE Vice Chair.
The SelCom announces their selections no later than two weeks prior
to the  following meeting, the transition RIPE meeting.


Transition

At the transition RIPE meeting the newly selected persons take on their
roles.


Continuity

In case the RIPE Chair resigns the RIPE Vice Chair takes on the role of
RIPE Chair and promptly initiates this selection procedure.
In case the RIPE Vice Chair is not available either,
the WG chairs collective selects a person to act as interim RIPE Chair and
initiates this selection procedure.

In case the RIPE Vice Chair resigns the RIPE Chair selects a person to
fill the role in consultation with the WG chairs collective.


Pragmatism

This document is a guideline that explicitly allows ad-hoc deviations
both for pragmatic reasons and in unforeseen circumstances
without having to change this document each time.
Any such deviations and the appropriate community involvement
should be clearly documented each time.


Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contributions and efforts
of everyone who participated in the community discussions
that form the basis on which we were able to build this document.
In particular Bijal Sanghani, Randy Bush, %%%% offered detailed
suggestions and comments.


Appendix A - About the Authors

Hans Petter Holen is a RIPE participant since RIPE30
and the present chairman of RIPE.
Rob Blokzijl asked him to ensure that the community establishes the
procedure described here.

Mirjam Kuehne is a RIPE participant since RIPE29
and a member of the RIPE NCC staff.
She took on the task of supporting the community and Hans Petter in this
effort.

Daniel Karrenberg is one of the RIPE founders
and a member of the RIPE NCC staff.
He took on the job of editing this document
and writing the bulk of the text.

Anna Wilson is a RIPE participant since RIPE31.
She has led several fairly  intense community discussions
about this procedure.


Appendix G - Document Genesis

In 2014, during the closing plenary at RIPE 68, Rob Blokzijl announced
that he would be stepping down as RIPE Chair and handing the role over
to the current chair, Hans Petter Holen.

This decision was well supported by the RIPE community. However, it was
clear that the process for selecting a future RIPE Chair should be open,
transparent and endorsed by the RIPE community as a whole. At the time
of the handover, Rob urged the community to establish such a process
under its new chair.

In 2016, Hans Petter started the discussion by publishing an article on
RIPE Labs:

https://labs.ripe.net/Members/hans_petter_holen/draft-ripe-chair-election-procedure

At the same time an open discussion mailing list was set up:
https://www.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-chair-discuss/

At RIPE 76 in May 2018, Anna Wilson (HEANET, Ireland) led a community
discussion (https://ripe76.ripe.net/archives/video/155/) to gather input
on the elements that form the basis of a proposal which was published on
RIPE Labs in July 2018:

https://labs.ripe.net/Members/mirjam/proposal-for-a-ripe-chair-selection-process

Based on the discussion on the ripe-chair-discuss mailing list, another
RIPE Labs article was published documenting the consensus at the time:

https://labs.ripe.net/Members/mirjam/ripe-chair-selection-process

After that more people shared their input on the mailing list which led
to another face-to-face discussion, again led by Anna Wilson during the
closing plenary at RIPE 77 in October 2018
(https://ripe77.ripe.net/archives/video/2329/).

During that meeting it was decided to first establish consensus on
a description of the role of the RIPE Chair. This has been published
as ripe-714: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-714