[ripe-list] The NomCom Requests your Support

Hi Daniel, hi folks, 

writing this with my PC chair hat on. 

After giving everyone time to express their thoughts on the matter I
can confirm that we have consensus within the PC that the NomCom still
has our support. Jan, our liason member in the NomCom has kept us in
the loop and confirmed that the process which was agreed upon by the
RIPE community was followed. 

Yes, the process we designed has flaws, but we do not feel them to be
substantial enough to restart the process. The candidates themselves
seem to have the general support of the community and the flaws within
the process do not outweigh that in our opinion.

As the concerns per se are valid, we should make it a priority task to
the next RIPE (vice)chair to make sure this discussion takes place and
the policy is adapted so that the concerns get addressed. 

Best regards,
Franziska 

(RIPE PC Chair) 

On Mon, 2020-05-25 at 16:44 +0200, Daniel Karrenberg wrote:
> Dear Friends and Colleagues of the RIPE community,
> 
> If your feeling is something like "Oh no, not another long message
> from 
> the NomCom! I wish they would just get on with it." you do not need
> to 
> read further. It would certainly help us if you explicitly told us 
> briefly to "just get on with it".
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Daniel
> 
> ------------------
> 
>  From:
> 
> Daniel Karrenberg - Chair of the RIPE 2020 Nominating Committee.
> 
> 
> To:
> 
> Christian Kaufmann  - Chair of the RIPE NCC Executive Board,
> 
> Franziska Lichtblau - Chair of the RIPE Program Committee,
> 
> Hans Petter Holen   - RIPE Chair ad-interim & Chair of the RIPE WG 
> Chairs,
> 
> RIPE Community.
> 
> 
> Christian, Franziska, Hans Petter, Friends and Colleagues,
> 
> The process to select two persons to succeed Hans Petter Holen as
> RIPE 
> chair has been under way since September 2019. The NomCom has worked 
> diligently to run the process that has been agreed by the community
> and 
> codified in ripe-727 and ripe-728. We have called for nominees, 
> canvassed when we had only one nomination and received four further 
> nominations. We have dealt with the unforeseen withdrawal of Hans 
> Petter. We have recognised the increased urgency that Hans Petter's 
> resignation as RIPE Chair puts on the process by slightly tightening
> our 
> time line without compromising on running an exemplary process. We
> have 
> held three formal and two informal meetings, talked to the nominees
> by 
> teleconference and received substantial input about all nominees from
> a 
> diverse set of people in the community.  We have kept the community 
> informed by announcements on the RIPE mailing list, by providing a 
> dedicated blog, by publishing complementary material on RIPE Labs,
> by 
> reporting to the community plenary at RIPE80 and by talking about
> our 
> work whenever the opportunity presented itself.
> 
> Last week, during RIPE80, there were some calls from within the RIPE 
> community to stop this process and start over.  There also have been 
> suggestions to issue another call for nominations and then continue
> as 
> before. Since our mandate does not extend beyond executing the
> process 
> along an agreed time line we are extremely reluctant to deviate from 
> this unless we observe a clear and strong consensus in the community
> to 
> deviate for the sake of pragmatism.
> 
> We have discussed this extensively and decided against changing the 
> planned time line because we see no such consensus. We also
> considered 
> the consequences: Deviating from the plan at this time would put
> Hans 
> Petter into the difficult position of having to work a new and
> demanding 
> job next to filling the RIPE Chair ad interim role. This is too much
> to 
> ask of anyone even without taking into account the recent discussion
> on 
> ripe-chair-discuss. Hans Petter has told us that he accepted the 
> ad-interim role on the assumption that we will finish our work on
> time 
> and that he will likely have to resign if we take significantly
> longer 
> than planned.
> 
> Unfortunately during the RIPE 80 community plenary there has been no 
> discussion that provides further guidance to us. It is difficult for
> us 
> to assess whether this was due to the virtual format of the meeting, 
> widespread agreement with what we have done so far or any other
> reason. 
> We certainly expected those who had called for changes to the
> process 
> earlier during the week to speak up and a discussion to take place
> that 
> would provide further guidance for us. This has not happened.
> 
> We have therefore decided to briefly pause our process and not to
> start 
> candidate selection after RIPE 80 as originally planned. We have 
> continued with preparations but have not started discussing the
> nominees 
> among ourselves yet.
> 
> We ask the RIPE NCC Board, the PC, the WG Chairs and the community
> at 
> large to give us timely guidance on how to proceed. The question
> before 
> us is whether we still have the support of the community to continue 
> with the agreed process and time line or whether there is consensus
> in 
> the community that we should do something different. We need this 
> guidance now so that we can keep the delay in the time line as short
> as 
> possible.
> 
> We also ask the community as a whole to support us once we do
> proceed.
> 
> Daniel Karrenberg,
> Chair,
> RIPE 2020 Nominating Committee
>