[ripe-list] New Draft RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP) document - for your review

Hi Jordi,

> neither RIPE chairs or WG chairs must be or have a different treatment vs
the rest of the community

I think it is pretty well known that this is false, the RIPE chair is
treated differently as they chair the meetings and as far I know the RIPE
chair can also invite someone to RIPE meetings/remove their ticket cost.
(not entirely certain on the last part, sorry if I got it wrong)

-Cynthia

On Thu, Nov 25, 2021 at 10:34 AM JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via ripe-list <
ripe-list at ripe.net> wrote:

> Hi Mirjam, all,
>
> Firstly, I can't agree with how this update to the PDP is being managed.
> The PDP is updated by the PDP as a policy proposal and it should follow
> exactly the same process. Is not only because this is the way the other
> RIRs do, but because we already did that not long time ago:
> https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2018-04
>
> We can't approve a PDP change not following the PDP process, otherwise, we
> set a terrible precedent of an exception with will be an illegal act
> against our own laws (understanding the PDP as our law) and highly
> discriminatory (neither RIPE chairs or WG chairs must be or have a
> different treatment vs the rest of the community).
>
> In addition to that, here are my observations:
>
> 1) We discussed this already a few times in the past. It is abnormal that
> the PDP is considered as a RIPE Chair "authored" document. Again, it is
> discriminatory and no sense. It is just one more document in our policy
> set, actually the one on top of all them, and all them belong to the
> community and are authored by the community.
>
> 2) Actually, related to that, there is something that I've already
> discussed with Hans Petter (when he was RIPE Chair), Marco (when he was the
> PDO) and other folks several times, but this is the opportunity to take an
> action, if we decide to update the PDP. Policies *are community documents*,
> they should not have the authors names. Authors work on that to voluntarily
> support the community. I understand that during the discussion the name is
> visible in the web pages for the policy proposal and then in the archives,
> etc., but they must not be part of the final policy text, unless we want to
> do like in IETF, where we have an ack section, to recognize all the
> discussion participants, not just the authors. So consequently, we should
> have some clear text about that in the PDP update,  and we must remove all
> those mentions in the actual documents (option 1). Otherwise, all the
> document should include the authors (option 2). Because it is
> discriminatory that a few documents have author names and not all them.
> Note that my personal preference is option 1.
>
> 3) I strongly disagree that we should have this text "This document deals
> solely with policy. Everything else, such as RIPE NCC business practices,
> procedures and operations is out of scope.". The first sentence is wrong,
> as the PDP, as demonstrated previously, also deals with PDP changes. The
> PDP is the only way the community has to deal with documents and reach
> consensus on them before being published. There are documents which aren't
> policy but also follow the PDP. The second part is a big mistake. The only
> way the community has to influence how the NCC implements policies, if
> something goes wrong, is the policy making process. Otherwise, the
> membership (which is a small fraction of the community) decides to ignore
> the community (ignoring policies), we are just lost. Yes, there is a
> similar text in the actual PDP, but it is just wrong, we should work to
> remove it.
>
> 4) The text about the "idea" is wrong and untrue. Past experience doesn't
> show that. There have been many policy proposals that didn't followed that
> process and they are actual policies. The PDP is a set of rules, strict
> rules of a process, not "rules and suggestions". We can't mix rules and
> suggestions in a formal PDP text.
>
> 5) I strongly disagree with the removal of the text that clarify what are
> "policies". We agreed long time ago that we should work on BCPs,
> guidelines, etc. If we remove that then those documents lose their
> umbrella. I will agree to reword it, but not removing it.
>
> 6) There is another big chunk of text that has been removed, and it is
> about the open/bottom-up transparent process. I understand that it has been
> reworded, but there are some keyworks that are now missing which are key.
>
> 7) "After preliminary discussion of the idea", is broken. Because it is
> not mandatory to have a preliminary "idea". We have discussed this already
> many times. There is no need for a discussion before a formal proposal,
> neither the chairs have any discriminatory authority to reject a proposal,
> if it is in the scope of the WG. And in case it is not in scope of any WG,
> must come to the plenary (difficult to be in that case, but it must be
> clear).
>
> 8) Across the text you use "proposer" as this was the wording in the
> original PDP. I suggest that we have a foot note or similar alternative way
> to indicate the first time the term is used that the proposer is one or a
> set of authors, just for clarity. Not everybody is used to the PDP and if
> they read it, they should be able to quickly understand that author(s) and
> proposer(s) is the same.
>
> 9) Regarding "Clearly and concisely formulate the problem statement and
> the intended result", is not good, because sometime we need policies to
> improve and existing one, the problem statement then is not so obvious for
> all (not the same "degree" of understanding the need for a solution), or we
> need to clarify text because the wording can be misinterpreted. I will
> instead use something like "Clearly and concisely formulate the problem
> statement, opportunity for improvement, or required clarification and the
> intended result".
>
> 10) I think we should take the opportunity to define the discussion and
> review time as a fixed one, not something like "at least four weeks". If
> the community believe that a proposal needs more discussion, it can be
> discussed later among authors/chairs/community, but the initial discussion
> phase should be the same for all the proposals and not (again), create
> "up-front" discriminations.
>
> 11) I think we are missing (even in the actual PDP) that a policy may be
> "abandoned" when authors become irresponsible (they don't react to the
> requests for a new version, etc.). In some other languages, withdrawn and
> abandoned is not the same, and consequently many folks, non-native English,
> may have difficulties to differentiate it.
>
> 12) I don't agree that the co-chairs are the only responsible of
> withdrawing a proposal, it shall be done with the agreement of the authors.
> Chairs may perceive that a new version can't make progress, and of course
> they may be wrong. Also, if this is not accepted, authors can just send a
> new proposal with the new version (and this can't be avoided), and chairs
> are there only to manage the discussion and help the community to determine
> consensus, but nothing else.
>
> 13)  We had a long discussion about the appeals process and now it seems
> that we have forgot about most of it. I strongly oppose to this, also
> because you have clearly discriminated me, according to the actual PDP and
> you haven't proceeded with my appeals proposal. Where in the actual PDP say
> that you can just ignore a proposal ???? I radically disagree that the
> appeal is handled by the WGCC. The community must decide about how to
> handle that with an independent set of people. Our first appeal
> demonstrated that: some WG chairs that have disagreed with the proposal
> under appeal were taking part on the WGCC discussion. How come that can be
> considered neutral and transparent?
>
> 14) Section 5 shows to me at least, a big theater, really ugly. How come,
> we can use something different to change the PDP? How come we can *already*
> use that procedure to amend the PDP *before* it has been approved? How
> come, the community can appeal then the RIPE Chair(s) decision? No way!
>
>
> Regards,
> Jordi
> @jordipalet
>
>
>
> El 28/10/21 14:16, "ripe-list en nombre de Mirjam Kuehne" <
> ripe-list-bounces at ripe.net en nombre de mir at zu-hause.nl> escribió:
>
>     Dear colleagues,
>
>     The RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP) was last updated in 2018.
> With
>     experience from the first appeal and some other suggested improvements
>     to the process, we felt it was time to work on a new version.
>
>     The draft version can be found here:
>
> https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/policy-development-process-in-ripe
>
>     Please send any feedback, questions or suggestions to this list. We
> will
>     also reserve some time during the RIPE 83 Community Plenary for this
>     topic. We will then issue a last call for consensus after RIPE 83.
>
>     Here is a list of the most significant changes:
>
>     - We shortened the introduction to clarify that this document deals
> with
>     policy only.
>
>     - We added a section prior to going into details about the formal
> process:
>     It strongly suggests that an idea for a new policy or a change in
> policy
>     is first discussed on the relevant mailing list before it enters the
>     formal PDP. This can potentially save the proposer and the community a
>     lot of time and can lead to a better result in the end.
>
>     - We clarified that the relevant WG chairs need to summarize the state
>     of the discussion after each phase. This will make clear what the state
>     of the discussion is and if community members are required to restate
>     their position.
>
>     - We clarified the appeals process, especially who should recuse
>     themselves, and we added clear deadlines and responsibilities.
>
>     - We added a section 5. that describes how the PDP is changed (by
>     community consensus).
>
>     - In the Policy Proposal Template in Appendix B we added a point 11.a.:
>     Motivation for the proposal.
>
>     - We made a number of editorial changes in places where it was not
> clear
>     who is tasked to do what on which list (e.g. the WG chairs or the RIPE
>     NCC Policy Officer).
>
>     For reference, here is the current version of the PDP:
>     https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-710
>
>     Kind regards,
>     Mirjam & Niall
>     RIPE Chair Team
>
>
>
>
>
>
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