[ripe-list] RIPE Community session on proposed revised PDP - Minutes and draft version 2

Hi Mirjam, all,

See my responses below in-line.

Regards,
Jordi
@jordipalet
 
 

El 16/2/22 14:45, "ripe-list en nombre de Mirjam Kuehne" <ripe-list-bounces at ripe.net en nombre de mir at zu-hause.nl> escribió:


    Dear colleagues,

    On 26 January we held an online meeting to gather feedback about the
    revised Policy Development Process (PDP). The recordings, minutes and
    slides can be found here:

    https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/ripe-community-plenary/minutes/revised-pdp-workshop/

    Below you can find a short summary of the main points discussed at the
    meeting. Based on this feedback we adjusted the draft document and
    created a new red-lined version:

    https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/policy-development-process-in-ripe-v2

    Please review the changes carefully and provide any additional feedback
    before 16 March 2022.

    Kind regards,
    Mirjam Kühne
    ============

    Meeting Summary:
    The overall sentiment was to rely on community consensus and common
    sense as much as possible and to keep formalism at a minimum.

    1. Author and Ownership of the Document

    There was general agreement to make a distinction between the author and
    owner of the PDP: the community should be listed as owner of the PDP and
    the RIPE Chair as the author of the document. [1]

[Jordi] Well, I don't think we can talk about "general agreement" while some people still disagree with valid objections. Moreover, I don't think my point was correctly taken in the minutes. What I'm saying is that all the RIPE community documents have authors. Actually, I will say that the initial authors become editors ASAP the doc is released to the community for discussion and the goal of the authors (now editors), is to capture the inputs from the community so to be able to reach consensus.

I agree that all the documents must cite the original authors for archive and history tracking purposes. What I disagree is that the authors are named as an ack in the final document, unless we do that for *all the documents* so they don't become discriminatory towards some authors. For example: If you look at different policies, some authors made sure that their names are in the policy text, some others not. My personal perspective on this is that once a document reach consensus, because it is a community work, authors should not be part of the text of the policy. Again, they are still visible in the "proposal web page", but not in the final "policy web page" (or the PDF, etc.).

If we decide that the original authors should be in the final policy text, then it should be the same for *ALL*, not some yes, some not. Something like the ack section as we do in IETF docs, etc.

A couple of examples of this for both cases, looking at the latest document discussed, and not trying to "accuse" anyone about that, it is just something we have done wrong, and we shall correct from now on:

Documents that don't mentions authors:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-738 vs the latest proposal for this doc (where authors are cited) https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2019-06

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-733 vs the latest proposal for this doc (where authors are cited) https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2019-05 and https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2019-02

Documents that mention authors explicitly:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-731 vs the latest proposal for this doc (where authors are cited) https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2018-06.

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-705 vs the latest proposal for this doc (where authors are cited) https://www.ripe.net/participate/policies/proposals/2017-02

Now, saying the PDP that the Chair is the formal author is wrong, because that is like saying that only the Chair can work on that. This is a discrimination and we have already seen that, so this is an objective fact. When I summited a proposal for addressing changes in the appeal, my proposal was ignored, so a clear lawful discrimination (at least for many democratic countries and our rules can't be dictatorial and against law - we can't say "blue hair persons summiting documents will be ignored" because it is illegal). Anyone in the community, where we are all equal, can suggest a change in the PDP, the same that anyone can suggest a change in any other document, policy, etc.

I don't think we need at all this text "The community owns the PDP. The RIPE Chair is formally the author of the document", because this is our standard for all the documents.

If we want to make sure that this is "stated" for all the documents, not just for the PDP, then we should have a paragraph, may be a specific section, addressing that, for example:

"The community owns all the documents. Each WG chair(s) are responsible for the consensus process and in the case of the PDP updates, the Chair(s) are the responsible."

I also believe that "Everything else, such as RIPE NCC business practices, procedures and operations is out of scope." is unnecessary. Everyone participating shall understand the difference in between NCC and the community. However I'm fine to keep it.


    2. Scope of the Document

    There was agreement to shorten the introduction of the document to
    clarify that the PDP only refers to policy. There was also agreement to
    keep the section about values and principles.

[Jordi] I don't think this is acceptable: "Avoid creating a formal proposal in case there is insufficient interest". Our PDP is based on consensus. To declare non-consensus only *justified objections* shall be considered, like in IETF. Consensus is not about personal opinions or business conveniences; it is about finding what is best for the overall community. An idea or proposal can be unpopular for some business and they can decide to stay silent, and may be nobody from the community (apart from the authors) speak up in favor of the proposed idea: however it is clear that is the right thing to do, and consequently the authors have the right to submit a proposal and only non-consensus could be declared if the authors were wrong that it was a bad idea *because* objective and justified objections have been raised in the discussion.

    3. Changes to PDP

    Most people agreed that the scope of the Policy Development Process
    should be limited to creating policy. It should not be used to change
    the PDP itself or other RIPE governance documents. It was suggested
    however to carefully manage the change process including clear deadlines
    and announcements to ensure proper community consensus building.

[Jordi] This may be an English issue, but for non-native it creates some troubles and misinformation, I realized it when working not only in RIPE but in other RIRs and already suggested in other cases to amend this. Proposals can be "withdrawn" or "abandoned" and we shall differentiate it. A proposal is abandoned when authors no longer respond (if it was interesting for the community this may turn into new editors taking over). A proposal is withdrawn by the proposer(s) or WG chairs decision. I think we should clearly define "abandoned" in the section 2.2 and it can be done in such way that doesn't need to be mention again in the rest of the text. Something like:

"Abandoned: Meaning that the authors, during the PDP flow for a proposal, aren't longer responding to the WG Chairs and/or RIPE NCC staff. If the proposal is still interesting for the community, WG Chairs could openly seek for new editors to continue the PDP process."

    4. Re-introducing Informal Discussion Step

    There was strong agreement to re-introduce this step and that gathering
    support prior to a formal proposal is crucial.

[Jordi] As said, and properly justified above, this is contradictory with the consensus definition. A previous discussion may be good, but can't be a must at all and it should be clear that WG Chairs have *never* the right to avoid a proposal being submmited.

    5. Appeals Procedure – Process, Deadlines, Recusals

    There was general agreement to have a well defined appeals procedure
    with clear deadlines and a certain level of formalism. Some people
    suggested to create a separate appeals body. Others felt that it will be
    difficult to find people and that the WG chairs tend to have experience
    with the PDP.

[Jordi] Again, no general agreement can be declared here (in the current text) if there are valid objections and my objection is based on objective facts. There were WGCC that participated in the discussion a recent appealed proposal and they didn't recuse themselves. This clearly demonstrates, that the current procedure doesn't work, it is unfair and subjective.

[Jordi] I strongly disagree with section "5. Changes to the PDP". The PDP changes must be objectively done *the same* as any other document, and for that it need to have a very well-defined procedure, timings, etc..  Not doing so creates "juridical insecurity", and having "juridical insecurity" in our master document it is the worst think we can do. I don't mind if we don't want to call it a policy (as in the other RIRs, which I think is the right way) or not; I don't mind if we have edited it in previous occasions following the PDP or not. Is time to resolve it forever. Either we clearly state that the PDP uses the PDP to self-modify it (as in the other RIRs), or we define very clearly how we do it step by step, and this seems to me more complex and unnecessary vs using the PDP itself.

    6. Editorial Changes

    There was no disagreement about the suggested editorial changes.
    ---

    [1] There was a question if the RIPE Vice Chair should also be listed.
    However, ripe-714 provides the option for the RIPE Chair to delegate to
    others, e.g. a Vice Chair.




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