[ripe-list] Last Call for Draft Document: RIPE NCC Staff Participation in the RIPE Community

Hi Mirjam

Sorry for yet another long email, but this is an important issue.

How RIPE NCC staff talk to the community and the extent to which they
are involved in community activities has always been an internal
matter for the RIPE NCC to determine. Historically, different managers
had different views on how their staff get involved. Now you want to
formalise it and define this in a RIPE document, it is open for the
community to have their say.

I partially support the idea of RIPE NCC staff participating in RIPE
activities 'if they choose to do so'. The relationship between the
RIPE NCC and the RIPE community is complex. I don't think such a brief
and vague document can address this issue. Particularly considering
the perceived neutrality of the RIPE NCC as a secretariat and
executive body to the RIPE community. As I pointed out in my previous
comment, there are no safeguards written into this document. If a
member of staff expresses a personal opinion which goes against
company policy or (senior) management views, or impacts on company
plans, that member of staff must not be subject to any internal
disciplinary procedures. Also members of staff must not be subjected
to any pressure to (not) say something in public or to (not) take up a
community position, for example a WG chair, because it is considered
by the RIPE NCC to be in the interests of the company.

It has also been mentioned that there is a (private?) internal
document on how staff can/should/must engage with the community. In
the interests of openness and transparency, that internal document
should be published as a RIPE NCC procedural document. Otherwise the
community doesn't know the extent to which staff members are able to
discuss issues with them in public. Once a staff member has made a
comment, the thread may further develop until they find themselves
with a conflict of interest between the direction the discussion is
now going in and this internal set of rules or guidelines. Any RIPE
community member may find themselves in a conflict situation between
their personal view and that of their employer. But the fact that the
RIPE NCC is the secretariat for the RIPE community and the executive
body who implement and enforce RIPE policies may elevate such
conflicts to a different level. I also noticed that this document puts
the responsibility for avoiding such conflicts onto the staff members,
"RIPE NCC staff need to act sensibly", "RIPE NCC staff shall take
care".

The tone of this document is suggesting that RIPE NCC staff will be
allowed, even encouraged, to become more involved in RIPE community
matters in the future, "how RIPE NCC staff can and should participate
in the RIPE community". In the past such personal involvement seems to
have either been discouraged or at best undefined or managed, for most
of the staff. It is very rare to see a comment on a mailing list from
a staff member who is not a manager, except for technical or legal
announcements or responses to direct questions (which may need to be
approved by a manager). In fact I have looked back at the archives for
all RIPE mailing lists for this year and there are no such comments
from any staff anywhere on any list. This new encouragement, by the
RIPE NCC CEO, for RIPE NCC staff to freely engage with the RIPE
community in public discussions and be more involved in community
activities may therefore be considered as a change in the working
conditions of the staff. Particularly in view of the potential for
conflicts and the responsibility being on the staff to avoid such
conflicts and no specified protection for staff if a conflict does
arise. I believe this falls under Article 27 section d of the Dutch
Works Council Act
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0002747/2023-02-18#HoofdstukIVA_Artikel27
The CEO may need consent from the Works Council at the RIPE NCC in
order to implement this change in attitude and responsibility of the
staff. The Works Council should seek confidential feedback from staff
on how they feel about this potential change to their working
conditions and responsibilities. Staff may need some training on how
to engage with the community, avoiding conflicts, given the unique
relationship, or how to address (the perception of) such conflicts if
they should arise. Such a training scheme is also subject to Article
27 section f. If any new regulations need to be considered to protect
staff from any consequences of conflicts if they follow this new
encouragement to freely engage with the community, that may be subject
to Article 27 sections j, g and e. So the RIPE NCC Works Council
really needs to take a look at this.

The bottom line is that encouraging staff to speak openly and publicly
with the community has both benefits and risks. Staff have access to
information that the public, and members, don't have. They can see the
bigger picture and trends and practises in areas like resource
allocations and usage patterns and ways in which the RIPE Database may
be (mis)used. They can (and do) analyse data that the public can't
even see. Sometimes the line between what you know from public data
and what you know from working at the RIPE NCC can get blurred. Either
all comments must be approved by management. Or staff must be allowed
to speak openly and freely, expressing their personal views, without
any sanctions, accepting that sometimes mistakes will be made and
lines crossed. Daniel often comments on issues and makes it clear he
is speaking personally and not for the RIPE NCC. But Daniel is in a
privileged position. Will all staff be given the same privilege to
express personal views? If they are expected to only express a
collective company view then they may as well just appoint a company
spokesperson to express that collective view. The rest of the staff
don't need to be involved. If a staff member is a WG chair can they
operate completely independently from any collective company view,
even if that means opposing a company view if that is in the best
interests of the WG, without any penalty?

Encouraging staff to be more involved in RIPE community activities is
a sensitive issue for the staff. It needs more than a couple of
paragraphs and some vague principles. This document looks to have been
written from a community perspective, "welcomed by the RIPE
community". Is it welcomed by the staff? Has anyone asked them? Works
Council or Senior Management? Or has it just been assumed the staff
welcome being in both camps? Do staff want to be able to put forward
an idea, argue strongly in favour of it, implement it, then take the
blame if it is not right? I've been there and done that and it's not a
nice place to be.

Finally I would like to comment on the principles in this document. I
have said many times...wording in RIPE documents is important. I am a
native English speaker and an analyst with OCD, so I do see things in
words more easily. But the NCC has a whole team of professional,
English speaking, communications experts. Perhaps they are not used
now to review these docs. Your principle No 2 "RIPE NCC staff
expertise is valuable to and welcomed by the RIPE community." cannot
be a recommended principle. It can be a supporting fact. But if you
recommend, as a principle, that staff expertise is welcomed by the
community, this becomes an instruction to the community that they must
welcome this expertise. That is what these words actually say.

Lastly, your principle No 1 may have unexpected consequences. "RIPE
NCC staff are part of the community and may participate in RIPE
activities on the same terms as anyone else.". You make no exceptions
here, "same terms as anyone else". So a RIPE NCC staff member can be
part of a task force, be a WG chair, be the RIPE chair (if it is no
longer a full time, paid position), be a member of the next NomCom,
make policy proposals, argue for or against policy proposals. So
consider this possible scenario. A staff member could make a policy
proposal. Other staff members could argue strongly in support of this
proposal. Consensus could be declared by a WG chair who is a staff
member. Any appeal would end up with the RIPE chair who could also be
a staff member. The policy will then be implemented and enforced by
the RIPE NCC staff. All of these people could be influenced by RIPE
NCC internal company policy and allowed time within working hours to
do all this. They are all FTEs paid for by the RIPE NCC membership and
expected to be following RIPE activities anyway, perhaps more closely
than FTEs of member companies. This is a theoretical scenario. But it
does raise the question of how independent and neutral will the RIPE
NCC be seen as, if it's staff can be so involved in the bottom up
policy process at every level, to the point of dominating and
controlling, considering the often lack of other community member
involvement.

I think some more thought is needed for this document.

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG
member of RIPE community
former RIPE NCC staff member
former chair RIPE NCC Works Council
(for full disclosure)


On Fri, 30 Jun 2023 at 12:00, <ripe-list-request at ripe.net> wrote:
>
> From: Mirjam Kuehne <mir at zu-hause.nl>
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> The deadline for comments for the draft document “RIPE NCC Staff
> Participation in the RIPE Community” [1] ended. Many thanks for all the
> comments sent to the RIPE list.
>
> There was a lot of support for the document, especially for the
> principle that RIPE NCC staff are part of the RIPE community. It is
> great to see that RIPE NCC staff is welcome and valued by community
> members.
>
> There were some suggestions to explicitly allow RIPE staff to take on
> certain community roles. Other community members disagreed and cautioned
> that this could lead to conflict of interests. Hans Petter Holen
> clarified that there are also RIPE NCC internal guidelines for staff.
>
> There were no concrete suggestions for changes in the document.
> I believe that the current version is ready for adoption and publication
> as a RIPE Document and would like to confirm this.
>
> This is therefore a LAST CALL for comments, to expire on Monday 10 July
> at 06:00 UTC (08:00 Amsterdam time). Unless there are some substantial
> comments, I look forward to declaring consensus and arranging
> publication shortly after that.
>
> Kind regards,
> Mirjam Kühne
> RIPE Chair
>
> [1] RIPE NCC Staff Participation in the RIPE Community
> https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/ripe-ncc-staff-participation-in-the-ripe-community
>
>
>
> --
>
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