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

Dear RIPE List-ers,
Hope this email finds you in good health!

Please see my comments below, inline...
Thanks.

Le vendredi 7 juillet 2023, denis walker <ripedenis at gmail.com> a écrit :

> Hi Mirjam
>
> Sorry for yet another long email, but this is an important issue.
>
>
Hi Denis,
Thanks for raising such interesting issues, brother.



> [...]
>
> The bottom line is that encouraging staff to speak openly and publicly
> with the community has both benefits and risks. [...]


>
...agreed!


> [...]

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?
>
>
How to address this risk?


> 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?


>
A good opportunity to test the assumed *principle*.


> 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.
>
>
...i'm not a RIPE NCC Staff! i'm curious to know
their answers; even an anonymised version would
suffice.


> 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.
>
>
...i welcome it! but i expect a RIPE NCC Staff to be
both protected and prevented to put the RIR org in
 danger; while acting selfishnessly. Training and
capacity building would certainly be of great help
here, i agree.


>
> 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.


>
Indeed, it's sadly an unexpected & undesirable side
 effect! at least for me :'-(

How to, safely, prevent it to happen?



> 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.
>
>
...for me, quantity alone would not satisfactorily
address the issue. Where, quality & appropriate
*safeguards* would likely achieve the objective,
 imho!

But! which *safeguards*? that's a question i would
 like to get answers from others with more clue...
:-)



> I think some more thought is needed for this document.
>
>
...i actually agree too!
Thanks for your useful and detailed explanation
of the issues raised, dear Denis.

Shalom,
--sb.



> 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>
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > [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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