[ripe-list] New Draft Document: RIPE NCC Staff Participation in the RIPE Community (Please review)

On Mon, 2023-05-08 at 09:40 +0200, Melchior Aelmans wrote:
> Totally agree with Randy!
> 
Yes!

> One question, as it's not clearly forbidden, is NCC staff allowed to
> be a WG chair, partake in NomCom, etc? I would say yes.
> 
I think it absolutely should be allowed. We want the NCC to be rooted
within the RIPE community and excluding them from active participation
would not support that goal. In my experience if you are actively
involved in a community you get a way better understanding of the inner
workings and principles. For the NCC staff that means better input to
their decision making process. 
We try very hard to get people to engage and participate in the RIPE
community - let's not reduce that pool unnecessarily.

The document states very clearly, that NCC staff needs to disclose
their position. This is something we already do by, e.g, asking people
to disclose their affliation when commenting on the microphone. So we
already know how to deal with potential conflict of interests with a
lot of different stake holders. 

Regarding "to avoid giving direction" I am bit torn. I think to put the
staff into a safe situation they need a little bit of freedom there.
The line between what could be perceived as "giving direction" vs
"sharing expertise" is very thin. 

Best,
Franziska 

>