DRAFT: RIPE 90 Programme Committee Meeting

Date: Wednesday, 14 May

Present:

PC Chair: Massimiliano Stucchi

PC Members: Antonio Prado, Babak Farrokhi, Brian Nisbet, Clara Wade, Doris Hauser, Franziska Lichtblau, Kevin Meynell, Osama Al-Dosary, Valerie Aurora

RIPE Chair Team: Mirjam Kühne, Niall O’Reilly

RIPE NCC staff: Gergana Petrova, Hafsa Boueddine, Hisham Ibrahim, Jelena Ćosić, Kajal Ince, Marita Phelan, Phillip Oldham

Minutes: Kjerstin Burdiek

1. Feedback from RIPE 90

The PC discussed feedback they had received about the meeting. There was praise for the venue of the meeting and the Tuesday social, although some felt the karaoke at the event had been too disruptive. Hafsa said karaoke would only be at every other meeting. The PC also noted that the lighting at the venue was not ideal: the presentation screen was excessively bright, and there was a light on the presenters that made it hard for them to see the audience. Hafsa said she would speak to the hotel’s AV team about this. There was also a suggestion to lower the microphones for presenters. Finally, there was praise for the branding materials at the meeting.

2. Meeting Programme

The PC discussed the programme. The opening plenary had generated a lot of discussion and even follow-up talks, which the PC felt was positive. The PC also discussed some of the other sessions and whether potentially political content was fully appropriate for the meeting, and they decided this was the case so long as there were relevant technical takeaways. They also considered the value of pre-recorded content and whether this engaged enough with the audience. Finally, they discussed whether certain sessions had been too marketing-oriented and how to ensure this was not the case in the future.

3. RACI and Mentorship

The PC discussed RACI and how to better advertise it. The Academic and NREN session had not been publicised much and ran alongside sessions so that people were forced to choose. Some presenters also felt that the audience was too limited to just other researchers. One solution could be to put this session in the agenda rather than as a parallel event. The PC decided to further consider how to integrate RACI content in the meeting, such as in WG sessions. They could even have poster sessions in the coffee break area for researchers to explain their research. Kajal suggested trialling this at RIPE 91.

There was also some discussion about the mentorship programme, as this had come up in the Diversity in Tech session. Some felt there was not enough awareness of it nor enough explanation about the role of a mentor. A possible solution proposed was to make the field mandatory in the registration form about whether the registrant wanted to be a mentor or mentee. It was also noted that the mentorship programme could still be useful for people who were not newcomers but had only been to one or two meetings.

Gergana said the RIPE NCC was reviewing the process for the RIPE Fellowship and for newcomers. She noted that most changes would likely be implemented at RIPE 92, as RIPE 91 was too soon.

4. Logistical Changes

The PC also discussed some logistics. There had been many lightning talks, which made scheduling challenging. They considered whether to require slides for these. Another suggestion was to review session formats and possibly make them shorter or allow for shared Q&As among speakers. Speakers could also be informed about why they were put into a particular session.

Next, the PC discussed the rating system. Some attendees were confused by the 1-5 rating and whether 1 or 5 was the best. It was also suggested that the ratings were not fully anonymous since attendees had to log into their accounts to leave a rating and that this should be changed. There was a suggestion to add an option to rate speakers as well.

The PC discussed the PC election and where to announce it. There was a webpage, and emails to attendees also mentioned it. It was suggested the PC could do more to advertise it themselves. There was a suggestion for the RIPE NCC to highlight main points in the subject line in emails to attendees and to add more information to the new announcements being given to session chairs.

The PC then discussed the value of sharing member participation statistics for PC nominees so the community would be better informed. There was some disagreement, as nominees who were not incumbents would have no history to share, and statistics would not explain why a PC member might not have been able to participate as much. The PC decided people could just consult with current members if they needed this information. They also considered how to better inform community members about the work of the PC generally, such as by presenting statistics about the number of submissions, and how to keep PC members aware of their own participation.

Next, the PC team discussed how best to set and communicate dates related to the calls for presentations and publication of the agenda. Hafsa noted that communication had not always been clear and that it was challenging for the RIPE NCC not to have these dates defined, particularly in terms of preparing the meeting plan. As a result, this time around the publication had been slightly delayed, though typically it would only be a few days after the presentation submission deadline. There was also a discussion about whether to publish the date for the second call for presentations early on. Some on the PC felt this would cause people to delay when submitting their presentations for the first call. Others felt it was better to tell speakers when turning down their talks so they could prepare to re-submit. A solution was suggested to publish the second call for presentations the same day the first one ended. Phillip noted the new PCSS would be automated based on timelines so the PC should decide this as soon as possible.

5. New PCSS

Phillip gave an update on the progress with the new PCSS, Pretalx. He had given the PC access to explore it. The website for RIPE 91 was already online on a new CMS as well. The RIPE NCC communications lead for RIPE 91 would help manage the schedule in Pretalx, and then the RIPE NCC would hand this task over to the PC for RIPE 92. He noted that the RIPE NCC would also work on improving the rating system based on the feedback and invited the PC to share more comments by RIPE 91. He said there would be a Slack channel for PC members with tips about how to use Pretalx.

6. AOB

The PC planned a replacement for a session chair on Friday. They also decided that by the end of the day they should choose the Lightning Talks for Friday.