DRAFT: RIPE 91 Programme Committee Meeting
Date: Wednesday, 22 October
Present:
PC Chair: Massimiliano Stucchi
PC Members: Antonio Prado, Babak Farrokhi, Brian Nisbet, Clara Wade, Franziska Lichtblau, Kevin Meynell, Osama Al-Dosary, Valerie Aurora, Jan Žorž
RIPE Chair Team: Anna Wilson, Mirjam Kühne, Niall O’Reilly
RIPE NCC staff: Hafsa Boueddine, Hisham Ibrahim, Jelena Ćosić, Kajal Ince, Marita Phelan, Phillip Oldham
Minutes: Kjerstin Burdiek
1. Feedback from RIPE 91
The PC shared feedback they heard about the RIPE Meeting so far: there was praise for the quality of the RACI talks, for the plenary programme and for the revamped RIPE Fellowship and mentorship programmes. There had also been positive feedback about the RACI poster sessions. Several PC members had heard positive feedback from newcomers specifically, although there was one note that newcomers might prefer more actionable takeaways from technical talks. The PC also discussed other elements of the programme, including what more could be done with the side room, which was often empty. Some members also praised the DEI track and the higher engagement by representatives of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
On the part of the RIPE NCC Events team, Kajal had heard praise for the Monday social. Hafsa noted that there had been mixed reviews of the music played between sessions. In terms of attendance, so far there were 404 attendees checked in onsite and few no-shows.
Hisham praised the venue, although he noted that the hotel had limited the amount of branding the RIPE NCC could include, so they had added more branding at the socials. He added that some attendees had asked if RACI attendees could present on certain topics.
Jelena gave an update on RACI. There had been some challenges in the selection process in terms of finding talks with a good amount of takeaways. However, the poster sessions had gone well and allowed RACI attendees without a slot in the plenary sessions to still share their research with the community. All RACI attendees, including those in the programme, were given the opportunity to do poster sessions, and the majority had decided to do so. She would get their feedback at the end of the week to see if the poster sessions were worth continuing, although she noted they were very low-cost for the RIPE NCC as the attendees supplied the materials and content themselves.
Several PC members had heard criticism about the venue for the Tuesday social, primarily regarding the high noise level. There had also been complaints about the amount of stairs and the lack of beer. Kajal said that the Events team tried to find venues for the socials that had multiple rooms, but this was not always possible. She had also tried to get local beers catered at the social, but this was not common in Romania. Hafsa added that there would be separate rooms, including a quiet room, at the Tuesday social for RIPE 92.
2. Pretalx
Phill asked the PC about their experience using the new presentation submission system (PCSS), Pretalx. The PC members shared generally positive feedback, but with a few notes for improvement. First, there had been some emails that had been sent from the system unintentionally. This was due to the workflow being unclear to some members, so they had mistakenly triggered automatic emails that were sent out while rating the talks. Also, the name in the email preview was different than in the actual email sent, which some members found confusing. It was suggested that adding more documentation could make Pretalx easier for the PC to use.
Mirjam said the Events team would send out the reminders to the WG chairs, as there had been some bugs while doing so this time. Phill said the RIPE NCC Web Services team (WS) had shared these issues with the Pretalx team and could now more easily make changes to the system.
Massimiliano asked if the PC should time the Call for Presentations (CfP) to the deployment of the new version of Pretalx. Phill said this was not necessary, as the WS team could work around it.
Jan asked if the talk rating system was randomised. Massimiliano said it went from best- to worst-rated and suggested avoiding rating talks without slides so that they would stay in the queue, making it easy to see any changes. He added that it would be good if there could be a notification when slides were uploaded. Phill suggested that the WS team could encode a requirement for slides from the outset. The PC was generally in favour of this, but it was noted that this should not be required for BoFs. They would also need to explicitly state that slides were required for other types of proposals.
Osama asked if it would be possible to always copy the PC in on messages. Phill said they could build this in. Mirjam noted that the PC could be put as the reply-to in email templates.
The PC also discussed user permissions in Pretalx, as currently both the PC members and WG chairs could see the templates and submissions. The PC considered how to make sure they rated only the submissions intended for them. Filtering was a solution for this. The PC discussed whether it was helpful that they could see all submissions, including those intended for WGs. Several members were in favour of keeping this, as it allowed them to see the history of a submission.
Marita noted one issue with the system. When the PC’s CfP deadline had passed, many WGs were still accepting submissions. But when WS created workarounds to allow people to continue submitting talks to WGs, they had encountered a bug that allowed people to also submit proposals to the plenary if they were not logged in. This was a concern for the PC, as WGs needed to be able to accept content all the way up to the actual WG session itself.
Mirjam asked if WS was considering different instances to resolve these issues. Marita said they were not, but they were looking into splitting the instance in some ways. Phill added that they could tweak the permissions about who could rate which talks.
Jan asked if WS planned to start using the scheduling system. Marita said she could help with this.
3. Representation from Regional Communities
Mirjam asked the PC whether there was a need for more representation from regional communities. She noted that there were SEE and MENOG representatives on the PC, and she asked whether it was time to add a CAPIF representative as well, now that CAPIF had matured into a regular regional meeting.
The PC was in favour and discussed how best to do so. The PC charter currently only called for a SEE and a MENOG representative. They considered making the charter more flexible to accommodate this and other regional communities that may appear. Ultimately, they decided to explicitly add CAPIF to the charter to ensure it would be represented.
ACTION PC and RIPE Chair to update the PC charter to include a CAPIF representative.
4. Reviewing AI-Generated Content
Valerie reported on the AI-generated content she had seen submitted to the PC. She noted that AI was useful in supporting people’s work but should not move work to the PC, who might need to reach out to the submitter to understand their submission.
The PC discussed how they could tell when a submission was AI-generated. It was suggested to use AI detection tools, but Valerie said human beings were better at understanding narratives and determining whether a person or AI made them. Requiring slide decks might help, as it was easier to see in a slide deck than in an abstract whether AI had been used. The PC noted that members should feel comfortable pointing out submissions they thought were AI-generated.
5. Chat Monitors
Mirjam asked the PC about their thoughts on whether it was still necessary to have chat monitors provided by the RIPE NCC for every session, given that there are usually multiple session chairs. She asked if it would work to have chat monitors only available upon request by the chairs.
The PC was generally in favour of this suggestion. However, while session chairs could read out the Q&A, several PC members felt it might still be needed to have someone monitoring the chat itself to ensure discussion stayed within the scope of the Code of Conduct.
Hafsa said the RIPE NCC would look into updating the chat monitor role with this in mind.
ACTION RIPE NCC to update chat monitor role.
6. PC Election
The PC discussed the ongoing election to fill two seats on the PC. They considered how to ensure good diversity in the future, especially gender diversity, as two female members were leaving the PC after this election. PC members had encouraged diverse candidates to apply, but many people did not have enough time or resources to participate. The PC considered adding language in the charter requiring a diverse committee.
ACTION PC to consider adding language on diversity to the PC charter.
7. AOB
The PC discussed an incident that had occurred during the meeting week. They considered whether it constituted a violation of the Code of Conduct and decided it did, as various groups, including the PC, had been the target of inappropriate communication. The PC decided to report the incident to the Code of Conduct Team so the team could look into it and act as necessary.
Massimiliano thanked Franziska and Valerie for their time on the PC, as their terms were ending at RIPE 91.
Mirjam thanked Niall, as this was his last time at a PC meeting before his term as RIPE Vice-Chair ended.