RIPE 79 Programme Committee Lunch Meeting

Postillion Convention Center, Rotterdam
Wednesday, 26 October 2019

PC Chair: Franziska Lichtblau
RIPE Chair: Hans Petter Holen
Present: Jan Zorz, Brian Nisbet (remote), Pavel Lunin, Dmitry Kohmanyuk, Maria Isabel Gandía Carriedo, Khalid Samara, Alireza Vaziri, Peter Hessler, Jelte Jansen, Osama Al Dosary
RIPE NCC: Martina de Mas, Mirjam Kuehne, Marita Phelan, Fergal Cunningham

Agenda

Welcome (5 min)
PC Elections [Brian] (5 min)
Potential Liaison in the RIPE Chair Nomination Committee [Franziska] (5 min)
Observations from RIPE 79 [All] (25 min)
Technical Issues - PCSS, presentation system, etc. [All] (15 min)
State of RIPE 80 [Martina] (5 min)

1. Welcome (5 min)

Franziska asked why Slido wasn’t used for this meeting.
Although most of the PC found this tool useful, there was some push back after RIPE 78.
The PC agreed to try Slido again at the RIPE 80 meeting.

2. PC Elections [Brian] (5 min)

Five candidates applied from different parts of our service region.
The voting page was difficult to find for some, so it was decided that the PC voting link will be included in the highlights email sent to the ripe-list.

Khalid Samara won't run again.

Pavel Lunin nominated himself.

3. Potential Liaison in the RIPE Chair Nominating Committee [Franziska] (5 min)

There were mixed responses about whether this role would be useful or not. Jelte Jansen observed that the function of the PC was to provide quality content for RIPE meetings. Others disagreed saying that the PC is one of the RIPE community bodies, therefore there should be a PC Liaison. Brian Nisbet added that the role would support the PC in staying up to date.

Hans Petter Holen noted that the requirements about being a liaison for the RIPE Chair Nominating Committee were listed on the RIPE 728 document published on ripe.net (https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-728 ).

4. Observations from RIPE 79 [All] (25 min)

Venue: generally good feedback. Some concerns about the size of the Side Room,
Location: Pavel Lunin said that Rotterdam didn't have the same appeal as other cities and this meant that some people who could have contributed to plenary discussions, didn't attend. Osama Al Dosary preferred Rotterdam and others agreed that the location was good.
Programme content: Feedback was generally good. Some people observed there were fewer questions and discussions. It was suggested that each PC Chair have some questions ready for each presentation. Less Lightning Talks were received.
Newcomers: Mentoring programme continues to receive positive feedback and is seen as a valued initiative. There was a discussion about the change of time for the Newcomers' Lunch, some saying Tuesday was too late, others saying Monday lunch was too soon. No change noted, Newcomers' Lunch will continue to be on Monday lunchtime. Although numbers for returning newcomers were in line with previous meetings - 17 from RIPE 78 and 30 from RIPE 77 - it was suggested that the newcomers from previous meetings be contacted to understand why they didn't return.

5. Technical Issues - PCSS, presentation system, etc. [All] (15 min)

Limitimer: In general, the PC thought it was a good tool.

Clicker: Some presenters found it too sensitive, resulting in slides moving too fast. Tech team were informed and looked into this. It was suggested that information about the clicker and Limitimer were shared with presenters prior to the meeting.

PCSS: The PC again raised the issue between the PCSS Submit a Topic and the Upload Final Presentation. Lightning Talks contribute to this problem since the submission link needs to be available until the very end of the meeting. This was resolved by creating two choices on the page, 1. Submit Your LiT and 2. Upload Your Final Presentation. There is still some concern that this is not clear enough, it will be further discussed in the WS/ Meeting Team meeting.

The PC asked to have a feature to flag the presentations that were notified by email since it was difficult to keep track.

Vocabulary: It was suggested that presenters include a vocabulary slide if it is thought that definitions are needed. It was also suggested that the PC Chair present a vocabulary slide for the entire week in the opening plenary (like ENOG). Could also be helpful for the Newcomers Introduction Talk.

6. State of RIPE 80 [Martina] (5 min)

The Intercontinental has been confirmed as the venue in Berlin, and the local host will be DE-CIX.

Wolfgang Tremmel will be the local host representative on the PC.