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Getting Involved with RIPE and the RIPE NCC

1. RIPE Meetings

RIPE Meetings are five-day events where the RIPE community comes together to discuss technical issues, develop Internet policy and collaborate over areas of common interest.

As a new LIR, you are entitled to two free tickets to a RIPE Meeting. This is a great opportunity to meet with the technical community, so you should take advantage of this offer.

Information about these meetings, including where upcoming meetings will be held, is available from our RIPE Meeting pages.

2. Regional Meetings

The RIPE NCC also holds Regional Meetings around its service region so it can meet the members and bring the technical discussions closer to where they are. These Regional Meetings are free to attend and are usually held side-by-side with RIPE NCC Training Courses.

3. RIPE NCC General Meetings

The RIPE NCC General Meeting is the forum where RIPE NCC members discuss the operations and activities of the RIPE NCC. This is also where member vote to approve the RIPE NCC Charging Scheme, discuss the Activity Plan and Budget for the following year, and elect members to sit on the RIPE NCC Executive Board.

The General Meeting is held alongside the RIPE Meetings twice per year. You must be a member for six months before you can vote at the General Meeting, but all members are encouraged to attend the meetings and discuss the RIPE NCC and its activities.

4. RIPE Labs

RIPE Labs is a platform designed by the RIPE NCC for network operators, developers and industry experts to expose, test and discuss innovative Internet-related tools, ideas and analysis that can benefit the RIPE community and RIPE NCC members.

There are many interesting articles posted by RIPE NCC staff and other members of the Internet community. We hope you will follow the postings there and add your feedback on the issues discussed there.

5. RIPE NCC Mailing Lists

The RIPE NCC maintains a number of mailing lists to help keep its members informed about what is going on with the RIPE NCC and developments with RIPE NCC services.

Two of the most important lists are the ncc-announce mailing list, which the RIPE NCC uses to make announcements to the membership. Another important list is the members-discuss mailing list. This is a mailing list where RIPE NCC members can discuss among themselves important issues relevant to their membership. You can join both of these lists by adding your email address to the contact section in the LIR Portal.

All the RIPE NCC mailing lists, including the archives and instructions on how to subscribe, are available.

6. RIPE Working Group Mailing Lists

The main discussion list for the RIPE community is the RIPE Discussion List, which is intended for RIPE-related general announcements and discussions.

There are also a number of working groups that meet at RIPE Meetings and have discussion mailing lists where members of the Internet community can discuss relevant issues.

The Address Policy Working Group is where community members develop policies relating to the allocation and registration of Internet number resources (IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and ASNs) by the RIPE NCC and its members.

The RIPE NCC Services Working Group discusses the tools and services provided by the RIPE NCC, and conducts an ongoing evaluation of the RIPE NCC Activity Plan.

All of the RIPE Working Group mailing lists are open for you to join. You should check out the list and join those that you think would be interesting for you and your operations.

7. RIPE Policy Development Process (PDP)

The RIPE community develops and sets policies through a long-established, open, bottom-up process of discussion and consensus-based decision making. This means that you can join in discussions and help form the policies that govern how the Internet is run in the RIPE NCC's service region.

All of the relevant policy discussions take place at RIPE Meetings or on the relevant RIPE Working Group mailing lists.

If you'd like to find out more and maybe even contribute to the policy discussions, see the information available on the PDP pages.