[cooperation-wg] Choosing chairs

In advance of any discussion we will have on the choice of new co-chairs I
have looked again at the process as drafted by Meredith. I still think it
is OK. It might be word-smithed a little in the future, not to change the
ideas but to make it a little bit more robust. But that is not urgent. And
anyway I don’t think anyone in the community is going to start counting
commas.


Looking at what is going on elsewhere it was nice to see that at least one
other WG adopted Meredith’s text!


But looking wider I see words like elections, consensus, decisions. I don’t
think there is conflict. But here is my take.


We have tended to avoid elections as we don’t have a nice list of people
who are eligible to vote and anyway the folk active on mailing lists are
also important.


We tend to go instead for consensus. But maybe to point out the obvious
somebody has to decide that there is consensus. That decision is perhaps
the most important job of a chair / co-chair. And if they ever get it wrong
people ought to make that clear and the conversation can then continue.


That is basically again what Meredith proposed.


Getting consensus can though take time. So a quick “show of hands” can be
useful for certain quick decisions. But maybe not for the choice of WG
chairs.


There are though other situations where we vote - obviously when we have a
list of those eligible to vote but also where there is no chair to make the
call. That is the situation we will have when we decide on the RIPE chair.


So consensus within the WG but voting at the level of RIPE? And so no
conflict?


Gordon
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