[ripe-chair-discuss] RIPE Chair appointment procedure, some ideas

> On 16 Nov 2016, at 13:35, Filiz Yilmaz <koalafil at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> While I do not agree with all the points Carlos has made, I think
> content of his mail was totally to the point, well expressed, and
> perfectly within scope of this mailing list and the discussion point
> in hand.

Nobody was saying it wasn't.

> Lets focus on the ideas instead of trying to police the discussions.

Indeed. But nobody was doing that either.

All I asked for was a bit more care over our use of terminology.

> Elections can be used as a form of a selection process and supporters
> of that should not be put under any kind of pressure or impression
> that they cannot raise their views already now.

Filiz, I deeply, deeply resent the implication that my earlier comment was an attempt to put anyone under pressure or filter the discussion or prevent anyone raising their views. It absolutely wasn't.

For the avoidance of doubt, anyone can say whatever they want here. Or on any other RIPE list for that matter. Modulo the usual norms of list etiquette of course.

Discussions of elections are clearly in scope. Obviously. However we should be particularly careful not to talk about "electing the Chair" when the context is "selecting the Chair".

As you rightly pointed out an election is just one of many possible selection options. It will be more than unfortunate if those other options get ignored or suppressed if this list gives people the (mistaken) idea that election is the only game in town for the selection process. That will surely happen if discussions about how the chair could be selected get conflated with discussions about how the chair could be be elected. These are two very different things and therefore should be separated from each other.

IMO there are essentially two key discussion strands for this list:

1) Selection/appointment methods: election, consensus, nomcom, random lottery, HPH just declaring his successor, beauty contest (swimsuit round optional), cage fight, etc.
2) How each selection/appointment method -- or at least the most likely methods -- could be implemented.