[ripe-chair-discuss] RIPE Chair Job description

On Tue, Oct 11, 2016 at 12:24 PM, Nigel Titley <nigel at titley.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 11/10/16 10:55, Jim Reid wrote:
>
>> I would be wary of “defining the scope” though. That could be unduly restrictive and inflexible. A scoping exercise will also encourage far too much rat-holing and shed-painting, something which we’re overly fond of doing. [That’s probably going to happen regardless. Sigh.] An outline of the general responsibilities of the role seems to be the thing to do here.
>
> My primary definition of the job role would merely be the ability to
> stand up at the back of a working group discussion and shout "Bullshit"
> and get the working group back on track.


Sure but these are soft skills :).

And I bet we, as a very capable community, can find a way of
documenting such soft skills in some acceptable wording (preferably
not identical to the above :) so that it can be understood by an
outsider or a newcomer with ease, avoiding the thought that this
position is given to some special people for some unknown special
powers, but to guide and watch the best for the community. Some could
be:

- Capable of initial mediation and identification of common grounds
between conflicting ideas
- Capable of driving ongoing discussions to conclusions
- Articulate, knowledgable of RIPE matters, etc. etc....


But I was not actually talking about the softs skills: we can still
outline the actual responsibilities so we all know what a RIPE Chair
actually does and so we can elect the right person for the job.

Some I know and I agree to be in the merit of this position are:

- Dedicating time for all RIPE matters, to travel to the RIPE meetings
and to engage with all parts of RIPE region
- Facilitating decision making on formation of new RIPE WGs and format
of RIPE meetings.
- Representing RIPE community in other occasions where necessary


I do not think these are too tight. It just expresses what I expect
from our leader in very broad terms as a community member.
We can see if we can agree on them but I think it is worth a try as we
are discussing an election process.

Filiz



Anything tighter than that and
> we'll rapidly be debating exactly which shade of violet we should be
> painting the bike-sheds.
>
> Nigel
>