[ripe-list] CoC and the PDP

I've been keeping pretty quiet on this matter, as I have stepped back
my involvement in RIPE.  This stepping back was 100% due to the fact
that I am not doing much network engineering any more, and living in
California, 5 and 6am conference calls are pretty difficult.  I cannot
stay silent on this matter, and watch the community that I love accuse
the diversity WG of trying to destroy RIPE.

For background, my first experience with a network engineering
community was NANOG.  It was not a welcoming community, especially as
a young woman trying to grow her career.  There is a reason that I was
willing for a number of years to pay for a transatlantic flight, and
to wake up for early morning conference calls!  The RIPE community is
an amazing one, full of great people who are really trying to push
forward the best policies of running the internet.

Sascha, you may not realize that RIPE already has a code of conduct,
https://ripe77.ripe.net/on-site/code-of-conduct/ - where attendees may
be asked to leave a meeting and "other actions" may be taken.  I like
the new draft because it clarifies how and what actions may be taken.

I am not comfortable with your proposal of the entire WG chair
committee being set as the "jury" for these cases.  The WG chairs are
a group of people selected for their expertise and willingness to give
back to the community in specific technical areas, not for their
willingness to go to trainings of how to handle harassment cases and
knowing how to treat these very difficult and emotional situations
with empathy and confidentiality.

I will give all of you an example from my past -- where I did not
report this issue, as the conference had no Code of Conduct or stated
way to report it.

I was at another conference, in the states.  I met a person who seemed
like a nice gentleman, we were hanging out and flirting a bit, and
went to go get a few drinks after the day's sessions had ended.  We
kissed, and then I had decided I was done for the night, that was as
far as I wanted to go, and I was going to go back to my hotel room and
go to sleep.  The man found my twitter handle (not too hard to do!)
and started messaging me on there -- I told him I wasn't interested
and was going to bed.  He then started to message some more
threatening messages about how I led him on and it wasn't fair and I
owed him sex.  I messaged him telling him to never message me again,
to go get some water, and go to bed.  He then went to the front desk
of the hotel and had them call my room -- which was quite a bit scary.
I obviously hung up on him.  Then the front desk called me again,
asking if they wanted me to give him my room number.  Obviously I said
no and asked them to please make sure that the man doesn't come
anywhere near my floor.   Then it was all over.

I never went to that conference again, and I stopped contributing to
that open source project.

This is not the kind of story I ever wanted to share with anyone
beyond my closest circle of friends.  I felt a combination of scared
and embarrassed (what if it was all my fault and I led him on?).  I
count 28 WG chairs -- many of whom I know personally and respect and I
want them to have the highest regard for me professionally.  If they
heard the story, do you really think that 28 people would keep that a
secret?  Do you think I want them all to know how I acted, as well
that I allowed myself to be put into that awkward situation?  Of
course not.  Does this story change your opinion of me?  If so, that's
the reason why I did not share it before now.

I have shared my story to this group to show an example of how these
situations are complicated, incredibly personal, and also deeply
emotional and frightening.  I don't believe this kind of situation has
ever happened at RIPE, but I don't know if it has, because it's
possible that just one person has had this happen to them, they didn't
know where to turn, and they made the same choice I did and left the
community and stopped contributing.

All of us are human, and all of us, myself included, have acted in
ways we're not proud of.  I can think of one incident where I made
what I thought of as the time as a funny joke, which in fact was
hurtful to the person I said it to.  I think that many of us are
afraid that we will be banned from RIPE because we do stupid things.
However, you are assuming that your fellow RIPE attendees are
vindictive people -- instead of people who are willing to talk to the
person (in this case me) who was an asshole, tell them why they were
hurt, and give the asshole a chance to apologize for their behavior
and try to be a better person.  The CoC is really meant for cases like
the story above that I shared.

Leslie Carr

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 6:28 AM Sascha Luck [ml] <lists-ripe at c4inet.net> wrote:
>
> All,
>
> the CoC draft version 3.0 [1], while it is called the "RIPE Meeting
> Code of Conduct", makes reference to the PDP as detailed below.
>
> - in "Scope" it claims authority over "RIPE mailing lists and the
>   RIPE Forum"
> - "In cases where a report involves a RIPE Working Group Mailing
>   List, the RIPE CoC Team will consult with the respective RIPE
> Working Group Chairs to gather context or any other relevant
> information that may help with its investigation."
> - One of the possible sanctions described is: "Not allowing
>   someone to participate further in RIPE Meetings and/or *other
> RIPE community spaces*, for a set period or an indefinite period"
>
> Generally the tenor of the document is that, yes, it is intended
> to apply to the PDP-relevant processes and spaces and I don't
> think that fact is disputed.
>
> This is fundamentally incompatible with ripe-1 and ripe-710. If
> you, like me, consider those documents our "constitution", this
> CoC violates the letter as well as the spirit. If this reads like
> politics, that is because it *is*.
>
> 1) I consider ripe-1 and ripe-710 the "constitution" that
> provides for all of the below[2][3]
>
> 2) I consider the PDP and its WG mailing lists our "legislative".
>
> 3) The RIPE NCC could, in a very loose sense, be called our
> "executive". Like any democratic executive, it governs by the
> consent of the governed and is charged with implementing policy
> made through the PDP.
>
> 4) I consider the WG chair collective as some sort of combined
> "Speaker of Parliament", "Head of State" and "Constitutional
> Court". Their purpose is to steer the PDP and ensure that
> processes are followed in accordance to ripe-710 and ripe-1. They
> also determine that a consensus has been reached. (They "sign a
> proposal into law", so to speak.)
>
> 5) Through the PDP policy is developed, policy that affects every
> internet user in the RIPE Service Region. It affects more people
> and organisations than any law made even in the European
> Parliament.
>
> 6) According to ripe-710, the PDP is "open to all",
> "transparent", "from the bottom up" and "Conclusions are reached
> by consensus". To me, this means that every voice that wishes to
> speak must be heard.
>
> 7) Policy proposals, "bills" in other words, are often
> contentious, much like proposed law in other venues. Debate has,
> in the past, often been robust, raucous and occasionally
> vociferous. This is as it should be, this broad a community will
> rarely be of one mind and people have different ideas. Dissent,
> as in any democracy, is essential, even more so in a
> consensus-based system.
>
> How does the proposed CoC affect all this? For one, it is not
> transparent: Decisions are made behind closed doors, decisions
> that will - the draft document is clear on this - lead to voices
> being silenced and being silenced *silently*. It is not "open to
> all": it is only open to those who have not fallen afoul of the
> CoC or its enforcers. It is not consensus-based: "consensus of the
> approved" is worthless. It is not "bottom-up": the CoC Team sits
> at the very top of the chain and determines who can be a member
> of the RIPE community and who can't.
> Finally, it is open to abuse and, arguably, *designed* to be
> abused. It opens the way to anyone who is not happy
> ("comfortable" in the words of the draft) with the outcome or
> direction of a PDP discussion to rely on anonymous denunciation
> and intransparent processes to have all dissent silenced.
> The draft contains no reference to fairness or to a right of the
> accused to be heard and to defend themselves, which is a
> perversion of natural justice[4]. There is some kind of
> right-of-appeal, but it's an appeal to the same people who issued
> a "conviction" in the first place.
>
> Applied to the PDP and its participants, this, in political
> terms, is a putsch. It establishes a cabal that has the power to
> determine who may participate in the PDP in the first place. This
> may lead to the establishment of a sham consensus as all
> dissenting voices have been silenced, which the remaining
> community may not even be aware of.
>
> Policy developed under this system should be considered in
> violation of ripe-1 and ripe-710 and thus "unconstitutional".
>
> I'm not sure where the NCC stands in regard to obligations
> imposed on it by illegitimately created policy. This may be a
> question for the membership.
>
> There was a call for solutions, rather than just complaints,
> earlier. In this spirit I offer two possibilities:
>
> 1) Apply a "parliamentary privilege"[5] to PDP discussions. This
> means that only the WG chair collective has jurisdiction over PDP
> discussions and can "punish" participants - but with full
> transparency.
> 2) Let the "CoC team" investigate complaints but leave any
> decisions up to the WG chair collective. Again, any bans,
> temporary, or permanent must be fully transparent.
>
> As an aside, has anyone considered the difficulty of enforcing
> something like this on MLs where no identification requirement
> exists and someone "banned" can just re-sub under a different
> name/email address?
>
> In any case, I'd like to hear some discussion on this. Speak up.
> please. It may be the last chance you have.
>
> rgds,
> Sascha Luck
>
> [1] https://www.ripe.net/participate/meetings/ripe-meetings/ripe-meeting-code-of-conduct-3-0-draft
> [2] https://www.ripe.net/participate/meetings/roundtable/march-2005/presentations/ripe-and-the-policy-development-processes
> [3] https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-710
> [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_justice
> [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_privilege
>