[ripe-list] The NomCom Requests your Support

Daniel,

The concerns that were raised on the ripe-chair-discuss mailing list 
haven't been addressed.

Rather than prompting for a mandate to "just get on with it", these 
issues need to be addressed.

Nick


Daniel Karrenberg via ripe-list wrote on 25/05/2020 15:44:
> Dear Friends and Colleagues of the RIPE community,
> 
> If your feeling is something like "Oh no, not another long message from 
> the NomCom! I wish they would just get on with it." you do not need to 
> read further. It would certainly help us if you explicitly told us 
> briefly to "just get on with it".
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Daniel
> 
> ------------------
> 
> From:
> 
> Daniel Karrenberg - Chair of the RIPE 2020 Nominating Committee.
> 
> 
> To:
> 
> Christian Kaufmann  - Chair of the RIPE NCC Executive Board,
> 
> Franziska Lichtblau - Chair of the RIPE Program Committee,
> 
> Hans Petter Holen   - RIPE Chair ad-interim & Chair of the RIPE WG Chairs,
> 
> RIPE Community.
> 
> 
> Christian, Franziska, Hans Petter, Friends and Colleagues,
> 
> The process to select two persons to succeed Hans Petter Holen as RIPE 
> chair has been under way since September 2019. The NomCom has worked 
> diligently to run the process that has been agreed by the community and 
> codified in ripe-727 and ripe-728. We have called for nominees, 
> canvassed when we had only one nomination and received four further 
> nominations. We have dealt with the unforeseen withdrawal of Hans 
> Petter. We have recognised the increased urgency that Hans Petter's 
> resignation as RIPE Chair puts on the process by slightly tightening our 
> time line without compromising on running an exemplary process. We have 
> held three formal and two informal meetings, talked to the nominees by 
> teleconference and received substantial input about all nominees from a 
> diverse set of people in the community.  We have kept the community 
> informed by announcements on the RIPE mailing list, by providing a 
> dedicated blog, by publishing complementary material on RIPE Labs, by 
> reporting to the community plenary at RIPE80 and by talking about our 
> work whenever the opportunity presented itself.
> 
> Last week, during RIPE80, there were some calls from within the RIPE 
> community to stop this process and start over.  There also have been 
> suggestions to issue another call for nominations and then continue as 
> before. Since our mandate does not extend beyond executing the process 
> along an agreed time line we are extremely reluctant to deviate from 
> this unless we observe a clear and strong consensus in the community to 
> deviate for the sake of pragmatism.
> 
> We have discussed this extensively and decided against changing the 
> planned time line because we see no such consensus. We also considered 
> the consequences: Deviating from the plan at this time would put Hans 
> Petter into the difficult position of having to work a new and demanding 
> job next to filling the RIPE Chair ad interim role. This is too much to 
> ask of anyone even without taking into account the recent discussion on 
> ripe-chair-discuss. Hans Petter has told us that he accepted the 
> ad-interim role on the assumption that we will finish our work on time 
> and that he will likely have to resign if we take significantly longer 
> than planned.
> 
> Unfortunately during the RIPE 80 community plenary there has been no 
> discussion that provides further guidance to us. It is difficult for us 
> to assess whether this was due to the virtual format of the meeting, 
> widespread agreement with what we have done so far or any other reason. 
> We certainly expected those who had called for changes to the process 
> earlier during the week to speak up and a discussion to take place that 
> would provide further guidance for us. This has not happened.
> 
> We have therefore decided to briefly pause our process and not to start 
> candidate selection after RIPE 80 as originally planned. We have 
> continued with preparations but have not started discussing the nominees 
> among ourselves yet.
> 
> We ask the RIPE NCC Board, the PC, the WG Chairs and the community at 
> large to give us timely guidance on how to proceed. The question before 
> us is whether we still have the support of the community to continue 
> with the agreed process and time line or whether there is consensus in 
> the community that we should do something different. We need this 
> guidance now so that we can keep the delay in the time line as short as 
> possible.
> 
> We also ask the community as a whole to support us once we do proceed.
> 
> Daniel Karrenberg,
> Chair,
> RIPE 2020 Nominating Committee
>