[ripe-list] LIR and Member Agreements

Hi all,

I just had a phone call with Christian (because, you know, intonation and vocal emphasis can make a huge difference in understanding each other) and I want to report back here.

>> First of all thanks a lot to Denis for all his work, I imagine it must have taken hours.
>> We, the board and the NCC will follow up on it and will not just have a look at the content itself but also look into how did we end up in this situation in the first place.
>> We will come back to the mailing list after the legal evaluation is conducted and also report on this at the next RIPE Meeting.
> 
> Thank you, this is what I would like to see.

First of all, Christian acknowledged there were a lot of useful things in Denis' email that will be looked at by the NCC staff, so all the work Denis did will get used.

>> Regarding the CoC aspect of this emails, we the board did not read Hans Petters comments as shutting down the conversation or policing anyone and we would not have allowed that.
> 
> Well, then you the board should read it again... Invoking the Code of Conduct when criticising the RIPE NCC is seen exactly as silencing. It also diminishes the value of the Code of Conduct and sets a horrendous precedent. This abuse of the CoC is EXACTLY what makes people afraid of adopting a CoC in the first place. This abuse of the CoC bij a managing director and then explicitly condoning that by the board damages all the hard work done by the community.

But then the hard bit… As I understand it some of the NCC staff felt offended by some things Denis wrote, like "looks like it was written as an undergraduate project". The more people care about something, the more they are likely to be offended by criticism like this, and I *like* that the NCC staff cares! And I agree with them that Denis' tone was much too harsh for a community where we are all supposed to be working together. All of that apparently lead to Hans Petter to jump in and defend his staff, and that is part of his job. So I don't have any problems with any of this so far.

Where I strongly disagree is invoking the Code of Conduct in this case. There is a very difficult boundary between "don't write strong criticism on the RIPE NCC" vs "don't write strong criticism on the RIPE NCC in such a harsh tone". Cristian reminded me that many of us have know Hans Petter for many years, and though his use of the CoC reads like the former to some, we could give him the benefit of the doubt and read it as the latter. I still think invoking the CoC here was wrong, but I do indeed give Hans Petter the benefit of the doubt and will assume he indeed meant the latter. (HPH, would be nice if you could confirm my assumption here! ;)

I also understood from Christian that some people felt they couldn't speak up in defence of Hans Petter because of the strong replies sent to the list by me and other longtime members of this community. That leaves me in the awkward position of me myself not contributing to a welcoming and inclusive environment... So I'll invoke the Code of Conduct on myself :)

To summarise:
- I think Denis' wording was not very nice
- I think Hans Petter's use of the CoC was not good
- I know them both and am convinced they both want to do the best for this community (and the NCC staff which is also part of this community)
- My harsh response to Hans Petter was not good and I should have used milder language to keep the discussion open for positive contributions

I therefore want to defuse this thread and urge us to get back to the content of Denis' message and work with the NCC in a friendly way to make things better for all of us. And whenever invoking the CoC let us do it in that spirit.

Cheers,
Sander