[ripe-list] RIPE Community session on proposed revised PDP - Minutes and draft version 2

Dear colleagues,

On 26 January we held an online meeting to gather feedback about the
revised Policy Development Process (PDP). The recordings, minutes and
slides can be found here:

https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/ripe-community-plenary/minutes/revised-pdp-workshop/

Below you can find a short summary of the main points discussed at the
meeting. Based on this feedback we adjusted the draft document and
created a new red-lined version:

https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-documents/other-documents/policy-development-process-in-ripe-v2

Please review the changes carefully and provide any additional feedback
before 16 March 2022.

Kind regards,
Mirjam Kühne
============

Meeting Summary:
The overall sentiment was to rely on community consensus and common
sense as much as possible and to keep formalism at a minimum.

1. Author and Ownership of the Document

There was general agreement to make a distinction between the author and
owner of the PDP: the community should be listed as owner of the PDP and
the RIPE Chair as the author of the document. [1]

2. Scope of the Document

There was agreement to shorten the introduction of the document to
clarify that the PDP only refers to policy. There was also agreement to
keep the section about values and principles.

3. Changes to PDP

Most people agreed that the scope of the Policy Development Process
should be limited to creating policy. It should not be used to change
the PDP itself or other RIPE governance documents. It was suggested
however to carefully manage the change process including clear deadlines
and announcements to ensure proper community consensus building.

4. Re-introducing Informal Discussion Step

There was strong agreement to re-introduce this step and that gathering
support prior to a formal proposal is crucial.

5. Appeals Procedure – Process, Deadlines, Recusals

There was general agreement to have a well defined appeals procedure
with clear deadlines and a certain level of formalism. Some people
suggested to create a separate appeals body. Others felt that it will be
difficult to find people and that the WG chairs tend to have experience
with the PDP.

6. Editorial Changes

There was no disagreement about the suggested editorial changes.
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[1] There was a question if the RIPE Vice Chair should also be listed.
However, ripe-714 provides the option for the RIPE Chair to delegate to
others, e.g. a Vice Chair.