[ripe-list] New Draft Document: RIPE NCC Staff Participation in the RIPE Community (Please review)

On 9 May 2023, at 12:30, Franziska Lichtblau <rhalina at old-forest.org> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 2023-05-08 at 09:40 +0200, Melchior Aelmans wrote:
> 
>> One question, as it's not clearly forbidden, is NCC staff allowed to
>> be a WG chair, partake in NomCom, etc? I would say yes.
>> 
> I think it absolutely should be allowed. We want the NCC to be rooted
> within the RIPE community and excluding them from active participation
> would not support that goal. In my experience if you are actively
> involved in a community you get a way better understanding of the inner
> workings and principles. For the NCC staff that means better input to
> their decision making process. 
> We try very hard to get people to engage and participate in the RIPE
> community - let's not reduce that pool unnecessarily.

while i do not see any particular harm in WG chairing, the RIPE chair nomcom had to tread a fine line in separating chairmanship and NCC and therefore I think it is best to be cautious due to conflict of interest, but it does not mean that nobody from staff can participate: rather, to protect variety of opinion by avoiding single group of taking control.

such issues can be handled by the charters lf such bodies though; we didn't discuss PC, or NRO NC, but same approach applies.

> The document states very clearly, that NCC staff needs to disclose
> their position. This is something we already do by, e.g, asking people
> to disclose their affliation when commenting on the microphone. So we
> already know how to deal with potential conflict of interests with a
> lot of different stake holders. 

good point, likewise a meeting etiquette can handle other multiple hats one may wear.

-- dk@ (PC member; not NCC)