[address-policy-wg] 2023-04 Who do I speak for?

Colleagues

A question has been put to me privately asking if I am speaking for
the DB-WG because I sign my mails as 'co-chair DB-WG'. Now asking a
question like this to an analyst means you are going to get a detailed
answer.

Everything about RIPE (not RIPE NCC) is underpinned by the RIPE
community. This is a very loosely defined community. It is basically
anyone in the world who has an opinion on how the Internet is operated
and administered in the RIPE region. It is not tied to any specific
group of people and I don't think it carries any legal weight, even on
any consensual decisions it makes. I'm not sure if the relationship
between RIPE and the RIPE NCC is even written into the RIPE NCC's
corporate documents requiring the RIPE NCC to take instructions from a
RIPE community consensus, or just from its own membership and/or
executive board. So the whole concept of the RIPE community and
everything it does is voluntary and pretty much undefined.

So what is a Working Group vs a RIPE Working Group? A WG can be
established to be a specific, defined set of people, assigned a
specific task to investigate or work on. Such a WG can have an
opinion, viewpoint or a conclusive result. The chairs of such a WG can
express opinions, views or conclusions for or on behalf of the WG.
Similar to what we call a Task Force. A RIPE WG is basically a public
mailing list that anyone in the world can read and follow, but only a
random subset of the community subscribers to the list will comment on
for any specific issue. The WG, or mailing list, can't have a view or
opinion. Only the community members subscribed to the list, who choose
to comment, have views and opinions, which may be personal or
corporate. So a co-chair cannot speak 'for' a WG. At best they can
express a summary of the views held by the community members who
choose to comment on any specific issue. Another difference is that a
RIPE WG, unlike a TF, is not limited to one issue. It can have any
number of diverse issues under discussion at any moment. The only
consideration is that each issue vaguely fits the title of the WG.
Following a discussion the chairs can determine if there is a
consensus from the views expressed by those transient, community
members who commented. The chairs and anyone else can then refer to
that consensus. But this is a consensus of the views of the community
members, not of the WG. The WG itself, being so loosely defined,
cannot have a view.

Even though it says in ripe-692 RIPE Working Group Chair Job
Description and Procedures,
"When participating in RIPE discussions, WG Chairs and co-chairs
should endeavour to make it clear whether they speak on behalf of
themselves, the organisations they work for, or the WG for which they
are co-chair."
I think this is a generalised condition. With the structure of RIPE
WGs there is no meaning to speaking 'for' a WG. A RIPE WG is just a
collection of views expressed by individual, transient RIPE community
members which may or may not reach a consensus. Incidentally I don't
recall ever seeing a WG chair state that a view is that of their
business. I would be surprised if no chair has ever expressed a view
that is in the best interests of their business. Rather than this
constant dance with changing hats, I think it would make more sense to
assume any comment or view expressed by anyone, including a co-chair,
is a personal view unless they explicitly say it is the view of their
business or a collective or consensual view from a WG.

The web page https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg sums it up quite well,
"The responsibility of the chairs is to moderate discussions and
declare whether consensus is reached on a policy proposal...Most of
the working group’s activity is done via the mailing list"
As there has been no policy proposal or NWI on the DB-WG mailing list
on these issues there is no consensus and therefore nothing I could
refer to in a way of speaking 'for' the DB-WG.
Even on this page https://www.ripe.net/participate/ripe/wg/wg-chairs it says,
"The chairs are responsible for moderating discussions on the mailing
lists, chairing Working Group sessions and for declaring whether
consensus is reached on a policy proposal."
There is no concept of speaking 'for' the WG mentioned.

Of course I could start a parallel discussion on the DB-WG mailing
list about the content of the RIPE Database and it's future. But the
small subset of the RIPE community who comment on the DB-WG mailing
list is pretty much the same as the small subset of the RIPE community
who comment on the AP-WG mailing list. It is extremely hard to get
many people to comment on any discussion on any mailing list these
days. To ask the same people to express the same views in two
different places would be an impossible task. As the two mailing lists
do have such an overlap of contributors I see this discussion as a
RIPE Database discussion as much as an address policy discussion, even
though it is on the AP-WG list. It is generally discouraged to cross
post on multiple mailing lists. Obviously the co-chairs of the DB-WG
cannot declare a consensus on any discussion on this mailing list. But
if it looked like the discussion was leading to something tangible for
the RIPE Database we could summarise it on the DB-WG mailing list and
ask for final comments and declare a consensus there. As it is more or
less the same group of people commenting on the two lists, you know
you haven't had this discussion on the other list so there is no
consensus I could be referring to.

So why do I sign as co-chair of the DB-WG on posts on this mailing
list? As I have outlined above, I cannot speak 'for' the DB-WG as that
has no meaning. But I think it is important to show that this
discussion, to a large extent about the RIPE Database, is being
followed (some may say driven) by a co-chair of the DB-WG. Then if
anything of more concern to the DB-WG than the AP-WG is discussed or
suggested, but perhaps not concluded, you know it will be followed up
on the DB-WG mailing list. I also do it to indicate to anyone who may
not know me, that I am a person who does have some detailed knowledge
of the RIPE Database. I am retired so I don't have any job title or
corporate name to reference. IF this is a concern to anyone then I
could change my signature on future emails to:

denis
former RIPE NCC Business & Technical Analyst, Designer,
Developer, Administrator for the RIPE Database

In fact this may be more meaningful. Many people who have been chairs
of the DB-WG over the years have only had operator experience of using
the RIPE Database. I literally know it inside out, from almost every
possible angle for 20+ years. I was never 'just an engineer'. I was
even half the legal team for the database with Jochem, before the NCC
employed legal professionals. The only experience I don't have is
using it as an operator. But that is something most of the rest of you
have.

cheers
denis
former RIPE NCC Business & Technical Analyst, Designer,
Developer, Administrator for the RIPE Database