Hello dear friends! Let's parse this out. The necessary but not sufficient conditions for any candidate are, roughly
1. They can afford to come to RIPE; 2. They are willing to come to RIPE; 3. They have enthusiasm and relevant expertise on issues important to the RIPE community. We have three people (and maybe more -- speak up!) who meet this criteria. Beyond this, there are many things that *could* make a great candidate. But unless we can manifest a human out of mud and thin air, we may have to accept a candidate that doesn't embody all of the qualities on various stakeholders' wish lists. Keeping with the discussion of practical reality, I currently have a very demanding job, and increasingly limited time. I care about RIPE and I'm not comfortable being the single point of failure for a WG whose role is so important to the RIPE community. In other words, I need co-chair. Full stop. Given this, I think a productive direction for this discussion would go something like this: 1. *Openly and kindly ask the current candidates questions*, helping those on the list understand their qualifications more deeply, and assess their abilities and interests. 2. If you have a good lead, *provide concrete suggestions for other candidates*. 3. And, of course, *if the process doesn't sit right, speak up with concrete suggestions on how it can be changed*. The current process was written by me. It uses language the way I use it. It's almost certainly imperfect (appointment, election, choice -- whichever word you want!). I'm more than happy to discuss this. Thanks, Meredith On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:37 PM, Jim Reid <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 24 May 2016, at 11:08, Patrik Fältström <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I have been following the discussion about the appointment of chair (I > am nervous over use of the word "election") of this WG and think about what > features I would like to see on a new chair. > > I share these concerns and fully support the points you've raised Patrik. > > Any talk of elections rather than consensus decisions in a RIPE context > gives me the heebie jeebies. These get worse when it's those in leadership > positions who talk about elections. > > The co-chair candidates that have emerged to date do not appear to have > deep roots in the RIPE community. Although all three are familiar with > Internet goverance matters in general, they're somewhat detached from the > policy development and Internet governance issues in the RIPE region. This > is troubling. As a result, I'm reluctant to support any of them. > > It would be good for the WG to discuss the requirements and criteria for > the new co-chair. I hope we can have that discussion when the WG meets this > week. Once there's consensus in the WG on these requirements and criteria, > it should be easier to decide which candidate(s) would be the best choice. > This may mean the appointment of a co-chair can't be done in Copenhagen and > will need to be delayed. > > > -- Meredith Whittaker Open Research Lead Google NYC
