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RIPE Community Plenary
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2nd session
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30 October 2020
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11 a.m. CET
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MIRJAM KUHNE: Welcome back, everyone. These coffee breaks feel awfully short in this virtual environment. We will continue with the Community Plenary now and next up we will have a report from the Address Supporting Organisation Address Council.

HERVE CLEMENT: I will publish my screen.

MIRJAM KUHNE: We don't see it yet.

DANIEL KARRENBERG: Will I go first and let Herve figure this out?

MIRJAM KUHNE: That's fine with me.
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Next up, we'll have the report from the Chair of the RIPE Nominating Committee, Daniel Karrenberg.

DANIEL KARRENBERG: Hi, mime Daniel Karrenberg, I am the Chair of the RIPE 2020 Nominating Committee, also known as the NomCom. This is my second report. The first one was last meeting. And I speak on behalf the Nominating Committee.
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So, just a reminder of the NomCom process. The goal of the NomCom process is to select the RIPE NCC Chair. Twelve people actually looked at these slides and nobody spotted that one, including myself, the RIPE Chair and the RIPE Vice‑Chair. It's RIPE community governance, so it's open to all. It's not RIPE NCC governance, corporate governance, only open to the members, it's really RIPE community governance. And it's the most elaborate and detailed RIPE process I reported on this last time how many documents and so on.
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Just a reminder what the timeline is. In two meetings ago, at RIPE 79, we had the nominations meeting, that's when the call for nominations is published. Last meeting, the previous meeting, RIPE 80, we had the consultation meeting, which is basically where all the nominees present themselves. And the NomCom collects input on them already during the meeting and it's called the consultation meeting, and then, after the consultation meeting, the NomCom collects more community input, and then it selects candidates for the Chair and Vice‑Chair position, and finally the RIPE NCC Board confirms that selection, with the intention that the NCC board is a process control. So it looks at whether the NomCom actually followed the process and did it all properly.
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And then the new RIPE Chairs are announced.
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And this meeting is the transition meeting where the new Chairs actually starts their new roles, and because Hans Petter was only a Chair, an interim Chair, as Mirjam has already said in this Community Plenary, we got the transition to happen earlier to relieve Hans Petter earlier from his duties as a RIPE interim Chair.

So what happened in terms of nominations: Well, the call for nominations went out and then for a couple of months we had just one nomination, and that's not a very comfortable place to be for a nominating committee. So, we canvassed and we ended up with a total of four nominations, and we were quite happy because choosing two from four is good; it's not as good as choosing two from a larger set, but, on the other hand, all these four people are very well known in the community and I have heard only positive things about them in terms of being able to actually fill those roles.
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Now, then, of course, the unexpected happened and Hans Petter dropped out because he took up on the job of RIPE NCC Manager and therefore couldn't hold both these positions, so we had only three candidates left and, just before the deadline, we received another nomination, so we had four again.
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What did we do? We informed the community about what we were doing, we had our own blog, which is actually still up, if you want to have a look at it. It will go down once the NomCom finishes but it's still there. We wrote articles on RIPE Labs, we wrote to the RIPE Chair discuss list and we collected input. We set up a separate e‑mail server so that the input really could remain confidential, only a few people would see it and, most importantly, we can delete all of it once we're done. And we had a collaboration site amongst the committee so that we could collect material and work on documents.
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We had office hours at the consultation meeting at RIPE 80. Of course we were a bit impeded by the fact that this meeting had to go virtual, but we were there at all lunch breaks for people to just come in without an appointment and we had some slots by appointment on the Friday of the meeting week to collect more input from people who would rather talk to us than send us e‑mail.
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And we had ‑‑ outside these office hours, we had a few Zoom calls with other community members who preferred to talk to us rather than send us e‑mail. So we had quite extensive amount of feedback from the community that was very good and helped us a lot.
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And then we had a short unexpected development during ‑‑ around the consultation meeting, there was some calls from the community to stop or change the process. The main issues were that people felt the candidate could not be from the RIPE NCC staff, and another concern was that compensation for the RIPE NCC's Chair, the RIPE Chair's time was not clear from the beginning. There was quite some discussion, quite some heated discussion. So the NomCom took note of this and we discussed it extensively both during the meeting and after the meeting and we agreed, in the end of this discussion, that we cannot change the process while we are executing it. This is the most well defined and elaborate process, and we considered that we have no mandate to actually change it.
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The only option that we would have to react to these concerns and was to resign and give the mandate back to the community and select another NomCom and start over. And we didn't see this discussion, have even near consensus about actually starting over. So, we decided that we were going to continue with the process taking all this discussion into account, and we asked for the community support to continue on the mailing list, and we looked at the reactions and we decided that we received support to continue.

So, while we were doing all that, we had halted the process, we didn't start discussing the candidates before this was resolved. Once that was resolved, we started candidate selection, so, we had an insure discussion, we reviewed all the interviews with the nominees, statements from the nominees, we reviewed all the community input again and we had a very open and frank discussion and as is the essence of this procedure, is that discussion is not minuted. So it's ‑‑ so that it can be open and frank.
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All the other committee discussions were minuted, the minutes are up on the blog and once the blog is gone, they will be in the final report of the committee, so you can read them if you like.
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At the end of this discussion, we had a unanimous selection by all the voting members. The NomCom has a voting members and non‑voting members and the voting members do the selection and all of them selected the new Chair and Vice‑Chair, and we did that exactly one day later than we had planned in the timeline, and considering the unexpected discussions and the impediments by the pandemic, I think that was an acceptable job.

As, you know, the selection is for Mirjam to fill the role of Chair and for Niall to fill the role of Vice‑Chair.
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Which leaves me to thank everybody. I really sincerely, and the committee as a whole, really sincerely thanks all the community members who took the time to provide input to us, even if it was very quick and small, but there were also some members who took considerable time to give us very considered guidance for making our decision. Thank you to all of them. Thank you very, very much, this made this process possible.
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Of course, I, as the Chair, would also like to thank all the NomCom members, they put considerable time into this, this is not a light job where you can, as somebody just said, dip in, look around, give your opinion and go out again. This is a continuous effort. And even with the pandemic now, we did it all even during the consultation meeting online. We had foreseen to do stuff online but not all of it. And I must say that all the committee members did really put in the time and effort and made it a pleasant experience by being constructive in the discussions.
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And finally, I would like to thank all the nominees, all five of them, for standing. The choice of the committee explicitly is not one that says anything against the nominees that we did not select. We think, and that was clear during the discussion, that each one of them could have filled this role and had the support of the community, but we had to make a choice of two, and we did that. But we think really all of the nominees who took the effort to stand and develop a policy, or develop the ideas, present them to the community and face the possibility of not being selected, that really is something that makes our community work.
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Finally, the next steps: Well we have to publish our final report. The plan was to do this before this meeting and that we don't make this is only my fault. I had planned to work on this in September and, due to personal circumstances, my productivity in September was very, very low and I just couldn't finish it.
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It's now in the final stages, so I guess in the next three to four weeks the committee will have a possibility to finish it and we'll publish it then.
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And then we will disband the NomCom and the dinner I promised all the members will be postponed until after the pandemic. And after that, after the NomCom is finished, there has to be a community review of the process itself and maybe make changes to the process and that would be after we deliver the report and it's up to the current chairs to actually have that review done.
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And I'm done. And I see Rudiger in the queue. I don't know whether I can give him speaking rights. But...

RUDIGER VOLK: Hello. Well, first, let me thank you, Daniel, and the committee for doing a great job, and I hope you get a really fine dinner as soon as possible. But now for a question and suggestion.
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You said that the blog site will be deleted after the disbandment of the committee. I think it actually should stay available publically. We, once in a while are talking about being transparent, and hiding history does not make a lot of sense with regard to that. If the problem is that you want to get rid of a hosted website somewhere, I would think that the infrastructure that RIPE and RIPE NCC have should be able to provide a home for this instead of the transparency being guaranteed by the way back machine.

DANIEL KARRENBERG: Thank you very much, Rudiger, I think that's a great idea. I will see that that happens. But at the moment I am paying for the server and I want to pay the money, but we'll archive it somewhere. Good idea. Thank you.

NIALL O'REILLY: I noticed that in the question and answer stream, there are essentially the same suggestions being made by Adrei and Eliot Lear.

DANIEL KARRENBERG: I will do that. Thank you very much.

NIALL O'REILLY: Now I'm giving the mic to Elvis.

ELVIS VELEA: I hope I will be able to ask my question, I keep getting kicked out. So, now that the whole process is done, and by the way, good job, I can't not remark that there was some controversy and I would love it if the NomCom could come up with some ideas on the improvement of the process, because you are ‑‑ have experienced this process from the beginning to the end. So I'm really hoping that you, as the Chair and the NomCom, will come up with some suggestions on the improvement of the process so that they don't bump in the controversy again and maybe we'll build on as a community for the next NomCom when the next RIPE Chair will have to be chosen.

DANIEL KARRENBERG: Ellis, thank you very much. The final report will certainly have a section on experiences and suggestions, but they cannot be any more than suggestions because the review should be done by the community. So wait for the final report, it's my fault it's not there yet; I just couldn't work in September. It didn't work out.

MIRJAM KUHNE: Right. Thank you. We're running out of time. Niall, do you see any more questions in the questions in the queue?

NIALL O'REILLY: Q&A is empty. Microphone queue is empty. Let's see if Herve has come ‑‑

HERVE CLEMENT: Hello, everybody. It's a report from the ASO, it's the Addressing Supporting Council from the ICANN, so the Internet cooperation for assigned names and numbers. So the ASO AC is also called the NRO NC, the Number Resource Organisation Number Council, so there is a lot of names for just one council, but I will explain so for the next slide, please, what the aim of these councils.
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So the ‑‑ is of course an NRO Council, so it's a merger of the five regions, the five Internet regions. It's a number resource policy advisory body, so advisory body for the board of the ICANN. This ASO AC is composed of 15 numbers, so three from each regions. There is three numbers, two are elected by the community, and one is appointed by the Executive Board of the dedicated region. And so, for best numbers, the term is different and in the different regions.
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What does this Council do?
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So, as I said before, it advises the ICANN board on Internet numbers matters of the different policies, so at each ICANN meeting, so we propose a presentation and a summary of the different policy proposals of the region, for instance. It deals with a global policy development process review. So a global policy, so it's a policy common to the five regions and deals with the link between IANA and also different regions, etc.
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So, where a policy is proposed and discussed with the five regions, so it is then ‑‑ there is a process so to approve and so this is not to approve the register, this global policy.
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Another role of the ASO AC is a collection of two members of the ICANN board, so two directors, it's slide 9 and 10, but I'll come back to that, and select a representative to other bodies of the ICANN and typically one representative for the NomCom, so it's a community, would choose, so a different representative and directors, etc., for the ICANN.
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So there are monthly meetings, telephonic monthly meetings, and there is a face‑to‑face meeting per year, so as you can understand, so this year there was none, because of the pandemic issue and crisis.
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You can go to the next slide, please.
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So, it's a presentation of the composition of this year Address Council members, so, with the start, so you have the number appointed by the Executive Board of the different regions. For our region, so the RIPE region, Nurani Nimpuno and Filiz Yilmaz are the representatives of the community, and I was appointed, so for the last term, by the Executive Board. And you can see, so on the right, on the slide, the last appointments for the future years of the Council.

Next slide.
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And in the operation processes, so we have to display participation of each councillor, so there were, so as we are in October, so there were ten meetings in 2020, so you can see the participation of every member of the Council. So we tried to do our best to represent our community in that.
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If you go to the next slide. So, I have spoken about different appointments, so to the Board of Directors and to the NomCom. So currently, Ron da Silva from the ARIN region fills the seat 9 of the ICANN board and Maemura Akinori from the APNIC regions fills seat 10, and Pankaj Chaturvedi is the ASO representative for the NomCom for 2020.
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This year, so we reappointed Pankaj Chaturvedi for the NomCom position, so it will fill that position from 2021, and so we are starting the process for the election of seat 9 of the ICANN Board of Directors, so it will be 2021‑2024 term, and as the seat 10 is filled by somebody from the APNIC, so the APNIC won't be able to selected for this seat 9. And you can go to the next slide, please.
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So, that's the agenda of the legacy blocks and the appointment of seat 9. So there is currently a nomination phase which will end at November 15th, so it's a call ‑‑ so if anybody wants to apply for this seat of Board of Directors is very welcome, or she is very welcome, of course, to self‑nominate or be nominated by another member, so everybody is free to appoint somebody for this position. So, I will say, if you are interested, so you can ask questions about the role, etc., about ‑‑ so this role of director, so don't hesitate to nominate ‑‑ to be nominated or nominate yourself for that election.
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There will be after a comment phase so within the ASO AC in December and January, there will a due diligence conducted by the ICANN, and an independent committee for that. There will be an interview phase,, so members of the ASO AC will interview the different candidates, after a selection phase in April, and the formal process of voting end of April, with an announcement of the selected candidate around April. So next year.
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And I think that's the end of my presentation about this Council. So if you have any questions, don't hesitate.

MIRJAM KUHNE: Thank you, Herve. Are there any questions? I don't see any. All right. Well, thank you again. I am glad you were able to give your talk in the end and, yes, I just saw call for candidates in the chat, so please consider applying for the ICANN board from the members community, that's important.
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There are two more minutes if you have any other comments, questions, topics for next time, you can speak now or, of course, also contact us later.
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Right. Well, if that's it, then we will swiftly move over to the Closing Plenary. Marco van Tol, can you please make Brian Nisbet the Chair of this session, so Brian will chair this session and I'll hand it over to you.