Summary

  • In November 2023, Bijal Sanghani said the RIPE NCC Services Working Group chairs could not call the mailing-list support for two co-chair candidates a consensus. She asked the group to show support for each candidate, then confirmed János Zsakó.
  • A year later, with Bijal's term ending, Stefan Wahl volunteered and drew no objections on the list or in the room. The two handovers show how much of a consensus procedure lives in a chair's judgment at the moment it is used.

The awkward pause before the name

Working-group chair selection sounds like a chore until two capable people want one seat. The Services WG procedure calls for nominations, a two-week discussion and a consensus call by the chairs whose terms are continuing. It gives the group two or three chairs, with staggered terms. Sensible furniture for a room that must keep running. The furniture does not decide how much email support is enough.

At RIPE 87 in Rome, Bijal Sanghani confronted that missing measurement. The chairs had considered the support expressed on the list for János Zsakó and Stefan Wahl. They did not find a consensus there. Bijal asked the working group to show support for each. She then announced Zsakó as the new co-chair in Kurtis Lindqvist's place. The published minutes give the sequence, not a numerical tally. Anyone supplying a vote count has brought one from home.

The room noticed the seam. Daniel Karrenberg said he was disappointed that a vote had decided the choice and wanted both volunteers kept involved. Job Snijders suggested three chairs. Bijal answered that the group already had three and said she would stand down the following year. This was a small job with a revealing procedural question: when discussion does not resolve a choice, a chair must either name that limit or pretend the conversation was clearer than it was. Bijal named it.

She followed through. At RIPE 89, Rob Evans said her term was ending and Stefan Wahl had volunteered. No objections appeared on the list or in the room, and Wahl took over. Rob thanked Bijal for chairing since RIPE 48 and for encouraging him to serve. Her RIPE biography places the service alongside her work with Euro-IX and the peering community. After years at the microphone, she left it to the next volunteer.