Stewart Bryant wrote:
However the Nomcom consists of a cross-section of the community
all of whom see the same input from the community as to the suitability
the candidates for the jobs.
The members of the Nomcom keep each other honest because for
every member of the Nomcom that has a particular partisanship
there are 9 others with a different agenda, at least 8 of whom
work for a different organization. Provided the selection pool is
sufficiently large the probability of a skewed Nomcom is small
and the process works fairly.
All true. However a question worth asking is about the potential
influence of the liaisons. Sometimes, they are remarkably active
participants in the Nomcom discussions, to the point of leading
discussion. Should that be their role?
If a Nomcom has voting members with relatively less direct experience in
the management of IETF work -- as chairs or authors -- then the liaisons
must be relied on particularly heavily.
What the liaisons all have in common is that they are part of the
existing IETF management structure. The potential for this producing a
process that tends to cater to the established structure, rather than
explore alternatives, seems rather straightforward, no matter how
diligent everyone is. That is, this seems an inherent bias.
In addition, the Nomcom research process is weighted towards obtaining
opinions from within the existing management structure. An enormous
amount of energy is devoted to interviewing all IAB and IESG mbmers, as
well as working group chairs. All of this is entirely reasonable, of
course, except to the extent that it contains an inherent bias. Although
not absolute, the sitting members of IETF management can effectively
issue a veto on a candidate.
A straightforward means of obtaining more diverse input is to make
candiates' names public. This permits the rest of the community to
decide whether to comment, rather than limiting Nomcom input to those
who the Nomcom chooses to solicit. (No, this is not a new idea.)
A possible means of ensuring that Nomcom voting members always have a
strong base of IETF operational knowledge is to require that some
percentage of its membership have more experience than mere attendance.
(Note that the meeting attendance requirement does not mean that the
person has ever attended a single working group meeting, nevermind never
done any serious IETF work.)
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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