--On Thursday, 31 May, 2007 09:00 -0700 "Hallam-Baker, Phillip"
<pbaker(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com> wrote:
I think we need an explicit prohibition on a member of the
IESG being a Working Group chair. This does not happen often
but it has done in the past and it has caused a real problem.
Simply prohibiting an AD being chair of a WG in their own area
is not enough.
Phillip,
I think this shows a conflict between two principles. I would
like to see if we can thread it with some sophistication, rather
than making more and more rigid rules. I'd like to think that
the majority of our WGs are relatively non-controversial and
that the key consideration in the choice of Chairs is simply
what gets the work done most efficiently.
So, to take the most obvious case, if there is a WG that is
making reasonable progress and perhaps is getting close to
producing products, has not been controversial, but has been
chaired or co-chaired by someone who then becomes an AD, I'd
rather ask for good judgment than for an immediate resignation.
The decisions and constraints facing the Nomcom are hard enough
without their having to try to evaluate what the loss of a chair
would do to an important WG.
At the other extreme, I suggest that having an AD as chair of a
high-controversy WG, even if it is in a different area,
represents seriously bad judgment for the reasons you suggest
and others. Personally, I think the bad judgment would be
severe enough that they ought to be calls for resignation (as an
AD, not as WG Chair). I also believe that, if such informal
calls were ignored, recalls would be in order.
Not only does a little bit more flexibility about this --
coupled with the community insisting on good judgment-- make
more sense to me than a firm rule, but there is a scenario you
didn't outline that would make a firm rule less useful than I
think you are suggesting.
Suppose someone had been chairing a WG for some time. She has
gotten technically and emotionally invested in the particular
decisions the WG has been making. The WG has work that is late
in the process -- nearing or perhaps already in, Last Call.
Then she gets appointed AD, takes that position, and resigns as
WG Chair as your proposed rule would require. I think that, in
most cases, the resignation would accomplish nothing as a "cure"
for any possible bias. Whether the individual continues as
Chair or not, I think the important thing is that the situation,
and the way in which it was going to be handled within the IESG,
be handled in a fashion that was open enough, and discussed
openly enough with relevant people in the community (including
dissenters within the WG), that the community could evaluate
whether or not the basic integrity of the process was being
upheld. As above, if so, fine. If not, we would need appeals
and resignations or recalls, not narrowly-written rules about
positions and resignations.
john
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