A few things to consider:
Yes, the NOMCOM WG that developed RFC3777 did explicitly discuss issue
of openness of candidacy, and determine that it was best left as part of
the confidential information. There were plenty of pros & cons. The
pros of openness as you cite below; the cons included potential for
campaigning (if not the candidate themselves, people who supported
them), as well as difficulty in getting people to step forward. We need
to have some cultural sophistication if we're going to ask Sue to run
against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG has documents waiting
for Bob's approval.
Secondly, it's not really useful (to the whole system) if only some
candidates declare themselves publicly. If some people agree with your
exhortation below, other candidates for the same positions will be more
or less obliged to come out in order to ensure that the NomCom gets
adequate input on them, too.
My point: it's not a simple decision, and it really is something the
IETF community as a whole should come to grips with and have a
consistent policy for.
(Currently, that policy is in RFC3777).
Leslie.
Pete Resnick wrote:
On 9/12/08 at 9:46 AM -0700, NomCom Chair wrote:
If you are willing to serve, please nominate yourself.
If there is someone you think would do a good job, please nominate them.
I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage people to do something
more open and transparent than we have in the past, without any
changes to rules or NomCom activity.
As we all know, the NomCom process is confidential. That is, whatever
one says to the NomCom with regard to nominees cannot be revealed by
the NomCom. That's a good idea: People need to be frank and honest
without worrying about jeopardizing personal relationships. However,
the confidentiality requirement has always also been read to mean
that the list of nominees must also be kept confidential. That's not
entirely clear in RFC 3777, but that's always been the practice. (I
believe the intent was to dissuade any kind of "campaigning", to
avoid discomfort about "running against" an incumbent or popular
nominee, as well as avoiding embarrassment for nominees who are not
chosen.) But this has a terrible side effect: The NomCom is unable to
get full feedback on nominees, both in the positive and the negative.
If you are unaware that Joe is up for the Foobar Area Director, you
may not have the opportunity to say to the NomCom, "Wow! It never
even occurred to me to think of Joe as a potential Foobar AD. He'd be
perfect!" Or conversely, "It never occurred to me that anyone
(including Joe himself) would seriously consider him for Foobar AD.
He'd be a disaster!"
There are just so many resources the NomCom has at its disposal to
get good information about nominees. We want folks who could provide
feedback to take the initiative, but they're really only going to do
so if they know who has their hat in the ring.
Though I think campaigning should be avoided, I think the other
issues surrounding revealing the names of nominees are not all that
problematic:
- We should all get over the notion that any particular nominee "must
obviously be chosen". It may turn out (perhaps on the *day* that the
NomCom is making their decision) that our favorite cannot serve
because they lose all funding in their current position, or change
jobs and no longer have the ability to serve, or die unexpectedly.
(And these things have happened.) We should be able to comment on all
of the candidates on the off chance that they are the NomCom's
apparent best choice.
- The fact that the NomCom must keep the reasons for *not* choosing
any particular candidate confidential mitigates the embarrassment of
not being chosen.
Obviously we can't change 3777 for this NomCom. However, there is
nothing in 3777 or elsewhere that *requires* any nominee to keep
their own nomination confidential. So, I'd like to encourage nominees
to be public. Here's what I have in mind: If you've been nominated,
post a simple message to the IETF list of the following form:
"My name was submitted to the NomCom for the position of <Foobar AD>,
and I've told the NomCom I'm willing to be considered. Of course,
this is no guarantee that if I get selected, I'd still be able to
serve. Please send them whatever positive or negative feedback you
have."
End of message. No commentary on why you'd be wonderful (or terrible)
for the job. Just inviting people to comment.
Thoughts on this?
pr
--
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"Reality:
Yours to discover."
-- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
leslie(_at_)thinkingcat(_dot_)com
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