Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process

Dave,

I have read your proposal. Here's some initial feedback. But I might change my opinion upon further reflection :-) For background, I have never participated in nomcom work, so my experience on that aspect is limited.

My comments are structured around your specific recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Operations Guide

Agree

RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Discussion Management

Agree.

RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion

I agree in principle that we need this -- for conflict of interest and for verified breach of rules, for instance. But I fear that implementation is very difficult and itself prone to generating new problems. Obviously verification of a breach of rules might be very difficult. Also, you have not stated the precise rules for conflicts of interest.

More worryingly, you wrote later in the text "Reasons for exclusion include, ..., potential for violation of confidentiality, ...". Are you saying that we should exclude nomcom members not merely based on violation of confidentiality rules, but also based on predicted, potential future violations? I hope the text was just sloppily written and that you are not suggesting this, for obvious reasons.

RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Tutorials

Agree, though I don't see a big need for keeping them closed.

RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Expertise Requirement

I have very mixed feelings about this. On one hand I believe that such expertise is very useful, but I am also afraid of too much self-selection and conservatism as a result. The IETF has many problems, but one issue that I have been personally worried about is having a sufficient influx of new people. We have some, but in my opinion we should have more. More young people, more new things, more new ways to work. Without this we will all age, not reconsider enough if improvements are needed in our way of working, become stale and gradually lose relevance. Now, nomcom expertise requirements may not have a big impact on these general trends anyway. But I still believe it is important to think outside the box when selecting leaders, and sometimes change and a fresh viewpoint is a good thing (even at the expense of losing some experience). This applies to both nomcom members and, say, IESG members.

Do we have evidence that more experienced nomcom works better than an inexperienced one? Are there any downsides to choosing experienced members (fixed opinions on way to do things that might possibly affect candidate selection, for instance)?

Unlike almost all other recommendations in the draft, this one does not address a current problem. We are solving a problem that might occur in theory. Maybe that helps us make a decision on what to do here.

    * RECOMMENDATION -- Confidentiality Agreement

Agree.
      

    * RECOMMENDATION -- Anonymous Input

Agree.

    * RECOMMENDATION -- Liaison Disclosures

Agree.

RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring

I would prefer to see a weaker rule, such as allowing liaisons to ask to be present in some interviews but not all.

• RECOMMENDATION -- Etiquette Guide

Agree.

RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking

For the reasons already stated on the list by others, I think this recommendation is problematic.

Some more detailed comments:

Many participants still are deeply involved in the IETF, but many others are more narrowly focused, with limited IETF involvement. Often they track only one working group and contribute to none of its discussion, writing or leadership.

I would like to ask for clarification. Did you mean participants who contribute none to *general IETF discussion* or participants who are in listen-only mode in their only working group?

This results in volunteers with potentially less IETF experience, less understanding of IETF culture and less appreciation of the specific strengths (and weaknesses) of the IETF approach to standards development. Instead, they bring their own norms, often including a stronger sense of loyalty to other groups.

This is written in a bit of an us-vs-them style. I think the reality is more complicated. We might want a particular outsider group to bring their work to the IETF, for instance. And experience on how well the IETF enables these people to do it would be very valuable in the nomcom.

Jari

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