Mostly referring to balance, as the text is very close to what I said earlier.
With the IESG, there are other considerations, of course - but balance is one
of them. Going into this in detail on a public discussion list is not something
I
plan to do however. Suffice it to say that there are several forms of balance
that go into it - some having to do with the result and others having to do with
the process.
And balance argues for confirmation of the list either as a slate, or as a
process
wherein the confirming body needs to be brought more closely into NomCom
deliberations.
Hence - negotiation. Reasonable people can always negotiate.
We could go back and forth like this all day. I don't see why we need to do so,
as it is IMO sufficient to agree that we don't read the RFC the same way, or
have the same impressions about how things should (or do) work.
--
E
From: Michael StJohns [mailto:mstjohns(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net]
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 4:20 PM
To: Eric Gray
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: RE: Nomcom is responsible for IESG qualifications
Importance: High
At 03:05 PM 3/8/2013, Eric Gray wrote:
Actually, Joel is not to blame for my understanding. Sorry to say, I did not
read his report.
My understanding comes - at least in part - from the oxymoronic "oral
Traditions" written in an
Appendix in RFC 3777.
--
E
I've included that section in its entirety below. Where in that section does
it say that the confirming body must confirm or reject a slate?
Or if you mean "balance" - where in that section does it say the IESG balance
is even desirable? (Yup - the below specifically says "IAB" balance because
the members of the IAB are at-large members rather than assigned a specific
role link the IESG members).
Or was there another section of 3777 that you might have gotten your impression
from?
Mike
Appendix A. Oral Tradition
Over the years various nominating committees have learned
through
oral tradition passed on by liaisons that there are certain
consistencies in the process and information considered
during
deliberations. Some items from that oral tradition are
collected
here to facilitate its consideration by future nominating
committees.
1. It has been found that experience as an IETF
Working Group Chair
or an IRTF Research Group Chair is
helpful in giving a nominee
experience of what the job of an
Area Director involves. It also
helps a nominating committee judge
the technical, people, and
process management skills of the
nominee.
2. No person should serve both on the IAB and as an
Area Director,
except the IETF Chair whose roles as
an IAB member and Area
Director of the General Area are set
out elsewhere.
3. The strength of the IAB is found in part in the
balance of the
demographics of its members (e.g.,
national distribution, years
of experience, gender, etc.), the
combined skill set of its
members, and the combined sectors
(e.g., industry, academia,
etc.) represented by its members.
4. There are no term limits explicitly because the
issue of
continuity versus turnover should be
evaluated each year
according to the expectations of the
IETF community, as it is
understood by each nominating
committee.
5. The number of nominating committee members with the
same primary
affiliation is limited in order to
avoid the appearance of
improper bias in choosing the
leadership of the IETF. Rather
than defining precise rules for how
to define "affiliation", the
IETF community depends on the honor
and integrity of the
participants to make the process
work.
From: Michael StJohns [ mailto:mstjohns(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net]
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 2:57 PM
To: Eric Gray
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org<mailto:ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Subject: RE: Nomcom is responsible for IESG qualifications
Importance: High
At 02:15 PM 3/8/2013, Eric Gray wrote:
Mike,
Notwithstanding your greater direct NomCom experience, it seems
clear that our understanding
of both RFC 3777 and actual practice differs.
Yup. And I think I found someone to blame. Joel (in his Nomcom report)
mentions a negotiation and agreement with the IAB to confirm or reject the
slate rather than individuals. My guess is that the oral history from that -
wrong - agreement has continued down the line (via the IAB and Past Chairs) to
the current day on both sides of the aisle.
Please go back and review the bidding - especially the report done by Dondeti
for his Nomcom. At the end of it, look at the Issue 5 discussion. It is clear
that the "confirm the slate" interpretation and possible change to 3777 was
considered and rejected.
The Nomcom has repeatedly fallen into this fallacy and has been aided and
abetted by the IAB. It needs to stop as it makes the actual process of filling
positions many times harder. I've been told privately that this isn't a
proximate cause of the current set of Transport AD issues, but I've also been
told privately that this shared delusion has caused much additional work with
out much additional benefit.
Mike
--
Eric
From: Michael StJohns [ <mailto:mstjohns(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net>
mailto:mstjohns(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net]
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 7:06 PM
To: Eric Gray; ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org<mailto:ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Subject: RE: Nomcom is responsible for IESG qualifications
Importance: High
At 05:27 PM 3/7/2013, Eric Gray wrote:
In addition to trying to guess what the "talent-set" requirement is for a
complete slate, the NomCom
also has to try to figure out balance on a lot of different dimensions.
Company-mix, representation
by regions, extra skills and/or tools each AD might bring to the table, etc.
In fact, having worked through this, the single biggest dread a NomCom might
face is the potential
that the IAB may decide to exercise a line-item veto on nominated candidates -
either forcing the
NomCom to effectively start over, or giving the NomCom a clear indication that
their effort to come
up with a balanced slate was a complete waste of time.
I'm still trying to figure out where this "requirement" came from. It seems to
pop up in each and every nomcom, but is no where in RFC3777.
The phrase in 3777 that is appropriate is:
The confirming
body
may
reject individual candidates,
in
which
case
the
nominating
committee must select
alternate
candidates
for
the
rejected
candidates.
Please note NOT an alternate slate, but an alternate candidate or candidates.
Confirmation is done per nominee, NOT per slate. The Nomcom MAY NOT start
over if one of its candidates is rejected. It MAY NOT pull the slate back.
And this "line item veto" is the only veto available to the confirming body.
Unfortunately, this phrase follows one of the more useless sections which has
(my opinion) caused no end of harm:
If some or none
of
the candidates submitted to
a
confirming
body are
confirmed,
the
confirming body should
communicate
with
the
nominating
committee
both to explain the reason why
all
the
candidates
were
not
confirmed and to understand
the
nominating
committee's
rationale
for its
candidates.
The confirming body does not have a reason or reasons for why a candidate is
rejected, it has a vote or result rejecting that candidate. Individual members
of the confirming body have reasons, some or all of which they may or may not
care to state. The only thing the Nomcom should infer is that the confirming
body (or a sufficient portion thereof) did not agree with the nomcom as to the
suitability of that specific candidate for that specific position and it should
then try again. To put it succinctly, it's not the process it's the person -
the nomcom didn't do anything wrong, they just came to a conclusion that the
confirming body couldn't support and the Nomcom should just move on to the next
fully qualified candidate for that position.
The nominations and confirmation process is not and should not be a negotiation
between the Nomcom and a confirming body.
The Nomcom shouldn't spend it's time trying to craft the perfect slate of
candidates. It needs to put good people in each of the spots, and if you need
to sacrifice balance to attain that, then you sacrifice balance and move on.
In fact balance should only come into play when you have two fully qualified
people for a slot where it may make sense to take the lesser (but still fully
qualified) candidate to "balance" the slate.
The Nomcom has a hard job - but it needs to do the job one position at a time
and not make its job harder. Pick the best qualified people and move on.
I say this as a former Nomcom member, former Nomcom Chair and former Nomcom
past-chair.
Mike
ps -
The difference between a engineer and a bureaucrat is that the engineer takes
large insolvable problems and breaks them down into solvable pieces, while the
bureaucrat takes solvable problems and combines them into large insolvable
masses. Each and every position to be filled is in someways a solvable
problem, but trying to find the absolute perfect combination of people (for
some value of perfect) is possibly close to intractable.