Jim,
Thanks for the change of subject. More below...
On 16/03/2013 19:54, James Galvin wrote:
-- On March 13, 2013 10:45:11 AM -0800 Melinda Shore
<melinda(_dot_)shore(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote regarding Re: Consensus on
the
responsibility for qualifications? (Was: Re: Nomcom is responsible
for IESG qualifications) --
On 3/13/2013 10:27 AM, Dave Crocker wrote:
4. Nomcom makes its own decision about the criteria it will use
for selecting nominees; as such, it really is defining the
/actual/ requirements for positions.
I think we need to acknowledge that the confirming body (IAB)
effectively has veto power over those criteria/requirements,
since it can reject candidates who were selected by evaluation
against those criteria.
I do not acknowledge this.
Currently, RFC 3777 is clear that the criteria/requirements are set by
the NOMCOM. Certainly we can discuss this and choose to change it
because we believe the process needs to evolve but that would be a
fundamental shift in how the process was designed to work.
The fundamental principle on which RFC 3777 is based is that all
responsibility for the selection of the leadership and how that
leadership is comprised belongs to the community. The community selects
a set of representatives, the NOMCOM, to execute on that responsibility.
This means the NOMCOM sets the criteria/requirements.
To do this any other way, e.g., allowing the confirming body or the body
with openings to be filled to set the criteria/requirements, risks the
leadership itself becoming a self-selecting and perpetual set of
candidates.
Those who were around when the NOMCOM process was first created will
remember that one of the primary motivations for its creation was
expressly to get the IETF out of precisely that situation.
It seems to me that the real question here is what is the role of the
confirming body? Should its role be biased towards a review (however
deep) of the work of the NOMCOM or should its role be biased towards
ensuring the NOMCOM has followed the process in selecting its slate of
candidates?
Let me repeat something I said a few days ago, that probably got lost
in the noise:
I don't think it is at all clear that the confirming body should be allowed
to mess with the criteria suggested by the IESG (or IAB or IAOC as the
case may be) and then interpreted and tuned by the NomCom. On the contrary,
it is *only* the NomCom that has full information, including confidential
information, and that is the point of Dave's proposed change.
I think we should be more explicit that the confirming body's role is
limited to verifying that the NomCom has done its job and made its
nominations in a fair and balanced way. I don't think it's for the
confirming body to say (inventing an absurd example) "We need two
intellectual property lawyers in the IAOC, so we are rejecting the
slate."
IMHO, the confirming body should be a guardian of the process, not
part of the process.
Brian