The IETF and various members occasionally break out in back seat driver's
syndrome. It's disappointing.
We need to remember that we are organized more as a republic than a democracy.
We select various folks through the Nomcom process to make decisions on various
things. E.g.. the IESG for standards advancement, the IAOC for meeting venue
select and the IAB for appointment of liaisons.
The process for selecting and appointing liaisons is the purview of the IAB and
not currently subject to external review - and I don't find any problem with
that. Among other things, liaisons have to be acceptable to both sides of the
liaison relationship. Trying to fill that slot like we might an IESG slot
(e.g. advertising, running them through the nomcom and then having the IAB
appoint them) really makes little sense. Also, since liaison's have no
specific term (I think that's the case - I'm not going to go research it right
now), if a better fit comes along (e.g. someone volunteers) there is really no
bar to the IAB replacing the current liaison by the issuance of a single email.
(And this is the point where I ask David if he's got a better candidate).
Seriously - can we stop second guessing the IESG, IAB and IAOC on everything?
If there is a wide held belief that we need to revise the scope of
responsibilities for any of these bodies, let's address THAT problem (I
haven't heard there is - but I may have missed something) rather than caviling
about decisions that probably have little if any direct impact on the ability
of the IETF to create standards.
Mike
At 02:50 PM 3/28/2013, John C Klensin wrote:
--On Thursday, March 28, 2013 18:28 +0100 Carsten Bormann
<cabo(_at_)tzi(_dot_)org> wrote:
On Mar 27, 2013, at 22:26, David Kessens
<david(_dot_)kessens(_at_)nsn(_dot_)com> wrote:
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion in the IETF
about diversity.
Is it just me or is the liaison manager for the politically
tempestuous ITU-T relationship really about the worst possible
position to exercise this point on?
Choose your battles; this one is not a productive one.
Carsten,
I think there may be two, possibly three, separate issues here.
(1) Suppose the IAB had said, borrowing from your words, "this
position is so politically tempestuous that we've concluded it
would be unwise to appoint anyone unless he or she is now
serving in an SG liaison role or has been actively involved in
the liaison oversight activities in the last year". That would
lead to a small pool, but, speaking from the perspective of
someone who would meet that qualification, I'd think it would be
reasonable (whether I agree or not). If that were among the
IAB's criteria for the appointment, a discussion within and
about that small group would be sufficient and a public call for
candidates would be a waste of the time of both the community
and the IAB except, perhaps, for symbolic purposes. Perhaps
that is more or less what happened, in which case all we have is
an instance of less-than-ideal communication.
(2) Given that the pool is small under any scenario, should
there have been a public call for candidate applications? I
tend to agree with David about that -- an open call for
candidates can only increase the IAB's and the community's
confidence that everyone plausible and willing has been
considered. On the other hand and referring to the above, if
the IAB defined the pool so that a public call would just be
window-dressing then I, for one, appreciate their not wasting
everyone's time. I also don't have an opinion as to whether
they should have posted the criteria they were going to use and
issued a public call for comment on them. Again, precisely
because this is a sensitive job, that is not an obviously good
idea, especially if the comments were likely to explode onto
public lists or, in the worst case, an effort by the other body
to influence the choice of candidates.
(3) If they had issued a public call for candidates, should they
have been required to make the names public and ask for
community comment on those names? I'm sure that some would
argue that they should. You would presumably say "politically
tempestuous relationship" and "no". While I would agree with
you, I would generalize it and suggest that the IAB should
never, or almost never, issue such a list of names and public
call for comments about candidates for a liaison position. My
reason would be that one doesn't want to encourage
second-guessing by the other body, even if as mild as "what does
it mean that they sent us Alice instead of Bob", much less
efforts by the other body to influence the choice. So, again
comparing the apparent handling of the ITU-T and ICANN liaison
roles, I think both represent less-than-optimal judgment on the
IAB's part, one to expose too little and the other to expose too
much. But I don't know all of the facts or the IAB's reasoning
and might change my mind if I did.
YMMD.
john