Agreeing with this thread, I think a few ADs might undertake a few cautious
experiments for a few WGs.
AFAIK, there is nothing in the process rules that forbid soliciting private
opinions about candidates. Just like technical discussions, "I support" is as
useful as a barrel full of butter at a dog grooming parlour. But "This wouldn't
work because..." can save the WG a lot of pain. Additionally "Have you
considered Fredericka who has the following skills..." would be a help.
Chair turn-over is not high, but the experiment is easily corrected since firing
chairs is easy.
Over to the IESG to enact this?
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
[mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Dave
Crocker
Sent: 11 November 2013 16:11
To: IETF Discussion
Subject: Re: A sort of council of elders for the internet
On 11/10/2013 1:35 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:
On Nov 10, 2013, at 3:41 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net>
wrote:
Without changing the /authority/ of the AD to make appointments,
what about having the AD circulate a list of candidates to the
pre-wg mailing list and solicit comments.
I absolutely love this idea, and I think it would be a disaster.
There's a reason why nomcom comments are not made public. And as an
AD, I can tell you that there are situations I can imagine (which
haven't yet come up) where I would absolutely _not_ want to follow
the preference of the community. You could argue that such a
situation is dysfunctional and the working group ought not to be
formed, and you might be right, but I think you need to iterate on
this idea a few times before we get to where it's something that
could actually be done... :)
That last sentence (, but...) is key.
I put forward a basic idea. Most of the critical responses have
rejected the idea outright. I didn't intend my suggestion as
fully-formed, but as an idea needing discussion, to work through the
details of making it viable within the IETF culture.
For example, contrary to at least one response, I never suggested that
there be public discussion of the candidates.
Most of the negative comments have re-iterated concerns that were lodged
for many years about making nomcom-related nominations public, delaying
the adoption of this utterly reasonable change for at least 10 years and
hurting the nomcom process as a result.
As far as I am aware -- including two recent rounds of participating in
nomcom - none of the fears have been realized. Rather, I believe the
greater transparency has been extremely helpful to the nomcom process.
Most of the negative comments also tend to ignore problems with the
current model. I'll suggest that these these involve tradeoffs and that
concerns need to be balanced against benefits. The concerns also need
to pay attention to IETF realities rather than unanchored fears. So,
for example, there have been almost no cases of politicking, since
nomcom nominations became public.
The current methodology for choosing wg chairs is not without problems.
That's what triggered my making the suggestion.
Those problems will not get resolved magically.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net