John,
Thanks for your comments.
This isn't quite a suggestion since the IESG has apparently made
up its mind, but, especially in a time of transition, there are
some major advantages to having two ADs in an area, including
the ability of two specialists with different perspectives to
talk with each other and sort out ideas. Everyone who has
gotten a cross-area review comment that seemed to be off the
wall from an out-of-area AD will understand why general
conversations with the rest of the IESG are no substitute (even
though they may be very helpful and important for other
reasons).
So, all other things being equal, I think it would have been
better to ask the Nomcom to make a one-year appointment if they
could find someone satisfactory [1] and then sort things out
during the next year as planned but with two Apps ADs rather
than cutting the slot now on the assumption that one AD could
and would be able to handle all relevant working groups,
thinking about new plans, and all other IESG responsibilities.
….
john
[1] If the IESG and Nomcom could interpret the rules
appropriately, my thought would be to explicitly tell the Nomcom
that it would be ok to not make an appointment if they concluded
that they couldn't find someone satisfactory for the role, i.e.,
without either making an appointment of someone inexperienced in
the area or scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel.
This could have been another alternative. And still is, because we are indeed
asking for feedback and want to understand if the suggested path is the best
one.
And having two ADs to discuss amongst themselves what to do is very useful. It
certainly was essential for me when I was the INT AD. And especially useful in
the first year or two.
However, I wanted to just talk a bit about the timing and the number of ADs.
And again, some of this is theoretical because we have definitely not decided
_what_ to do; we are still exploring the exact re-organisation that we would
like to make. But for the sake of argument, lets assume that we’d for instance
combine APP and RAI and put in three ADs. Now, today we *do* have two ADs in
APP. For the recruitment of proper number of ADs with the suitable expertise in
next year’s Nomcom cycle, the restructuring should be ready in the summer,
preferably in June. So that we could inform the Nomcom of what the desired
expertise is. If we have the right number of ADs at that point, we can just go
ahead and make the transition. So we wouldn’t be without a second AD in the
area for a long time.
That would be a non-issue if the IESG already had a plan worked
out to transition some specific WGs into other areas by March 27
or earlier, but the announcement implies that is not the case.
I think the key is that we do not have the plan worked out _today_ so that we
can not inform the Nomcom what kind of a person(s) and how many we’d like to
recruit. We might have a plan by March and certainly will have a plan by May
which even the new IESG can stand behind. But that is not today and therefore
it would be difficult for anyone to volunteer for that undefined task today.
Jari
signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail