At 04:30 AM 10/12/2014, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
On 10/10/2014 02:59 AM, Michael StJohns wrote:
At 07:31 PM 10/9/2014, Pete Resnick wrote:
On 10/9/14 3:03 PM, Michael Richardson wrote:
....
If a new AD position is created, I think doing a 3 year appointment
is most consonant with 3777 3.4, but I don't think 1 year is forbidden.
You need to read it all. Regular candidates serve a 2 or 3 year
appointment. Mid-term vacancy fillers serve between 1 to three years
depending on when the vacancy occurs. AFAIK we've never made a
normal vacancy 1 year appointment. And I think its been a while since
we've had a 3 year term appointment.
I'm going to read the whole thread before I comment on the current
situation, but we have done an one-year appointment at least once.
In 1998, I was appointed AD for the O&M area for a period of 1 year.
This was a special situation, because:
There's a slight difference between a one-year mid-term and a one year normal
appointment.
I was the chair of the Nomcom that nominated you for the move. That Nomcom had
unusual results in a number of ways, including the O&M area.
a) Both O&M ADs were resigning at the same time, so we needed to do
either 1+2 or 3+2
b) I was already on the IESG (switch from apps), so learning curve was
percieved to be shorter
c) I expressly did not want to change my intention of departing the IESG
after 4 years
Actually, no. You were a "mid term" appointment, that happened to coincide
with the normal Nomcom deliberative cycle.
We met to consider Mike O'Dell's O&M slot. During the period between when
vacancy announcements were made and we'd completed deliberations, John Curran
resigned. We re-appointed Mike for a 2 year term, and moved you from Apps to
cover John's slot (mid-term vacancy in current terms).
Between the time we completed deliberations (and I think *after* we'd gotten a
confirmation on Mike and you from the IAB) and the First IETF for 1998, Mike
O'Dell had some medical issues and resigned. The Nomcom ended up selecting
Bert Wijnen to fill Mike's slot. Your term was long fixed by the time that
happened.
As part of that Nomcom, we did the first "rebalancing" term adjustments and
appointed *I think* two people for three year terms. I know one of them was
Fred Baker, I believe the other was Patrik Faalstrom to fill your vacated Apps
slot. There *might* have been one other, but I'd have to go do some digging.
That Nomcom ended up making 17 nominations, all of which were confirmed. We
filled 3 O&M slots prior to First IETF. I *think* your move from Apps to Ops
was the first mid-term poaching (the prior year Nomcom had moved Scott B from
Ops to Transport, but I think that was on a normal 2 year boundary).
Incidentally, that Nomcom also suggested to the IESG that perhaps it was time
to not fill the User Services area vacancy (which Area was mostly meeting as a
committee of the whole). The IESG considered that comment and still asked us
to complete the process. User Services took another 4 years to phase out, even
though there were few (no?) extant WGs in the area.
The only lesson worth noting here is that we have a tradition of doing
what makes sense.
Note that a number of the actions the '98 Nomcom took would be prohibited or
substantially modified by 3777 which was put in place a couple years after.
Specifically, the way we moved you from Apps to Ops would have required two
steps rather than the one it took.
There also was no real notion of what a mid-term vacancy was as John's
resigning was *I think* the first one we'd had.
Processes evolve and mostly codify existing practice. At the time of the '98
Nomcom, the body of existing practice was a lot smaller than today's and that
gave us a bit more flexibility than is the current norm.
Mike