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Re: NomCom procedures revision

2015-08-30 16:21:12
On 30/08/2015 11:05, John C Klensin wrote:


--On Sunday, August 30, 2015 08:21 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:

...
I'm sympathetic to both your points, but I'm also keen to keep
the rule as simple as possible, for various reasons (especially
simplicity in verification).

One way out is to decouple this question from RFC7437bis by
designing an RFC3933 Process Experiment (i.e. try out an
alternative qualification rule for a couple of years,
reverting to the current rule afterwards by default).

This may be too radical but, in the spirit of allowing people to
apply discretion, let me success such a process experiment based
on the principle that the reason for Nomcom-volunteer
qualification rules is to be sure that the selecting members of
the Nomcom have a reasonable understanding of the IETF and how
it works.   For the purpose of this experiment, 

(1) Anyone meeting the current requirements is automatically
qualified to volunteer, just as they are today.

(2) Anyone inclined to serve on the Nomcom and willing to meet
whatever requirements for attendance and participation during
the Nomcom's term apply for the Nomcom of interest may submit
his or her name and a very brief statement of qualifications
(or, more specifically, why they believe they are qualified) to
the Nomcom Chair.   The Chair and previous Chair will consider
all such applications and may, based on their personal
discretion and the "reasonable understanding" principle may be
added to the volunteer pool.  When the Chair publishes the list
of volunteers, those who submitted a statement of qualifications
will be included along with their statements and the decision of
the Chair and prior Chair.  Egregiously silly decisions may be
objected to following the usual procedures.

That experimental model has three important properties: it
involves no new filtering rules, it may allow some people onto
the Nomcom whom everyone would agree have an adequate knowledge
of the IETF but who do not qualify on meeting counts alone, and
it allows us to accumulate information about who actually
volunteers and asks for an exception and what their claimed
qualifications are.  Put differently, it may help us tell
whether we have an actual problem or only a theoretical one.

I decided to sleep on it, and the result is that I'm quite attracted
by this idea. Maybe we should have three "gatekeepers" instead of
two, but since the random selection process makes the final cut,
it doesn't seem that personal bias could be a major factor anyway.

We could add a list of *suggested* criteria such as RFC authorship,
active WG contributions, remote participation.

    Brian

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