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Re: NomCom procedures revision

2015-08-30 16:37:45


--On Monday, August 31, 2015 09:20 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:

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.

Largely because of the randomization, I'm not even sure we need
more than one, but Harald's numbers suggest that there might be
some advantages in either load-sharing or not dumping this on
the sitting Ncmcom Chair.  The main reason I suggested two was
to give the sitting Chair flexibility if deciding about an
applicant was uncomfortable because of, e.g., a work
relationship.  

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

Yes, but I'd see those as recommendations to the applicant
(would-be volunteer) to include in a request rather than as
recommendations to those making the decision about what to
consider.  If there were less than complete consistency in
evaluations during the experimental period, that might actually
be an advantage.

    john



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