Subject: Re: SUMMARY: serving on both IAB and IESG concurrently

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 07:59:41 -0500

> My concern is that, as stated, it is probably almost impossible to ever 
> agree that there is a problem, much less a clearly understood
> problem.

But if there isn't an understanding of what the real underlying
problem is, we can be pretty darn sure that any proposed "fix" won't
be.

> One of the consequences of confidentiality is that it is hard to see what 
> went on.  We should not remove most of that confidentiality.  But it does 
> make it very hard to observe a problem.  Therefore, we must deduce one from 
> the results.

From my view from within this year's nomcom and also listening to
folks outside the nomcom, there seem to be at least two *different*
reasons that folks are calling for publishing a list of candidates.

The nomcom-internal view (as I read it anyway) had a lot to do with
wanting to be able to get broader feedback about the candidates it was
considering *without* feeling like they might be asking too broadly
and hence violating the confidentiality rules. I'll note that I have
heard criticism from both sides on this nomcom. Some have asserted we
asked for input too broadly, while others have said we didn't solicit
broadly enough. Kind of a no-win. Thus, from the nomcom side,
publishing some sort of list might take off some of the heat with
regards to the confidentiality rules.

On the other hand, at least some of those outside of the nomcom seem
to view a publication of a list as a way to get better insight into
what is going on within the nomcom, so that they can presumably
provide input, if what they see disturbs them. Personally, I don't
think that publishing a list will provide folks with the insight they
really want, and publishing a list won't deal with their basic
problem.

> For example, in discussing the degree of oversight the review bodies do or 
> should have, we are speculating on a number of fronts, including what the 
> real current interaction is, what the current perception of the review 
> bodies as to their rights and authority are, and how effective or 
> ineffective the current feedback mechanism is in provide a check on the 
> nomcom choices.

My sense is that there is some lack of clarity in what is acceptable
in terms of pushback from the confirming body. Confirming bodies can
question process and whether there is due diligence, but to some
extent, they are shooting in the dark on this, since they don't
necessarily know what the nomcom actually did. The IAB has a liaison
(and thus has some view of what happened when it confirms the IESG
slate). On the other hand, the ISOC BOT does not have a liaison, so
they have very limited insight into what happened. Thus, they have
little specific to go on in terms of pushback, other than perhaps not
liking the proposed slate and having a number of unanswered questions
about why the slate is as it is.

In the hallway, I've heard a number of different ideas on how to
possibly try to address the problem. For example, if the primary
concern is "verify that the nomcom is following adequate process", one
approach might be to have each confirming body have a liaison that is
required to formally confirm that processes have been following prior
to the confirming body being handed the slate. Now, this also has
issues, in the sense that the liaison can potentially become a single
veto. So the circumstances under which a veto could be issued need to
be clear along with a resolution mechanism. This liason would also be
able to provide context and input to the confirming body's
discussion. Quite frankly, I have to express sympathy for a confirming
body that has absolutely no insight into the nomcom deliberations
being asked to confirm its output. On what grounds can it ask
questions or say no?

Note also that the above would still do nothing in terms of making
nomcom-internal deliberations more transparent, which is what I
*think* is behind a lot of the calls for publishing the list of
candidates.

So, I think it really is important that we get a handle on what
underlying problem (if any) folks think needs fixing.

> I believe that the current review bodies see themselves as not having the 
> practical ability to say no.

Hypothetical question. On what grounds could they say no? What words
in 2727 provide guidance on when they can and can't say no?

Thomas

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 15:16:13 -0500

--On Tuesday, 02 April, 2002 18:30 +0700 Robert Elz
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>     Date:        Mon, 01 Apr 2002 09:11:40 -0500
>     From:        John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
>     Message-ID:  <46549809.1017652300@localhost>
> 
>   | ultimately, if a situation arose in which the nomcom saw a
> need   | to put the same person on both the IAB and IESG, and
> did so with   | full understanding of the workload and the
> complications for,   | e.g., appeals handling, and there were
> someone who was willing [...]
> 
> I have no problem with that analysis, but I thought (guessed
> may be more the operative term) that the problem intended to
> be solved wasn't this one exactly (though as written it would
> have impact there as well), but the much more common case (in
> that there are reported instances of it, and it will happen
> again, unlike the above, which has close to 0 chance of ever
> occurring) where someone is being moved from one body to the
> other.
> 
> Movements in both directions have happened - but the date of
> end of service in one body and start in the other do not
> necessarily coincide.  If the one that ends ends before the
> other starts, or coincidental with it, then there's no
> possible problem.  But where one starts a week (which is the
> usual time frame) before the other ends, what happens then.
> No nomcom ever appointed the person to both bodies, they just
> ended up there for that (short) period (usually the nomcom
> causing the change won't even know that it will happen, as the
> precise date of change tends to be decided by the relevant
> body very very late in the process)

Sigh.  Having seen this happen several times while sitting on
one body or the other, my instinct is to say "if the person
involved can't work the issues out in some way that is
satisfactory to him or herself and to impacted IESG and IAB
members, then the Nomcom selected the wrong person" or even, "if
the Nomcom can't trust someone to be able to work this out, they
should probably pick someone else".  And, if the nomcom wants to
make one of those changes, _and_ sees a problem, nothing I can
see in the rules prevents discussions with the candidate, the
(incoming or outgoing) IETF and/or IAB Chair, etc.  I can't
imagine that a specific rule in this area would do anything for
us under reasonable circumstances, and would probably
overconstrain us in unpredictable ways in unreasonable ones.

> I have no problem with just doing nothing - I've never seen an
> instance where any actual problem was caused by this, but I
> also wouldn't like to see the issue swept away based upon a
> mistaken (perhaps) understanding of what was intended to be
> achieved.   Perhaps even wording could be crafted which would
> explicitly allow a nomcom to appoint someone to multiple
> bodies, if they do that expressly, but not allow it to happen
> by accident.
> 
> Once again however, we are being asked to decide on an issue
> given only generalities.  No other working group would work
> this way - decide the principle first, and then be faced with
> having to invent mechanism to make it happen is 100% the wrong
> way to achieve good results (even if it sometimes seems to be
> the expedient way).  What is needed (for each and every of the
> open issues being discussed) is a concrete proposal for
> exactly what would be done, and how, which can then be debated
> (and adjusted as required). None of this "is X a good idea",
> after which if we get an apparent "yes" answer, "here is a
> proposal that achieves X" where the only response would be to
> adjust the proposal, not to reject it, as we have already
> decided to do X.

Complete agreement, at least in this case.

    john