Subject: Should a CB approve a slate or individuals?

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 21:52:01 -0500

Michael StJohns wrote:

 > At 05:05 PM 3/31/2003 -0500, Avri Doria wrote:
 >
 >> Re: the question of reviewing a slate as whole or as individual
 >> candidates.
 >>
 >> While more often the case in selecting the IAB then IESG, though
 >> it does occur in the IESG as well, a slate is often picked for its
 >> balance of talents.  The recommendation of the DT is that a slate
 >> is sent to the CB as a whole and must be accepted as a whole.  In
 >> rejecting a slate, the CB is certainly encouraged to indicate what
 >> parts of the slate it finds unacceptable, but the NomCom can
 >> reconsider the entire slate and resubmit a slate with different
 >> candidates, even if some of the replaced candidates were acceptable
 >> to the CB during its prior review.  It is in keeping with this
 >> recommendation for the NomCom to submit a slate to the CB that does
 >> not fill all open roles.  In this case, the presented slate counts
 >> as a unit and its approval is not affected by any later submissions.
 >> To reiterate, a slate can only be accepted in its entirety, but t
 >> here is no rule stating that a slate must fill every vacancy - a
 >> slate is defined as being a single list of names and positions
 >> presented to the CB for approval.
 >> It is considered approved and unchangeable once the CB notifies the
 >> NomCom that it has been accepted.
 >
 >
 >
 > No.  Just no.  Its unfair and unreasonable to expect the CB to be able
 > to balance individuals against a complete slate.  The slate represents
 > no more than 1/2 of the sitting members of the body being appointed, the
 > change of one or two individuals based on a rejection should not be
 > considered to cause that much perturbation.  In any event, any imbalance
 > can be fixed in the following year.
 >
 > Confirmations are discussed and decided upon based on the qualifications
 > of an individual, not on the ability of the slate as a whole to succeed
 > or fail.   If I were managing the confirmation process for the IAB
 > (fortunately, that's Leslie's job), I wouldn't know how to frame the
 > question of whether to accept or reject a slate based on whether one or
 > more individuals were bad enough to prevent us from accepting the rest.
 > It may be possible to frame this for a single rejection, but you start
 > getting interesting combinatorial problems when you start thinking about
 > more than one unacceptable person.
 >
 > Please, leave this as a confirmation of individuals.  If an individual
 > fails of confirmation, it shouldn't be that traumatic to suggest an
 > alternative, even if the balance among the whole slate isn't exactly
 > what the Nomcom hoped it would be.  Think of it this way: if changing 1
 > or 2 fully qualified candidates (out of 12 or 18 total members) causes
 > so much perturbation,  there's a lot more wrong than the Nomcom can
 > actually fix.
 >
 > The suggestion that partial slates could go forward also fails.  It
 > needlessly extends the process without actually adding to the quality of
 > the result.
 >

I am curious to hear some discussion of the list on this issue.
So far I think there have been only a few voices.  While I need
to review the list again, I think I have heard one voice for
voting as a slate and one against.

As for RFC2727, I think it was ambiguous on the notion of a slate
of candidates versus single candidates.

a.

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 13:02:29 +1000

>of candidates versus single candidates.

I am of the view that the most effective process is one of individual 
confirmation
or rejection , rather than confirmation or rejection of the entire slate of 
names.

The task here is to pick the best qualified individuals for each open position,
and the focus should be on the attributes of the individual to the requirements
of the open position. Treating this as a slate tends to make the entire 
confirmation
process tougher.

    Geoff

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:07:34 -0500

>of candidates versus single candidates.

2727 was explicitly non-ambiguous.  Applicable language was:
  c. The sitting IAB members review the IESG candidates, consenting to
       some, all, or none.

       If all of the candidates are confirmed, the job of the nominating
       committee with respect to reviewing the open IESG positions is
       considered complete.  If some or none of the candidates are
       confirmed, the nominating committee must reconvene to select
       alternate candidates for the rejected candidates.  Any additional
       time required by the nominating committee should not exceed its
       maximum time allotment.

---

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 22:10:57 -0500 (EST)

in my opinion it should be a a confirmation of individuals

I understand that this could upset a carefully balanced slate but
that seems to be less of a risk than having the CB feel that they can not
tell a nomcom that a particular individual is a non-starter for reasons a
nomcom may have chosen to ignore or did not know just because the
CB might feel that such a message about one individual might push the 
reset button on the whole nonmcom cycle

Scott