Subject: IAB request for clarifications in RFC2727bis

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 17:09:13 -0500

NOMCOM WG,

Every year, in the course of performing its role of
confirming the IESG slate, the IAB reviews and applies
the directives for that role as spelled out in RFC2727.
Since that document is under revision, the IAB this year
compiled a list of knotty questions it and previous
IABs have contemplated in applying the rules to fulfill the 
community's intent.  We think it would be helpful for future 
IABs if the revised document could address these issues.

There are 2 general areas we feel are in need of clarification.

1/ An overall clarification is needed in terms of how to handle the
mid-term transition of a member from one position to another.  That is,
if a member of one body, whose term there is not finishing, accepts
nomination to an opening in the other body (or a different
position in the IESG) as part of the annual cycle, what is the 
expected practice:

   Is this an automatic resignation from the first position?

   When is that resignation effective -- at the end of the
   IETF meeting when they officially begin their new role?

   Since it is particularly difficult to gauge precise
   numbers of months left in the term at that point, is
   this then a mid-term vacancy to be filled for the rest
   of the original member's term, or for the rest of the
   original member's term plus 2 years?

   How should the nomcom fill the mid-term vacancy:  as part
   of its slate for the affected body, since it created the
   vacancy, or by running a separate consideration process
   once the affected body is made aware of the vacancy
   (by seeing the confirmed slate).

   Is it the intent of the Nomcom WG that someone could serve
   simultaneously on the IESG and as a sitting member of the IAB
   (i.e. not talking about the IETF Chair special case) ?

   This is ambiguous in the current procedures, so should be
   explicitly clarified one way or the other in the next revision.

2/ Is the IAB's role to exercise good judgement about the
qualifications of each nominee or is the IAB's role limited to
process review only?

   If it is the IAB's role to exercise good judgement, what are the
   documented criteria for an IESG candidate ?

   If it is not the IAB's role to exercise good judgement, how does
   the IAB get sufficient visibility into the Nomcom process to
   exercise a purely process-oversight role without breaching the
   confidentiality and without intruding on Nomcom's deliberations ?

Leslie,
for the IAB.

-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Reality:
     Yours to discover."
                                -- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
[email-masked]
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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 13:21:56 -0600

Leslie,

Tuesday, March 11, 2003, 4:09:13 PM, you wrote:
LD> 2/ Is the IAB's role to exercise good judgement about the
LD> qualifications of each nominee or is the IAB's role limited to
LD> process review only?

LD>    If it is the IAB's role to exercise good judgement, what are the
LD>    documented criteria for an IESG candidate ?

LD>    If it is not the IAB's role to exercise good judgement, how does
LD>    the IAB get sufficient visibility into the Nomcom process to
LD>    exercise a purely process-oversight role without breaching the
LD>    confidentiality and without intruding on Nomcom's deliberations ?

Many thanks to the IAB for putting this issue forward.  It is a very
difficult one and it seems to have been a factor in the nomcom process
from the start.

The IAB is a collection of bright, motivated, experienced people.  So
how could it be at all reasonable to restrict their review to matters
only of process?  After all, they often know candidates, and very
well.

The difficulty is in the length and complexity of the nomcom committee
work.  Nomcoms put in a great deal of time, talk to many people, and
consider choices and tradeoffs at great length.  Hence, the reasons
for a particular slate of candidates can be difficult, subtle and
fragile.

An IAB review occurs after all of that extended Nomcom work. It cannot
replicate it, both due to calendar limitations and due to resource
limitations.

But we need to remember that the IAB really DOES have quite a lot of
knowledge about the IETF and its major participants.

Let me suggest, therefore, that the way to use that expertise, without
having the IAB try to second-guess (or replicate) the Nomcom's own
work, is to have the IAB treat "process" evaluation as more than a
matter of form.  It should treat it as an evaluation of the quality of
thinking done by the nomcom.  That is, it evaluates the nomcom, not
the nomcom's choices.  It uses the choices as a way of guiding the
focus of the review.

When a nomcom makes a recommendation that is, shall we say,
"surprising" the IAB should push back, requiring that the Nomcom
explain (and defend) that choice very carefully.

This has occurred for the two Nomcom's I've been on and I am quite
certain that the knowledge of having to pass through a review of that
type helped the Nomcom to be more deliberate in its considerations.
(One time, we essentially had to re-construct and re-consider our
entire basis for a choice.  This can be de-stablilizing, to the
group's effort, but I believe it still produces a better result.)

My own sense of difficulty in the two IAB review's of nomcom
recommendation was with the manner in which the IAB and Nomcom
interacted. It was extremely formal and slow, and only went through
liaisons. Hence, it did not permit a real dialogue and, if anything,
tended to produce defensiveness in the Nomcom. (To be clear: I believe
the defensiveness comes from the design of the interaction, rather
than from the IAB's pushback.)

So I suggest that IAB review of IESG choices, and ISOC review of IAB
choices, include a conference call with a collegial discussion.

That is, it should assume that everyone is working in good faith and
has worked hard, but that a surprising choice obligates everyone to
put in extra effort, to understand the basis for that choice.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>

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From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 14:22:43 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Leslie Daigle wrote:

    1/ An overall clarification is needed in terms of how to handle the
    mid-term transition of a member from one position to another.  That
    is, if a member of one body, whose term there is not finishing,
    accepts nomination to an opening in the other body (or a different
    position in the IESG) as part of the annual cycle, what is the
    expected practice:

It is my opinion you can treat this as a special case...or not.

Although it has been discussed, we have never called the question as to
whether or not an individual can serve in more than one role.  My
recollection of such discussions is a predominant theme was that no one
in their right mind would do such a thing, nor would the NOMCOM let
them.

So, on the one hand, if that's true, I think there's enough documented
process to address this issue.  Certainly, a person can resign at any
time from any position.  This then makes a mid-term vacancy for which
the process of filling is already specified.

The only real issue I see is one of timing.  Frankly, I don't believe we
need to document a specific sequence of events for this case.
Presumably everyone is acting in the best interests of the community
(you wouldn't be where you are if you weren't) and I for one trust the
"royal you" to do what works best for all parties concerned, including
the community.

On the other hand, if you want to call the question of a person filling
more than one role simultaneously, please say so.

I like Dave Crocker's response.

Note that this iteration of the document includes an explicit statement
that the NOMCOM and the confirming body are to interact regarding the
slate.  In addition, the NOMCOM is required to support their chosen
slate with a summary of why they believe each candidate is the best
choice.  In other words, we are one step closer to Dave's suggestion for
a collegial teleconference, but we are not overly specific about it.

Jim

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From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 14:49:14 -0500

To clarify:

> more than one role simultaneously, please say so.

Timing is indeed the key issue.  For fun, why don't you document
what you think is the appropriate sequence of events given
the existing process?

Leslie.

--

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From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 09:58:58 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Leslie Daigle wrote:

    James M Galvin wrote:

    >     mid-term transition of a member from one position to another.

The only timing issue I see is how to deal with confidentiality, which
becomes increasingly awkward as the number of people who know about the
transition increases.

Setting that aside for the moment, since you asked for a sequence of
events, something like this:

    NOMCOM needs to fill roleB-1
    NOMCOM wants person in roleA-2
    personA-2 agrees
    NOMCOM needs to fill roleA-2
        note that roleA-1 is presumably already being replaced

    at IETF personB-1 is asked to step down
    at IETF personA-2 resigns roleA-2, gets 2 year term in roleB-1
    at IETF new person gets roleA-2 for 1 year term
        personally, I think the NOMCOM could make a case to give this
        person a 3 year term because to force it with the rules all you
        need is for personA-2 to resign just before the IETF so the
        remaining term is more than 1 year.

If all the parties in this transaction know what's happening I still
don't see an issue.  The critical party of course is personB-1.  If
personB-1 does not know then that makes it awkward for a fair number of
people, including:

    personB-2 - who will be consulted on their partner
    the incumbent in roleA-1 assuming they will be re-nominated, since
        they will be consulted on their partner
    personA-2 - who now knows about their situation, the situation of
	personA-1, and the situation of personB-1

It's also important to keep in mind that although the NOMCOM can not
comment on any action in progress, there is nothing to prevent personA-2
from commenting about their own situation, e.g., "I am talking to the
NOMCOM about moving to roleB-1."  This is allowed by the rules.

In any case, I don't see how specifying exactly how this situation
should play out will fix the confidentiality problem.

If there's a deeper timing issue I'm missing it.

Jim

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From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 17:02:56 -0500

I believe that's the desired effect.

At issue is aligning it with stated procedure:

>     NOMCOM needs to fill roleA-2

Bug:  NomCom doesn't declare open slots.  The IAB and IESG
tell the NomCom (via the IETF ExecDir) that they have a vacancy
to fill.  Therefore, according to RFC2727, this slot cannot
be declared open (and therefore filled) until the slate is
announced and the relevant body can make this declaration.

At which point the mid-term vacancy process kicks in, and there's
a question about whether or not the position should be separately
announced and a new round of nominees solicited.

As I said -- the process you outlined seems reasonable; it's
just not what appears to be documented.

Leslie.

--

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From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 20:27:45 -0500 (EST)

> Therefore, according to RFC2727, this slot cannot

a tweak on this happend this year (and once before) where 
someone with ayear left in their term moved from the IAB to the IESG

if the nomcom followed the above they would have not filled the 
rest of the IAB term but instead would have waited and used the
mid-term vacancy process for the IAB slot. (or am I misreading 
what Leslie is saying?)

Scott

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From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 21:58:37 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Leslie Daigle wrote:

I have always believed and defended that a fundamental tenet of the
NOMCOM document is to behave and execute "in the best interests of the
community."

So, to interpret the document as strictly as you are suggesting is not,
in my opinion of course, in the best interests of the community.

Further, the first rule of the operation of the NOMCOM is that the group
as a whole can make up rules (not otherwise covered) as it needs to
complete its responsibilities in a timely fashion.

In the scenario you lay out it is only the timing that is at issue.  You
are not inventing an end-game or a process that could not ordinarily be
covered by the current procedures.

Yes, you could wait to announce the resignation until the confirmed
candidates are announced, but to what end?  So the IESG/IAB has to
operate 1 person short waiting for a mid-term vacancy to be filled?  So
the NOMCOM has to work an extra 6 weeks to fill the mid-term vacancy?
So you don't breach confidentiality asking the Executive Director (and
whoever else you need to ask) to help you put together a job
description?

If the resignation is going to happen I believe you can use the "invent
rules as needed" clause to proceed as needed to make the most efficient
use of the resources available.

Jim