Subject: Re: Last Call: draft-dawkins-nomcom-dont-wait (Nominating Committee Process: Earlier Announcement of Open Positions and Solicitation of Volunteers) to BCP

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 15:26:25 +0300 (EEST)

On Wed, 27 May 2009, The IESG wrote:
> - 'Nominating Committee Process: Earlier Announcement of Open Positions
>   and Solicitation of Volunteers'
>   <draft-dawkins-nomcom-dont-wait-03.txt> as a BCP

I have two issues with this.

  1) This places a new responsibility at the feet of IETF secretariat.
     That's a new actor (not even a person but a role) in the process.
     This is not good.

     Better would be that the process allowed some already responsible
     party (be it ISOC president, former NomCom chair, IETF chair, IAB
     chair, or all of the above) the _option_ to allow IETF secretariat
     to perform this announcement. (More about the "option" issue
     below)

  2) As proposed, the IETF secretariat's role is exclusive.  In the
     future no one else would have the authority to publish the
     solicitation.  I don't think this is good.  The role should be
     optional, if _responsible_ party(ies) chooses to take that path,
     or at most inclusive of other parties' authority.

More detailed background on 2) below:

Abstract says:

    This document updates RFC 3777, Section 4, Bullet 13 to allow
    announcement of open positions and solicitation of volunteers to be
    issued before a Nominating and Recall Committee Chair has been named
    by the Internet Society President.

But the new bullet says:

       The IETF Secretariat obtains the list of positions to be reviewed
       and announces it along with a solicitation for names of volunteers
       from the IETF community willing to serve on the nominating
       committee.

       At the NomCom Chair's request, the IETF Secretariat may perform
       other clerical support tasks, as long as the task being performed
       does not require NomCom Chair judgement, in the NomCom Chair's
       opinion, and as long as the community is appropriately notified
       that this request is being made.  This request may come from the
       Incoming NomCom Chair (if one has been selected for this NomCom
       cycle) or the Outgoing NomCom Chair (if the search for an Incoming
       NomCom Chair is still underway).

"Allow" can be read two ways, one of them conflicts with the actual 
text.

Is the intent that the IETF Secretariat has an authority to obtain the 
list of positions and announce them (but other parties also have this 
authority), OR that it has the ONLY authority.

The narrow reading of the actual text above suggests that in the 
future no one else could do the announcement.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:42:58 -0400

>     or at most inclusive of other parties' authority.

The IETF Executive Director, who is part of the Secretariat, already 
has a role in NomCom.  The IETF Executive Director provides the 
requirements for the open positions.

Would you be more comfortable if the Executive Director were named as 
the responsible party?

Russ

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 07:13:55 +0300 (EEST)

On Fri, 5 Jun 2009, Russ Housley wrote:
...
> The IETF Executive Director, who is part of the Secretariat, already has a 
> role in NomCom.  The IETF Executive Director provides the requirements for 
> the open positions.
>
> Would you be more comfortable if the Executive Director were named as the 
> responsible party?

Yes.  I'd be even more comfortable if the text could be inclusive, for 
example that either NomCom chair or IETF exec director could send out 
the announcement, but if shared responsibility seems like a bad idea, 
I can accept that argument.

>From 10K view I have another meta-comment:

The change proposal seems to be based on the assumption that the 
delays in ISOC president choosing a new NomCom chair may be recurring. 
Maybe there will be difficulties in finding a chair (e.g. interviewing 
them etc.), because the obvious, simplest fix (no changes needed to 
the process) would be to just select the nomcom chair earlier.

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:51:16 -0500

Hi, Pekka,

Russ asked me to prepare OLD/NEW text for an editor's note on this:

>> The IETF Executive Director, who is part of the Secretariat, already has 
>> a role in NomCom.  The IETF Executive Director provides the requirements 
>> for the open positions.
>>
> example that either NomCom chair or IETF exec director could send out the 
> announcement, but if shared responsibility seems like a bad idea, I can 
> accept that argument.

Here's what I'm suggesting. I left the primary responsibility for this with 
the Chair, if the Chair HAS been named.

Thanks,

Spencer

OLD:

3.  Discussion

   This document proposes that the IETF Secretariat will issue the
   announcement of open positions and the solicitation for names of
   volunteers on behalf of the Incoming NomCom Chair who will be named
   by the ISOC President.  This allows the search for the Incoming
   NomCom Chair and volunteers to proceed in parallel.

NEW:

3.  Discussion

   This document proposes that the IETF Executive Director will issue the
   announcement of open positions and the solicitation for names of
   volunteers on behalf of the Incoming NomCom Chair who will be named
   by the ISOC President, if the Incoming NomCom Chair has not yet been
   named.  This allows the search for the Incoming NomCom Chair and
   volunteers to proceed in parallel.

OLD:

4.  Updated text from RFC 3777

   For [RFC3777], in section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", bullet
   13, which states:

      The Chair obtains the list of IESG and IAB positions to be
      reviewed and announces it along with a solicitation for names of
      volunteers from the IETF community willing to serve on the
      nominating committee.

   this text is replaced with the following text:

NEW:

4.  Updated text from RFC 3777

   For [RFC3777], in section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", bullet
   13, which states:

      The Chair obtains the list of IESG and IAB positions to be
      reviewed and announces it along with a solicitation for names of
      volunteers from the IETF community willing to serve on the
      nominating committee.

   this text is replaced with the following text:

      The Chair (or the IETF Executive Director, if no Chair has been named)
      obtains the list of positions to be reviewed and announces it along
      with a solicitation for names of volunteers from the IETF community
      willing to serve on the nominating committee.

Comments?

Thanks,

Spencer

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:43:34 +0700

To simplify the text, and make things a little simpler, I suggest
inventing a new name for the "thing" that acts as nomcom chair has
in the past, but which can act before the nomcom chair is appointed.

Say, that was to be called "convenor" - then the doc would
define that position

	The Convenor is responsible for some acts in the early
	establishment of the nomcom, as detailed below.  The chair of
	the nomcom shall be the Convenor from the time the chair
	is appointed.  Prior to appointment of a chair for the comcom,
	the Convenor shall be the IETF Executive Director.

or something like that, with better spelling and capitalisation...

Then, rather than saying "the Chair (or Executive director if no chair has
hey been appointed" in several places, you just say "The Convenor" (instead
of Chair) in all places where it is OK for the ExecD to act on the incoming
chair's behalf, and retain Chair in places where we don't want that to
happen.

kre