Subject: Re: NomCom 2011-2012 feedback

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:48:32 -0400

--On Sunday, October 30, 2011 23:01 -0400 Suresh Krishnan
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I noticed that the term "transparency of the process" only
>> appears in  two of the three questionnaires.  Is there a
>> reason for the omission?
> 
> The omission is intentional. The text in question
> ("transparency of the process") is about the handling of
> appeals. Since the IAOC is not involved in the handling of
> appeals the text does not appear in the IAOC questionnaire,

But, Suresh, one of the more critical issues faced by the IAOC
is precisely about transparency of process, even if it is not
about appeals.  The IESG and IAB have gotten hugely better about
transparency in recent years -- narrative minutes and much more
tracking that is available to the community for the former and
clear opportunities for community review and feedback on
documents and other important actions for the latter.  I think
the Nomcom should understand how candidates feel about that sort
of transparency, but I wouldn't expect anyone to tell you that
more secrecy would be in order.

The IAOC is a different matter and, ironically, is the body for
whom you didn't ask about transparency.  The discussions leading
up to BCP 101 led many of us to believe that it was generally
assumed that the IAOC and IASA were obligated to be completely
open and transparent, and to allow community review prior to
taking action, at least for any decision for which contractual
or business requirements didn't make that implausible or
impossible.  We seem to have a twitch (some might use stronger
terms) about that every six months or so.  For example, in
February a couple of RFPs were announced, the IAOC was
questioned on whether there should be an opportunity for
community review, and ultimately decided to ask for that review
and then reissue the RFPs.  The same question came up last month
and the two key IAOC responses (at least from my reading of the
traffic) were "we didn't think it would be useful for the
community to review these" and "BCP 101 didn't tell us
explicitly that we have to put these things out for review, so
we didn't and won't".  If anyone on the IAOC had a significant
disagreement with either of those positions, it wasn't obvious
from the IETF list.    In fairness to the IAOC members, it is
clear that they are busy and can be much more efficient if they
don't get drafts together and ask and wait for community comment
(which might not come) before proceeding.  

I think that the Nomcom needs to figure out what it thinks about
transparency and openness of IAOC actions, including the
tradeoff with efficiency and other issues, and to consider that
issue when evaluating candidates.    It is not clear to me how
well you can do that when the questions aren't asked.

regards,
   john

---

From: Suresh Krishnan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 19:49:52 -0400

Hi John,
  Thanks for your comments. Please see my response inline.

> more secrecy would be in order.

I agree with you, but I was not talking about whether "transparency of
process" would be good for the IAOC or not. I was answering the question
on why the text about handling appeals (that includes the words in
question) only occurs on the IAB and IESG questionnaires. That is why I
requested SM to send this feedback to the nomcom so that the *voting
members* can decide whether this is something they want to consider
during their evaluations. The voting members do want to listen to what
the community considers important and they can only do that if people
provide their feedback. I request you to send a note to the
[email-masked] list with your views so that all the voting members
can be apprised.

Thanks
Suresh