Subject: Nomcom candidate name announcement alternatives

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 15:06:16 +0900

Folks,

The IETF originally chose to make the nomcom candidate list private, to 
protect the candidates.  If the nomcom process is changed to publish names 
we are fundamentally altering this protection.

I would like us to consider the alternatives, so that the working group 
choice is based on a reasonably clear sense of the trade-offs.  So, here is 
an initial summary of the choices.  Please point out fuzziness, errors and 
omissions. Where possible, please suggest specific wording changes.

The trade-offs are described as the benefits (PRO) that we can or might 
experience if we implement that alternative, and the detriments (CON) that 
we can or might experience.  In the case of choice #0 (the current choice) 
I have tried to summarize the benefits and detriments that we have been 
experiencing and the reasons this alternative was originally selected.

One thing is very clear to me:  None of these choices is simple; none of 
the outcomes is completely predictable; none of the likely effects is 
small.  Neither the benefits nor the problems.  Therefore, we need to make 
a change only if we are very clear about the urgent problems that we expect 
that change to fix, or the urgent benefits we expect to see.

0.      No name announcement  (The Current Choice)

         Pro:  We have lived with this choice for the entire life of the 
nomcom process.  It is designed to protect candidates' privacy, egos, 
professional standing, and other such sensitive personal factors.  This 
especially includes protecting the privacy of the nomcom choice to NOT 
renew a candidate currently holding the position being considered.

         Con:  People who are not queried by the nomcom might not know who 
is a candidate.  Those people with special knowledge of a candidate 
therefore might not know to provide it to the nomcom, and nomcom might 
therefore make a decision based on a deficient understanding of the 
capabilities and weaknesses of candidates.  The concern even goes to 
failing to nominate a good candidate.  Also one could view the current 
model of privacy about who is a candidate as a myth, because because there 
so many people must be queried for feedback.  People who are queried 
necessarily have a good idea who the candidates are.  In the context of 
having a portion of the community know this information and a portion not 
know, this encourages rumors, and other bad processes.

All.    Names made public (effects common to all proposed changes)

         PRO:  Any of the changes may result in public discussion of 
candidates and public awareness of candidates who were declined.  Essential 
information might be provided to the nomcom, about current candidates or 
candidates that should be considered. The public review could add another 
degree of validation of a candidate's qualifications, with respect to their 
ability to handle the public "heat" that is a regular part of this 
community.  The nomcom might find out whether a candidate has the requisite 
thick skin.

         CON:  Public discussion can result in public and personal attacks. 
(This is the "heat" cited above.)  This might hurt people 
professionally.  It might affect who is willing to be a candidate.  It 
might affect their future participation in the IETF.  In terms of effects 
on the nomcom process, publishing names might alter or increase 
electioneering and the efforts to manipulate the public discussion, as well 
as manipulating the resulting input to the nomcom. That is, the pool of 
potential game players is perhaps two orders of magnitude larger than we 
experience today; the IETF usually considers such a scaling to have effects 
that are worthy of concern.

1.      Announcement of all suggested candidates (before they accept)

         PRO:  All IETF participants will be able to tell whether their 
favorite candidate (or target) has been suggested and will therefore be on 
notice to offer their comments.  By publishing the names that have no 
status other than being put forward as possible candidates, there is no 
special identification of anyone as having that special status (candidate, 
final-stage candidate, or nominee).  This will limit ... 
embarrassment?  privacy violation?  leakage of what the nomcom thinks about 
the candidates?  Also, by making the publication rule really simple, it can 
be completely automatic and therefore not be a burden on the nomcom.

         CON:  Announcement at this early a stage creates an extremely long 
period of time for public debate about individuals and their 
qualifications.  Besides taking an enormous amount of energy in the open 
IETF, it could produce an enormous amount of animus, without even enjoying 
the the usual benefit of being tied to a technical debate.

2.      Announcement of candidates who have accepted

         PRO:  The same benefits of the previous choice, except that it 
entails a smaller list of names, so that it uses everyone's time more 
efficiently and insures that comments pertain to people who really are 
under consideration.

         CON:  Essentially the same concerns as the previous choice, except 
that the people being discussed in public are now known to be 
candidates.  Hence the potential for personal damage to them in greatly 
increased.

3.      Announcement of the final (short) list of candidates

         PRO:  Because this would take place much later in the process, the 
amount of time for public comment is shortened.  It would still be enough 
time to gather comments that could affect the outcome, but it would limit 
the opportunity for public debate about individuals' merits and 
deficiencies.  Also there is a view that the nomcom already obtains enough 
information to a) obtain a good list of candidates, and b) do an adequate 
job of selecting an appropriate short list of qualified candidates.  Hence 
this later stage of announcement could be more efficient and limited only 
to the candidates about whom the nomcom needs extremely thorough knowledge.

         CON:  The intensity of personal attacks on candidates would 
probably be maximal at this stage, for example by IETF participants hoping 
to knock a candidate out of the running as well as professional foes.  The 
personal and professional damage to individuals, at this point, could 
similarly be maximal.

4.      Announcement of nominated candidates, prior to confirming body approval

         PRO:  This is the last opportunity for public review prior to 
formal approval, and therefore ensures that comments are limited to public 
review for preventing extraordinary selection errors.

         CON:  In reality, announcement at this stage would be too late for 
making any changes, without massive trauma to the community.  It could also 
be seen as forcing the hand of the confirming bodies, increasing the 
community trauma if a rejection were to occur (whether justified or not).

d/

----------
Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email-masked]>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.850.1850

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 15:39:04 -0400

There is an interesting implication here that I had missed.

The phrasing of these points raises the spectre of public discussion (on 
IETF lists) about the published individuals.  If this is likely, it would 
then lead almost inevitably lead to politicising the environment.  This is 
very bad.

However, rather than concluding that we should not publish the names, I 
conclude that we should put in a very strong policy prohibiting this 
discussion on any IETF list.  While this would not stop all discussion, it 
should be sufficient to prevent serious politicing.

(And those who color me naive for not having seen this problem sooner can 
chortle quietly.  But publish anyway.)

Yours,
Joel

At 03:06 PM 7/16/2002 +0900, Dave Crocker wrote:
> candidates and public awareness of candidates who were 
> declined.  Essential information might be provided to the nomcom, about 
> current candidates or candidates that should be considered. The public 
> review could add another degree of validation of a candidate's 
> qualifications, with respect to their ability to handle the public "heat" 
> that is a regular part of this community.  The nomcom might find out 
> whether a candidate has the requisite thick skin.
>
>         CON:  Public discussion can result in public and personal 
> attacks. (This is the "heat" cited above.)  This might hurt people 
> electioneering and the efforts to manipulate the public discussion, as 
> well as manipulating the resulting input to the nomcom. That is, the pool 
> of potential game players is perhaps two orders of magnitude larger than 
> we experience today; the IETF usually considers such a scaling to have 
> effects that are worthy of concern.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 14:17:46 +0200

Dave, thanks for this systematic approach. Let me argue one of your
points:

Dave Crocker wrote:

...
> All.    Names made public (effects common to all proposed changes)
...
>          CON:    ...In terms of effects
> as manipulating the resulting input to the nomcom. 

It might. On the other hand, by putting more information into public hands,
we might decrease electioneering and attempts to manipulate, simply by
making any such actions impossible to conceal.

>   ...That is, the pool of

Indeed. But I think one important aspect of democracy is the realisation that
if everybody is a player with equal access to information, the game is not
biased. 

Thus, I'm not at all sure that these effects belong on the CON side.

   Brian

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 23:23:36 +0900

Date:        Tue, 16 Jul 2002 14:17:46 +0200
    From:        Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | It might. On the other hand, by putting more information into public hands,
  | we might decrease electioneering and attempts to manipulate, simply by
  | making any such actions impossible to conceal.

That the likely targets are known neither makes it more or less likely
that attempts to influence the process would be detected.   It might
make it more likely for them to be attempted.

  | But I think one important aspect of democracy is the [...]

Which has exactly what to do with anything?   There is no democracy
here, nor any intention that there should be.   That's not what the
process is all about.

In case it isn't obvious, I'm in favour of the status quo.   The problem
that fixes is no problem at all, which is the problem that I believe exists
(in this particular area anyway).

For those who believe that some list should be published, it would be
much easier to discuss the proposals, if you could say:

(a) Exactly which set of names should be published (what qualifies a name to be
on the published list).   [Recent messages are getting better at answering
this one than many from the past].

(b) Exactly when the names should be published.

(c) Whether the list should be updated after its initial publication, and
if so, what kinds of updates (additions, deletions), what causes such an
update to occur, and when they are to be made (when a new list would be
published).   (You can ignore the "can't be helped" types of updates here,
including files lost due to malfunctions, and being recreated, or change
under court direction, or ...).

(d) Whether the published list in any way constrains the decisions made by
the nomcom (and if so, how).

Without explicit answers to (at least) those questions, it is impossible
to evaluate the proposals.   Harald's proposal answered all of those
(directly, or by implication) but none of the more recent ones have.

kre

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 18:51:56 -0400

--On Tuesday, 16 July, 2002 15:39 -0400 "Joel M. Halpern"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> The phrasing of these points raises the spectre of public
> discussion (on IETF lists) about the published individuals.  If
> this is likely, it would then lead almost inevitably lead to
> politicising the environment.  This is very bad.
> 
> However, rather than concluding that we should not publish the
> names, I conclude that we should put in a very strong policy
> prohibiting this discussion on any IETF list.  While this would
> not stop all discussion, it should be sufficient to prevent
> serious politicing.
> 
> (And those who color me naive for not having seen this problem
> sooner can chortle quietly.  But publish anyway.)

Joel,

It seems to me that this suggestion is sensible (or not)
independent of whether the names are published (under the
proposed scenario or some other one).

    john

---

From: Steve Silverman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 19:36:24 -0400

It seems to me that once a list of people is published, there are going to
be comments made about
some of them.  Once some comments are made, others will want to respond and
will want to "correct" what they perceive as false allegations.  If you
forbid the use of regular lists, you make it harder to correct "accidental
misstatements".   If you want a public process, you have to accept public
debate and comments.  It can't be only partly public.  I don't think there
is any way to limit such debate.

It is clear to me that there are many wildly differing opinions on this
subject. I do not think there is any possibility of any sort of real
consensus and it seems to me that no change is possible at the present time.
There are fundamental questions about the Internet and the governing
authority that have not been addressed and are not likely to be addressed.
The Nomcom is a minor aspect of these questions.

Steve Silverman

-----Original Message-----
From: John C Klensin [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 6:52 PM
To: Joel M. Halpern; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Nomcom candidate name announcement alternatives

Joel,

    john

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 19:09:12 -0400

Two observations on Dave's summary (no comment on the rest of it).

--On Tuesday, 16 July, 2002 15:06 +0900 Dave Crocker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>          PRO:  This is the last opportunity for public review
> prior to formal approval, and therefore ensures that comments
> are limited to public review for preventing extraordinary
> selection errors.
> 
>          CON:  In reality, announcement at this stage would be
> too late for making any changes, without massive trauma to the
> community.  It could also be seen as forcing the hand of the
> confirming bodies, increasing the community trauma if a
> rejection were to occur (whether justified or not).

I have personally come to the conclusion that the disadvantages
of publication probably outweigh the advantages (I'm not prepared
to try to convince anyone else).  However, Dave's summary of the
"con" position for this late stage seems to me to imply that a
confirming body cannot reject a candidate without causing
"massive trauma to the community" as well.  By the time a
candidate name is submitted to the confirming body, that
candidate knows that he or she has been selected by the nomcom
(the "are you really willing to do this" call from the Chair is a
tipoff), possible candidates who can guess at the schedule have a
fairly good idea they were _not_ selected (or are buried in
controversy), and, if a particular Nomcom is inclined to be
leaky, the leaks have become a flood.

So, while I don't believe that publication at this point would be
desirable, I believe that, if we are serious about a confirming
process, we had best be ready to accept some trauma.

One additional thought: While general publication of names may
(or may not) be a good thing, I think we should consider
disclosure of the names of incumbents who have agreed to be
considered for renomination.  The risks there are very different:
the community knows that they are potential candidates, and
focusing attention of getting a good range of feedback to the
Nomcom strikes me as an advantage.  Disclosure also doesn't, in
practice, give away much information.   The reality is that
incumbents usually give the Nomcom one of three answers:

	(i) "I don't want to do this again".  (But I know of
	cases in which a nomcom, or several nomcom members, have
	more or less ignored that and engaged in fairly heavy
	arm-twisting to get the person to commit to another term.)
	
	(ii) "I am willing to take another term if the nomcom
	concludes that it is the best thing for the community,
	but would be happy to be out."
	
	(iii) "I really, really, want the job again".

My suspicion, from some prior experience and observation, is that
the third is fairly rare (and I would hope that Nomcoms would be
suspicious of anyone who actually said it).   Giving the
community a greater chance to twist arms in the first case or to
provide feedback and/or alternatives in the second would seem to
be to be generally beneficial.   And, as for the marginal
abuse... well, the amount of abuse that comes to IAB and,
especially, IESG members is such that anyone who can't take a bit
more is almost certainly going to give that first answer.

      john

(ii)

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 09:03:34 +0900

Date:        Tue, 16 Jul 2002 19:36:24 -0400
    From:        Steve Silverman <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

I agree with all that you say,except ...

  | There are fundamental questions about the Internet and the governing
  | authority that have not been addressed and are not likely to be addressed.

what we're discussing here is related to the management (not governing)
of a standards body (certainly not the Internet).

kre

---

From: Russ White <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 20:54:44 -0400 (EDT)

Actually, I disagree.... My take on the last nomcom process was
that many people thought we didn't take in enough input, and
others thought we we took in too much (in terms of asking so many
people that the confidentiality was lost). My suggestion would be
thus:

-- Publish the list of people nominated. I don't know whether
this list should be before or after people have accepted (stated
they are willing to serve). Actually, I don't see that it makes
much difference which list this is, as long as it is _before_ any
"weeding" by the nomcom.

-- Create a simple web page where people may post comments about
this list, or simply create a "public comment" mailing alias. But
whatever comments there are, only the person making them, and
members of the nomcom, would know the comments which are made. Do
not make the comments themselves public. This resolves the issue
of public debate, since there are no public records to debate
about, only open and free input.

-- The nomcom would publicly request that certain people provide
feedback into whatever mechanism was provided.

-- The nomcom would have, on the back end, some form of a
threaded (by candidate and position) "forum" where comments from
outside the nomcom are published (this is where a web page for
public input would actually be preferrable).

You could keep the list public, and the comments private. It's
done all the time, and it's critical to many processes. The
nomcom members should be smart enough to figure out how much
weight to put on comments by various people--comments in all
cases should not be anonymous.

Russ

> proposed scenario or some other one).

__________________________________
[email-masked] CCIE <>< Grace Alone

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 03:18:12 +0200

Since everyone else seems to be in this mud pool, might as well
jump in.

I've two different thoughts on this
- first, we must decide if we want a fully open process or the type
   of process we have today
   with a fully open process we would need to go all the way to
   electing the ieft "officers" in general election. this in itself
   would bring more problems than it solves
   i don't see any viable middle ground

- having been through the nomcom process, it is perfectly acceptable
   when it is confidential, my belief is that very few would want to
   go through this a second time if not being elected

This said I support the status quo.

/Loa

-- 
     Loa Andersson
     Chief Architect,
     Utfors Research, Architecture and Future Lab (URAX)
     Utfors AB
     Råsundavägen 12
     Box 525, 169 29 Solna
     Office          +46 8 5270 2000
     Office direct   +46 8 5270 5038
     Mobile          +46 70 848 5038
     Email           [email-masked]
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---

From: Theodore Ts'o <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 00:16:15 -0400

On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 08:54:44PM -0400, Russ White wrote:
> people that the confidentiality was lost). 

I'd agree with this characterization.   

And that's why I believe the list of nominated people should be
published.  The IETF has grown.  It's big.  It's too big to assume
that everyone on nomcom is going to know all of the right people to
ask.  This leads to things like a mechanical, "send e-mail to all I-D
authors and wg chairs", which is a **very** large list of people, but
still isn't guaranteed to get all of the right people in a particular
area.

And despite the fact that this past year, we sent a blinded list (and
we added people who were nominated, but whom we were not seriously
considering as our way of adding "noise" to the list --- the end
result wasn't much different from everyone who was nominated) to a
very large list of people in each area, there wasn't much in the way
of public discussion.  The assertion that a public list automatically
leads to public discussion and politics isn't a valid assumption to
make, in my opinion, and this past year is certainly an example of
this.

						- Ted

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 13:29:33 +0900

>much easier to discuss the proposals, if you could say:

I would like to vigorously support Robert's suggestion.

We should not confuse discussion of ideas with discussion of 
specifications.  It's fine to discuss ideas, but decisions need to be made 
on specifications.  We know how to do specifications and we know why all 
that detail is important.  Let's apply the knowledge to our our process 
specification efforts.

d/

----------

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:38:33 +0900

At 02:17 PM 7/16/2002 +0200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>Dave, thanks for this systematic approach. Let me argue one of your points:

only because I am hyper-sensitive to the fact that I have strong opinions 
about thus stuff and that I voice them, I want to stress that the goal of 
that summary document was to be objective reporting.  although i might have 
gotten facts wrong, the document was IN NO WAY intended to represent my 
personal (or professional) opinions.  Any leakage of my opinions was an 
accident and needs to be fixed.

On the other hand, I'm not doing reporting in THIS note...

>making any such actions impossible to conceal.

No way, no how.

We have plenty of data that shows real-world behavior -- in this forum -- 
that are entirely at odds with your theory.

I think that your view is shared by quite a few others and I think that it 
would apply well to the "old" IETF.  The new IETF acts more like the rest 
of the world.

It is a great thing that the IETF has increased diversity of 
participation.  Wider range of expertise.  More perspectives on solutions, 
impacts. Blah blah blah.

However we need to deal with the realities of that diversity.  One of those 
realities is that we now see more efforts and stronger efforts to 
manipulate processes for purely political purposes and in highly political 
fashion.

Just to choose a non-nomcom example (while still staying generic) I'll note 
that we now see very vigorous efforts by existing working groups to prevent 
the creation of parallel working groups that might be in any way 
competitive.  The objections are not based on technical merit, but fear of 
competition.

One of the problems with being a nice person is the tendency to assume that 
other people are nice.  One of the problems with dealing with things 
constructively -- not policially -- is the tendency to assume the same from 
others.

In the old IETF, even the vigorous, nasty fights were fundamentally direct 
and honest.  The new IETF has to deal with people who behave quite 
differently from that.

d/

----------

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:54:04 +0200

> manipulate processes for purely political purposes and in highly political

No disagreement there. The question is whether the current "smoke filled
room" approach, or an approach with all candidates known to the public,
is less subject to manipulation. 

   Brian

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 23:16:52 +0900

>is less subject to manipulation.

I would guess that the current, private model makes manipulation by the 
nomcom easier and publishing can make manipulation by candidates easier.

I do suspect that there is general IETF discomfort about the closed nature 
of the nomcom and that, therefore, some sorts of increased disclosure might 
help dissipate that.

However my own experience is that the random selection mechanism for voting 
members and the participation by a large number of liaisons and other 
'adult supervision' folk makes me have a heck of a lot of faith in the 
nomcom and its deliberations.  As with my one experience on a criminal jury 
-- and, no, we were not the criminals -- deliberations were very, very 
deliberate.  Folks take their duty extremely seriously and work very hard 
to understand tradeoffs and likely effects.

For example the idea that one nomcom member can force a particular outcome 
is quite silly.  It presumes that the other (10?) voting members are sheep 
who are easily led.  I don't know about anyone else's experience but mine 
is that the IETF has remarkably few sheep.  Nomcom is a sampling of the 
general IETF,  Participants display a range of knowledge, insight, and the 
like.  However the one invariant is that pretty nearly all nomcom voting 
members are active, opiniated, assertive folk.  A member might put forward 
a strongly held point of view and might lobby for it vigorously, but 
ultimately they are only one vote.  And the other votes NEVER go along with 
any particular point of view easily or without independent consideration by 
each of those voters.

The problem is, how do we get all the folks who have not been inside a 
nomcom to acquire the faith that comes from having seen it in operation?

d/

----------