Subject: synopsis of qualifications for nomcom volunteer

From: avri doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 22:57:35 +0100

There are two open issues relating to nomcom volunteers:
   - general qualifications
   - number of volunteers from a single company.

I will cover the first in this email and the second in another.

The issue of general qualifications seemed to be an offshoot
of an initial concern that there may not have been a sufficient
pool of volunteers for this year's nomcom.  Once begun, the
discussion widened from there.

- is bias toward those who can travel fair in an
organization where attendance at meetings is not the primary
method of participation or decision making.  The question was
also asked whether simple attendance was a sufficient
criteria or could it someday result in a nomcom without
experienced WG participants.

-- It was discussed that it is difficult to find other
    criteria.  among the suggestion for additional criteria
    were:
   - authorship
   - chair at some point in past (recent)

-- one suggestion involved having two pool of volunteers
    1/2 of the nomcom would be filled from each pool.
    Attendance (the 2 out of 3 rule) would be the criteria
    for one pool while participation (editor, wg chair etc.,)
    would be the criteria for another.

-- one suggestion involved supplementing the 2 out of 3
    rule with a rule that qualified someone who had attended
    at least some larger number of IETF meeting sometime in
    its history.  The number suggested was 6.  The rationale
    was that while the 2 out of 3 selected for recent experience,
    the lifetime rule selected for long term experience even
    in cases were recent attendance was only occasional.

-  There was a suggestion that the current wording was not
    strict enough and the criteria should be:
    "Members of the IETF community must have registered for
     and attended at least 2 of the last 3 IETF meetings in
     order to volunteer."

---  A suggestion was made that rosters could be checked to
      ascertain attendance.  Since these are not entered into any
      database, that would be impractical

-- Since attendance can't be proven it was argued
    that it was less ambiguous to state:
    "Members of the IETF community must have registered for
    at least 2 of the last 3 IETF meetings in order to
    volunteer."

-- There was also an argument that the adjudication  of
    participation should be left to the secretariat

-- There was a specific suggestion that the issue be resolved
    by adding a discussion in the oral tradition that both left
    the rule alone but explained why the rule was as it was:

    The following text was suggested as a starting place

      The test for eligibility for nomcom membership was based
      on two considerations:
      - We want active community members who care about the IETF,
        want to select the best possible leadership for it, and
        are close enough to the community to be able to do so.
      - We want an objective test for who is eligible and who is
        not.

      The criterion we have found that most closely meets both
      those criteria is attendance at meetings. It excludes people
      who participate in the community but do not come to meetings;
      still, it seems impossible to find a rule that would include
      those but not exclude people who have less involvement in the
      community.

---  Further text for the addendum was suggested:
       - since much of the work of the IESG and IAB is done at,
	or manifests itself at, meetings, it is important to
	have Nomcom members who are familiar with the dynamics
	of IETF meetings and participants in them.

-- 
Avri Doria
http://www.sm.luth.se/~avri/

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 14:44:31 +0100

I'm against any changes, except clarifying that we mean people who
have actually registered for 2 out of 3 meetings. Other twiddling 
in this area will just create complexity and over-constrain the 
criteria. 

On one point, bias towards those who can travel to meetings may be
unfair, but I can't imagine any rational alternative. We don't
want a NomCom containing people without personal acquaintance with
at least some of the nominees.

   Brian

avri doria wrote:
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-- 
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Brian E Carpenter 
Distinguished Engineer, Internet Standards & Technology, IBM 
On assignment at the IBM Zurich Laboratory, Switzerland