Subject: criteria for nomcom participation

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 22:04:57 -0800

Folks,

Monday, December 2, 2002, 2:11:07 PM, you wrote:
Avri> The first issue involved the qualification for volunteering with the
Avri> basic question being was attendance at 2 out 3 of the last IETF
Avri> meetings a sufficient criteria.

Avri>   Joel Halpern observed that we seem to have a problem of not getting enough
Avri>   experienced IETF participants on the nomcom.  We need to encourage more
Avri>   participation.  He  didn't like the idea of 2 pools.  Maybe 4 out of 6 
Avri> IETF
Avri>   meeting would be better then 2 out of 3?
...
Avri>   Dave Allen commented in favor of allowing people who had attended many
Avri>   IETFs to be included,

The problem with a criterion of meeting attendance is that it has a weak
correlation with knowing anything about the job of managing the IETF.  Even
continued participation in working group discussions has a weak correlation.

For that matter, there seems to be rough consensus that it is quite common
to have people who attend the IETF but not do any real participation in the
technical work.

If we want to ensure that nomcom has participation by people who know about
IETF processes, then we need to ensure that it has participation by people
who have been directly involved in the administrative process. That means
chairs, editors, (former) ADs and (former) IAB members.

Such a pool of potential participaants is too small -- and too select -- to
be adequate for the entire membership of nomcom. That is the reason for
suggesting filling some nomcom slots -- choose a percentage: 25%, 33%, 40%,
50%? -- from a pool of those who have held formal positions and another pool
of those who have a recent attendance record, to fill the remaining nomcom
slots.

Yes, this is more complicated than anyone would like.  But simply changing
the number of meetings one must attend does not in any way assure knowledge
of IETF process.

Avri>   Harald suggested two changes:
Avri>    - add a statement to the oral tradition 'if you don't know how the IETF
Avri>      works don't volunteer for NomCom.

This represents a fine desire, but is not likely to serve as a very
effective filter.

As merely one example:

Avri> John Klensin ...worried about the "don't volunteer" folk self
Avri> selecting out in favor of the ax grinders.

d/
-- 
 Dave <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 t +1.408.246.8253; f +1.408.850.1850

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 15:28:31 +0100

Dave,

1) do you have a specific suggestion, or are you just theorizing about the 
boundaries of the problem space?

2) the rough consensus so far seems to be that the criterion we want is 
knowledge of the IETF process, and that attending meetings is the criterion 
that we've found that is easy to manage and may have some correlation.

--On lørdag, januar 04, 2003 22:04:57 -0800 Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> Avri>    - add a statement to the oral tradition 'if you don't know how
> the IETF Avri>      works don't volunteer for NomCom.
>

the purpose I saw in adding this to the oral tradition was to make it clear 
what kind of people we *want* on the nomcom (namely people who understand 
how the IETF works), even though we don't know how to select objectively on 
that criterion.

               Harald

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 08:16:10 -0800

Dave,

Sunday, January 5, 2003, 6:28:31 AM, you wrote:
Harald> 1) do you have a specific suggestion, or are you just theorizing about the
Harald> boundaries of the problem space?

Sorry. I thought my note was rather explicit about making a suggestion.
Please tell me in what way:

Dave> If we want to ensure that nomcom has participation by people who know about
Dave> IETF processes, then we need to ensure that it has participation by people
Dave> who have been directly involved in the administrative process. That means
Dave> chairs, editors, (former) ADs and (former) IAB members.
Dave>
Dave> Such a pool of potential participaants is too small -- and too select -- to
Dave> be adequate for the entire membership of nomcom. That is the reason for
Dave> suggesting filling some nomcom slots -- choose a percentage: 25%, 33%, 40%,
Dave> 50%? -- from a pool of those who have held formal positions and another pool
Dave> of those who have a recent attendance record, to fill the remaining nomcom
Dave> slots.

is not clear as a suggestion.

Harald> 2) the rough consensus so far seems to be that the criterion we want is 
Harald> knowledge of the IETF process, and that attending meetings is the criterion 
Harald> that we've found that is easy to manage and may have some correlation.

"may have some correlation" is an accurate assessment -- and by the way,
does not contradict:

Dave> The problem with a criterion of meeting attendance is that it has a weak
Dave> correlation with knowing anything about the job of managing the IETF.

In point of fact, the working group discussion has not made much of an
effort to reconcile the clear and serious disparity between the nature of
the current criterion and its lack of strong correlation with the desired
knowledge.

>> Avri> selecting out in favor of the ax grinders.

Harald> the purpose I saw in adding this to the oral tradition was to make it clear 
Harald> what kind of people we *want* on the nomcom

I thought the purpose was to show the weakness in the underlying basis for
the current criterion and the underlying weakness with trying to remedy that
weakness by relying on self-selection.

d/

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 20:31:55 +0100

--On søndag, januar 05, 2003 08:16:10 -0800 Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> Harald> 1) do you have a specific suggestion, or are you just theorizing
> about the Harald> boundaries of the problem space?
>
> Dave> If we want to ensure that nomcom has participation by people who
> know about Dave> IETF processes, then we need to ensure that it has
> participation by people Dave> who have been directly involved in the
> administrative process. That means Dave> chairs, editors, (former) ADs
> and (former) IAB members.
> Dave>
> Dave> Such a pool of potential participaants is too small -- and too
> select -- to Dave> be adequate for the entire membership of nomcom. That
> is the reason for Dave> suggesting filling some nomcom slots -- choose a
> percentage: 25%, 33%, 40%, Dave> 50%? -- from a pool of those who have
> held formal positions and another pool Dave> of those who have a recent
> attendance record, to fill the remaining nomcom Dave> slots.
>

well... you have a range of alternative percentages, and a range of people, 
some of which may not be entirely clear; how do you determine who has been 
editors? those who have their names end up on the front page of an RFC, 
those who have held the pen at some point according to the working group 
chairs, or some other criterion?
do you envision a time limit to the IAB/IESG criterion, or does Russ Hobby 
(Applications AD in 1988) still qualify under this criterion?
(no idea what he does now - simply the oldest AD I could find...)

since we are now 6 months after the charter milestone for submission to the 
IESG of the finished document, and appear to have rough consensus on most 
of the rest of the document, it would seem like a good idea to make a 
*specific* suggestion (as in "put the following text in section 4 bullet 
15").

> Harald> 2) the rough consensus so far seems to be that the criterion we
> want is  Harald> knowledge of the IETF process, and that attending
> meetings is the criterion  Harald> that we've found that is easy to
> manage and may have some correlation.
>
> Dave> The problem with a criterion of meeting attendance is that it has a
> weak Dave> correlation with knowing anything about the job of managing
> the IETF.
>

My impression of the working group discussion is that it has observed the 
quality of the correlation, and decided not to change it.

> Harald> the purpose I saw in adding this to the oral tradition was to
> make it clear what kind of people we *want* on the nomcom
>
> the current criterion and the underlying weakness with trying to remedy
> that weakness by relying on self-selection.

as you say - those two sentences are not contradictory.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 14:35:22 -0800

Folks,

Harald> well... you have a range of alternative percentages, and a range of people,

If the group is willing to agree that an initial drawing from a pool of
volunteers who have held process-related positions, and a second pool of all
remaining volunteers, then haggling over the details would be quite
secondary, in my view.

That is, I am much more concerned about our model than I am about the
particular percentages or criteria within category.

However, yes it can be easier to get to agreement on the principal by
haggling those details. So here is something specific to haggle about:

          One-third of nomcom voting members shall be qualified nomcom
          voting volunteers who have had recent, direct involvement with
          IETF process, and two-thirds shall be composed of all nomcom
          qualified nomcom volunteers who were not selected as
          "process-knowledgeable experts".

          "Recent experience" is defined by having held an official position
          as working group chair, or working group document editor, or area
          director or IAB member, for a period of at least one year, within
          the last 6 years.

          "Qualified nomcom voting volunteers" .... <<same definition as we
          now have, except that attendance rate is increased, per the
          group's recent discussion.>>
d/
-- 
 Dave <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 t +1.408.246.8253; f +1.408.850.1850

---

From: "David T. Perkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 15:33:23 -0800

HI,

I'm worried that with this proposal that the nomcom will be too much
influenced by the insiders, which I believe is not a good thing.
And, given the presentations at the last IETF meeting, I would
really want the noncom to choose IESG candidates that would focus
on improving the process and not keeping it the same.

Also, I would like to see IESG (and IAB) members that were
committed to outreach programs to:
 1) get greater direct monetary support by both vendors and users to
    the IETF via ISOC
 2) get support for a coordinated program for demonstration of 
    interoperation and clean up of RFCs to reflect the results.
    (There are way too many "protocol designers" participating
     in the IETF, and way too few "protocol testers".)

PS Would I meet DHC's test? No, but I believe I understand the IETF
   process quite well. And I bet there are others with the same
   qualifications.

>          group's recent discussion.>>
Regards,
/david t. perkins

---

From: Mark Allman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 23:35:49 -0500

> well... you have a range of alternative percentages, and a range
> of people, some of which may not be entirely clear;

I, personally, still like Dave's notion of the makeup of the nomcom
(with more experience than currently required) -- even though I
think that is against consensus at this point.  But, I'll throw out
some specifics...

  * no sitting member of the IESG or IAB (including those stepping
    down) 

  * 6 members of nomcom come from people who:
	are former members of the IAB or IESG with <= 4 years
	    between their service and nomcom selection, or
    	have their name on an IETF WG RFC published in the last 3
	    years (or, currently in the RFC Editor's queue, I
	    suppose), or
	chaired (or co-chaired) a WG that has produced at least one
	    RFC (includes current chairs and chairs whose WGs ended
	    <= 3 years ago)

  * 4 members that do not necessarily meet the above criteria, but
    have been to 3 out of the last 5 meetings 

While it is more complicated than the current system, I think it is
still way tractable (especially if people have to list their
qualifications when they volunteer -- hence, the facts they give
just need verified).  (And, the numbers can be adjusted... Harald
asked for specifics, so I sort of threw these together...)

allman

--
Mark Allman -- BBN/NASA GRC -- http://roland.grc.nasa.gov/~mallman/

---

From: Matt Holdrege <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 21:13:24 -0800

If I may offer up recent personal experience...

I was on the previous nomcom. At that time, I was a WG Chair and quite 
involved in many WG's across several areas. I knew the IESG and IAB members 
fairly well and I knew most of the candidates. In short, I felt fully 
qualified to be on the nomcom.

Since then, unemployment has kept me from attending the last two IETF's. 
Although I'm on several mailing lists, I really don't feel that I'm in 
touch with what's going on in the IESG and IAB. If I were part of nomcom 
now, I wouldn't feel nearly as qualified as I think I should be.

I used to be of the opinion that some people who don't attend IETF's could 
help out nomcom. Now I'm not so sure.

Just my 2 cents.

---

From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 00:11:58 -0800

Matt and all,

  Attending IETF meeting as criterion for being a candidate has been
trotted out several times as a precursor to eliminating good potential
candidates.  It is basically a canard of ridiculous proportions and
simply just a method used to discourage and degrade various long
time IETF participants.

  Given that Dave Crocker brought it up AGAIN on this forum simply
shows why the IETF is being viewed as less than adequate by the
current Bush administration, amongst other reasons and that Andrew
Card back in sept. spoke publicly about taking over the current
IETF function.  Of course Dave has gotten himself in trouble with the
USG before during the old gTLD-MoU fiasco...

Matt Holdrege wrote:

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Regards,
--
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---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 23:14:47 -0800

Mark,

Sunday, January 5, 2003, 8:35:49 PM, you wrote:
Mark>   * no sitting member of the IESG or IAB (including those stepping
Mark>     down)

oh, sorry.  right.  that seemed so automatically true it did not occur to me to
mention it. but, yes, it does need to be stated.

Mark>   * 6 members of nomcom come from people who:

much too high a percentage.

my original proposal was 50%, and I got feedback saying that that was too
high. That's why I suggested 33% this time.

With a nomcom of 10 voting members, that's 3 people certain to have recent,
direct involvement in process. From my own experience on nomcom, I think
that that is plenty to make sure that the experience is represented
adequately..

d/

---

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 17:24:18 -0500

Hi,

There has been some conversation of criteria for
selecting NomCom volunteers on the list in the last month.
 From the conversation on this topic, I believe we have
3 voices in favor of a change from the current procedure
of picking NomCom volunteers from among attendees and 3
voices against such a change.

I do not believe that this constitutes a consensus for
change and therefore believe that the the WG consensus
is for a maintaining the practice of selecting the pool
of NomCom volunteers from among meeting attendees.

As for the change from the 2 out of 3 rule to the 3 out
of 5 rule.  There was sense of the room in Atlanta in favor
of this change.  This was reported in the minutes. Since that
time there has been no discussion specifically on  this on
the list.  I believe there may be consensus on this change,
given that we  are not recommending a more radical change to
the selection pool.

It would be good for anyone who has an opinion on changing
the 2 out of 3 rule to a 3 out of 5 rule to let the list
know their opinion.

Finally, a new release of the I-D should be out shortly.
Shortly after this is released, I would like call WG last
call.  So please prepare to review the next version of the
draft.

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

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 18:31:58 -0500

I believe switching to 3 out of 5 instead of 2 out of 3 is good idea.
While attendence is always a heuristic, I think this change will make it 
work somewhat better.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern