Subject: [ietf-nomcom] IETF jury duty?

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:05:27 -0400

Perhaps service on the nomcom should be the IETF equivalent of jury
duty -- something that all "citizens" are subject to.

The IETF has no membership, so we can't easily have elections.  If the
leadership controls the nomcom process, the dangers of a
self-perpetuating oligarchy are obvious.  The current scheme, though,
is susceptible to attempts to pack the nomcom, and I've heard rumors of
just that sort of behavior.  Even without that, there is the obvious
problem of too many familiar faces on the selection list.

Instead, I propose a random selection of members from everyone
eligible.  That is, the Secretariat should compile a list of everyone
who meets the criteria -- attendance at M of the last N meetings.
Perhaps it should be augmented by adding the names of authors of WG
drafts from the last K years, though that may be too easily
manipulated.  (I specify "WG drafts" to require some show of
community acceptance of the person's technical competence.)  The current
random selection algorithm would be applied to that list.

Thoughts?  (For the record -- I haven't attended a meeting since
11/2006, nor have I authored any WG drafts since then, so I'm
ineligible by any of these criteria.)

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:30:44 -0400

My immediate reaction is that this is probably not a good idea.
1) The nomcom is a significant amount of work.  Trying to force someone 
who is unwilling to actually do the work is probably not going to succeed.
2) It does not seem appropriate to demand that someone make themselves 
ineligible for appointment to the IESG/IAB/IAOC.
3) I suspect that some people are not volunteering because they feel 
that they would do a bad job on this sort of activity.  They may well be 
right.  SHould we really force them onto the committee anyway?

It is attractive to force everyone into the pool.  It is tempting to 
suggest an opt-out version of the same idea.  I suspect it still has too 
many negatives, but I do lik ethe idea of getting more volunteers.  (99 
was nice, but it is not really representative of the community.)

Joel

Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
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> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom
>

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From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:32:00 -0700

>problem of too many familiar faces on the selection list.

People find excuses to escape jury duty.  Making nomcom "service" 
mandatory might avoid rumors of "pack the nomcom" at the expense of 
having volunteers who are prepared to put in the time and effort.

>random selection algorithm would be applied to that list.

What you are proposing here is to increase the size of the pool for 
nomcom eligibility.  Take a look at the distribution of documents by 
company.  If you are using authorship as a criteria, that might 
encourage "author bloat".

Regards,
-sm

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From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:59:22 -0400

On Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:32:00 -0700
SM <[email-masked]> wrote:

> >community acceptance of the person's technical competence.)  The
> >current random selection algorithm would be applied to that list.
> 

You'll note that I said "perhaps"...