Subject: [ietf-nomcom] BCP 10 Update, adding an IAOC Advisor to the Nominating Committee

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 21:44:53 -0500

Dear all,

At Alissa Cooper's request, I put together a short draft that updates BCP
10, the Nomcom process, adding a reminder that Nomcoms can ask the IAOC to
provide an advisor, and the IAOC can provide one.

Yeah, I thought that was already in BCP 10, but it's not :-) ...

For your reading pleasure, the draft is available at

URL:            https://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-dawkins-iesg-
nomcom-advisor-iaoc-01.txt
Status:         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dawkins-iesg-nomcom-
advisor-iaoc/
Htmlized:       https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dawkins-iesg-nomcom-
advisor-iaoc-01
Htmlized:       https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-dawkins-iesg-
nomcom-advisor-iaoc-01
Diff:           https://www.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url2=draft-dawkins-iesg-
nomcom-advisor-iaoc-01

BUT please send questions and comments to the (public) IETF-Nomcom mailing
list, which is intended for conversations about BCP 10 updates.

If you're not already subscribed to that mailing list, the URL for it is
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom.

Alexey Melnikov has graciously agreed to AD-sponsor the draft.

Thanks,

Spencer, as an individual

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 11:27:05 -0400

Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > At Alissa Cooper's request, I put together a short draft that updates BCP 10,
    > the Nomcom process, adding a reminder that Nomcoms can ask the IAOC to

The other entities provide liasons, and I see that your document explains why
an advisor is listed.    I understand that the word "advisor" is from BCP10,
and allows the nomcom to add advisors to the nomcom. I'd call this an
"import", because the nomcom pulls someone in.

The other liason are not nomcom decisions, and so there is some subtle distinction.

It's also not clear to be that we want the NOMCOM to ask for an IAOC advisor,
or if we the IAOC appoints someone.  The previous tradition was the IAOC
appointed someone, and they gave us Ole even after he was no longer a seated
IAOC member.

As a voting member and chair, I found the IAOC (liason) very useful in
explaining not only what the IAOC does, but also what the IAB and IESG do not
do, even when sometimes IAOC activities get relayed via IETF Chair or IAB
chair.  Many voting members are ignorant of the IAOC and sometimes look for
characteristics in an IESG or IAB member that would be more appropriate for IAOC.
So I strongly agree with always having an IAOC liason/advisor, even when not
appointing someone directly to the IAOC.

{nomcom: 2002,2012,2013. chair: 2014}

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 09:03:34 -0700

Hi Spencer,

[Cc trimmed]

At 19:44 08-08-2017, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
>At Alissa Cooper's request, I put together a short draft that 
>updates BCP 10, the Nomcom process, adding a reminder that Nomcoms 
>can ask the IAOC to provide an advisor, and the IAOC can provide one.

The new text in Section 6.1 says: ""may propose the addition of an 
advisor" in the first paragraph and "Committee members are encouraged 
to propose the addition of an advisor" in the second paragraph.  I 
read that as meaning that the editor is saying two slightly different things.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 12:05:44 -0500

Hi, Michael,

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 10:27 AM, Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> updates BCP 10,

Yeah. I'm kind of dancing here, because I'm trying to reuse terminology in
a new and exciting(?) way.

This document could

   - Remind the Nomcom that they will probably need help understanding what
   the IAOC does, so they should ask, OR
   - Tell the IAOC to appoint (let's call it) an Advisor, at the same time
   the IAB and IESG are appointing liaisons.

The first option is where I headed, because I tend to write permissive BCP
text ("BCP text is hard to get right").

The second option would probably appear in a new section that looks a lot
like https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.8, except that the
eligibility would be different. I'd be OK doing that, if it makes sense to
others.

For extra credit, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.3 could
actually require that an IAOC advisor be named, at the same level of
"required" that the IAB and IESG liaisons are required. There would be more
text changes going this way (but, see below).

> appointing someone directly to the IAOC.

I'm willing to make this position a requirement, if that's the right
answer. It's optional in the current draft.

> {nomcom: 2002,2012,2013. chair: 2014}

Thanks for your continued review and advice. I'm {nomcom: 2011 liaison}, so
appreciate people with more, and especially more recent, experience telling
me what they're thinking.

Spencer

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 12:10:18 -0500

Hi, SM,

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 11:03 AM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:

> advisor" in the first paragraph and "Committee members are encouraged to
> propose the addition of an advisor" in the second paragraph.  I read that
> as meaning that the editor is saying two slightly different things.

I think you're reading that part correctly. The problem is, that the editor
wasn't saying two slightly different things clearly :-(

The first paragraph is intended to say "you can do this", and the second
paragraph is intended to say, "you don't have to do this, but you really
want to".

So, something needs to change. Let's see where the conversation in
Michael's thread ends up, because if the role becomes required, that text
changes significantly anyway, but thanks for the usual careful read -
you're right.

Spencer

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 15:02:13 -0400

Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > Yeah. I'm kind of dancing here, because I'm trying to reuse terminology in a
    > new and exciting(?) way.

understood.

    > * Remind the Nomcom that they will probably need help understanding what the
    > IAOC does, so they should ask, OR
    > * Tell the IAOC to appoint (let's call it) an Advisor, at the same time the
    > IAB and IESG are appointing liaisons.

    > text ("BCP text is hard to get right").

I think that I'd prefer the IAOC be told to pick someone, but I'm listening
to other opinions.

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 14:32:31 -0500

Hi, Robert and Ted,

(revectoring to the ietf-nomcom mailing list, which is intended for
conversations like this, even though it should probably be called something
like "nomcom-interest" or "nomcom-discuss" to make that more obvious)

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Ted Hardie <[email-masked]> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 11:48 AM, Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
> wrote:
>
>> Spencer -
>>
>> The attempt to avoid the term liaison is not working well for me.
>>
>
Welcome to the club :-)

Honestly, the biggest reason I can think of, to just call this role a
liaison, is that past IAOCs and Nomcoms have ended up with a "IAOC liaison
to the Nominating Committee", and that worked, at least well enough that no
one appealed.

It's fair to note that Michael Richardson reminds me, the IAOC did send Ole
as their liaison to Nomcom when he wasn't a sitting member, so it's easy to
trip over the requirements, as Robert notes.

> I think the biggest thing making you want to avoid that term are the
>> requirements on liaisons to oversee process as you call out in the
>> document. Instead of trying to to refashion terms, why don't you just
>> change things so that it is explicit that only the IAB, IESG, and ISOC
>> liaisons have that duty. Then you won't run into trouble with the "other
>> unrepresented organizations" text you quote.
>>
>> You can make it clear that for the IESG and IAB, seated members are
>> required. Any other body can delegate outside its membership.
>>
>> That _seems_ to me to be a more straightforward adjustment. What am I
>> missing?
>>
>> There's at least one other potential shift: removing the IAOC liaison
> from the list of liaisons who might serve as replacement Nomcom chair.  If
> you remove that and the other process duties, it's not clear why it is
> useful to call two different sets of responsibilities by the same name.
> You can do it, of course, as long as you've specified it.  But I don't
> personally see much of an advantage.
>

If I switched to calling the position a liaison, and also created a new
section that said "Duties of Liaisons who aren't from the IAB, IESG, or
ISOC", and didn't include anything in that section except pointers to the
paragraphs in https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.7 that DO
apply, I'd be OK with that.

If I was smart, I'd think about splitting
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.7 into "duties of IAB, IESG,
and ISOC liaisons" and "duties of all liaisons", rather than just have
pointers to (currently unnumbered) paragraphs, which won't age well as RFC
7437 is updated.

What I'm REALLY trying to avoid is writing a bunch of new text in a BCP,
when the IASA20 design team has already reported out to the community.

> My take is that we want the IAOC job or its successor to eventually by
> folks with specific skills in financial oversight, program management, and
> community relations.  Having the IAOC rep be able to explain those tasks to
> a Nomcom is very valuable, and I support getting this formalized.  I care
> about that much more than what we call it.
>

ACK.

And thank you, Robert and Ted, for your feedback.

Spencer

> Ted
>
>
>> RjS
>>
>> On 8/9/17 12:05 PM, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Michael,
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 10:27 AM, Michael Richardson <
>> [email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>> Yeah. I'm kind of dancing here, because I'm trying to reuse terminology
>> in a new and exciting(?) way.
>>
>> This document could
>>
>>    - Remind the Nomcom that they will probably need help understanding
>>    what the IAOC does, so they should ask, OR
>>    - Tell the IAOC to appoint (let's call it) an Advisor, at the same
>>    time the IAB and IESG are appointing liaisons.
>>
>> The first option is where I headed, because I tend to write permissive
>> BCP text ("BCP text is hard to get right").
>>
>> Thanks for your continued review and advice. I'm {nomcom: 2011 liaison},
>> so appreciate people with more, and especially more recent, experience
>> telling me what they're thinking.
>>
>> Spencer
>>
>>
>>
>

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 14:56:19 -0500

Revectoring to the ietf-nomcom list, which is intended for conversations
like this ...

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 2:17 PM, Robert Sparks <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
>
> On 8/9/17 1:59 PM, Ted Hardie wrote:
>
> There's at least one other potential shift: removing the IAOC liaison from
> the list of liaisons who might serve as replacement Nomcom chair.  If you
> remove that and the other process duties, it's not clear why it is useful
> to call two different sets of responsibilities by the same name.  You can
> do it, of course, as long as you've specified it.  But I don't personally
> see much of an advantage.
>
> I think the thing that's bothering me is that the current proposal still
> leaves the unintended trouble if the "Any committee member may propose the
> addition of a liaison" is exercised.
>

Yes, and that's borked.

I'm a tiny bit loath to turn this draft into a "liaison responsibilities
cleanup" draft, although Robert correctly points out that if we wanted to
clean up the liaison responsibilities, we would have changes to make.

If this draft continues to be about an advisor, I'd be happy to address the
liaison responsibilities in another draft. of course.

<rant>

When we have text in BCPs that is rarely/never executed, we don't look at
it very often. You'd be impressed at the list of people who told me they
didn't realize what all the liaison responsibilities are. I won't embarrass
the ones who told me that, and who have previously served as liaison (so,
subject to those responsibilities) without noticing that, but I can confirm
that *I* didn't notice them, in 2011 as the IAB liaison to the Nomcom :-)

That text doesn't age any better than error-path code that doesn't get
triggered for a very long time, of course.

But I digress.

</rant>

> If you strip away all the rationalization text, the change in Spencer's
> current document reduces to "Hey future nomcoms - it would be a good idea
> if you found an advisor that can talk to you about the IAOC, and the
> current IAOC might be a good body to ask to help you find one". I don't
> object to that. Perhaps the rationalization is a distraction?
>

It's only there to explain why this role isn't a liaison. If the role
becomes a liaison, the rationalization text would, of course, go away.

> But the rationalization part also argues that we want to say "If you think
> you want a liaison from some other body, you might want to look closely at
> asking for an advisor instead."
>

One could make the case that "Any committee member may propose the addition
of a non-voting liaison" is also borked.

Of course, I don't know why that  text is there in the first place. It's
also in RFC 3777, and in RFC 2727, which means it was added after RFC 2282
was published in 1998.  So I wonder if this was intended to prevent a
problem I don't know about?

Thanks again for the feedback. It's helpful.

Spencer

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 08:15:44 +1200

(Adjusted the CC)

> The attempt to avoid the term liaison is not working well for me.

'Liaison' implies 2-way communication; 'advisor' implies 1-way comunication.
I think we need to decide which we want.

    Brian

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 17:33:25 -0400

Brian,

“Liaison” as an actual person can be one-way, I’ve often seen the case
where there are two liaison individuals between a pair of organizations,
one for each direction.

Cheers,
Andy

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 4:15 PM, Brian E Carpenter <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> ietf-nomcom mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom
>

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 18:03:39 -0500

Dear all,

> where there are two liaison individuals between a pair of organizations,

Well, I think Andy is right here (the IAB certainly appoints IETF liaisons
to other SDOs as directional), but that's side-stepping the more
interesting question, which is not what we call this role, but whether we
expect Nomcom to send anything back to the IAOC via the (the draft calls
it) advisor.

And that question may not need to affect the resulting text (
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.9 says

   An advisor is responsible for such duties as specified by the
   invitation that resulted in the appointment.

which is pretty darned broad), but if it might affect the resulting text,
that would be good to know sooner, rather than later.

Thanks,

Spencer

---

From: Joel Halpern <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 20:42:06 -0400

As the IAOC is not an approval body, I have trouble seeing why the 
nomcom would need to send anything to the IAOC.  Even if the Nomcom had 
operational feedback from the community about the IAOC as a body, it 
seems to me that the advisor would not be the means to send such back.

I seem to be in the minority, but I like calling this something other 
than liaison, because of the set of roles that apply to liaisons, but 
not to this IAOC suggested information source.

I mildly prefer Spencer's current formulation that the nomcom asks for 
the advisor.  The factor that strikes me is that this way the nomcom and 
its chair can ensure that they are comfortable with the appointee. 
(That is not their right with the liaisons, as those individuals are 
responsible to their providing bodies.)

Yours,
Joel

On 8/9/17 7:03 PM, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 4:33 PM, Andrew G. Malis <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     Brian,
> 
>     “Liaison” as an actual person can be one-way, I’ve often seen the
>     case where there are two liaison individuals between a pair of
>     organizations, one for each direction.
> 
> 
> Well, I think Andy is right here (the IAB certainly appoints IETF 
> liaisons to other SDOs as directional), but that's side-stepping the 
> more interesting question, which is not what we call this role, but 
> whether we expect Nomcom to send anything back to the IAOC via the (the 
> draft calls it) advisor.
> 
> And that question may not need to affect the resulting text 
> (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.9 says
> 
> which is pretty darned broad), but if it might affect the resulting 
> text, that would be good to know sooner, rather than later.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Spencer
> 
>     Cheers,
>     Andy
> 
> 
>     On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 4:15 PM, Brian E Carpenter
>     <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>>
>     wrote:
> 
>         (Adjusted the CC)
> 
>         [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
>         <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom>
> 
> 
> 
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
>     <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom>
> 
> 
> 
>

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 20:10:54 -0500

Hi, Joel,

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 7:42 PM, Joel Halpern <[email-masked]> wrote:

> As the IAOC is not an approval body, I have trouble seeing why the nomcom
> would need to send anything to the IAOC.  Even if the Nomcom had
> operational feedback from the community about the IAOC as a body, it seems
> to me that the advisor would not be the means to send such back.
>

There's certainly no reason why that feedback would HAVE to go through one
person, so, yeah, I think so.

The IAOC not being an approval body was the other reason I was OK with not
requiring the person the IAOC sent to the Nomcom to carry out several of
the liaison responsibilities, as well.

> I seem to be in the minority, but I like calling this something other than
> liaison, because of the set of roles that apply to liaisons, but not to
> this IAOC suggested information source.
>
> I mildly prefer Spencer's current formulation that the nomcom asks for the
> advisor.  The factor that strikes me is that this way the nomcom and its
> chair can ensure that they are comfortable with the appointee. (That is not
> their right with the liaisons, as those individuals are responsible to
> their providing bodies.)
>

I wasn't thinking about that, but I like the side effect. Joel, that does
act as a safety valve, because the set of possible advisors from the IAOC
isn't bounded, the way the existing liaisons from confirming bodies are.

This is Spencer's Opinion, but after hanging around the Nomcom past chairs
(at Russ's request, while compiling the issues that fed into
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dawkins-nomcom-3777-issues/), I came
away with the feeling that the Nomcom is given really wide discretion,
because there is no Plan B if process rules got in the way of a Nomcom
delivering candidate slates.  The Prime Directive is "come up with slates
of confirmable candidates in a timely fashion and maintain confidentialty".
If that happens, mission accomplished.

That's why I thought adding advice for Nomcoms is OK, but adding hard
requirements probably isn't OK.

And that's why I thought it was best to encourage the Nomcom committee
members to request an advisor, in the usual way, and allow them to ask the
IAOC for suggestions, but not to require them to have an advisor, and not
to constrain who the IAOC might suggest. As Joel points out, the current
draft doesn't require the Nomcom to accept that suggestion.

And finding out whether Spencer's Opinion is anyone else's opinion, is why
we're having this conversation now :-)

Spencer

>> liaisons to other SDOs as directional), but that's side-stepping the more

---

From: "Scott O. Bradner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 21:45:29 -0400

send questions to clarify  the IAOC view on qualifications for an IAOC seat or about anything that was not covered by the
IAOC’s statement to the noncom (i.e. something they forgot like actual travel commitment )

Scott

> On Aug 9, 2017, at 8:42 PM, Joel Halpern <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> As the IAOC is not an approval body, I have trouble seeing why the nomcom would need to send anything to the IAOC.  Even if the Nomcom had operational feedback from the community about the IAOC as a body, it seems to me that the advisor would not be the means to send such back.
> 
> I seem to be in the minority, but I like calling this something other than liaison, because of the set of roles that apply to liaisons, but not to this IAOC suggested information source.
> 
> I mildly prefer Spencer's current formulation that the nomcom asks for the advisor.  The factor that strikes me is that this way the nomcom and its chair can ensure that they are comfortable with the appointee. (That is not their right with the liaisons, as those individuals are responsible to their providing bodies.)
> 
> Yours,
> Joel
> 
>> On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 4:33 PM, Andrew G. Malis <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>>    Brian,
>> Well, I think Andy is right here (the IAB certainly appoints IETF liaisons to other SDOs as directional), but that's side-stepping the more interesting question, which is not what we call this role, but whether we expect Nomcom to send anything back to the IAOC via the (the draft calls it) advisor.
>> And that question may not need to affect the resulting text (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437#section-4.9 says
>> which is pretty darned broad), but if it might affect the resulting text, that would be good to know sooner, rather than later.
>> Thanks,
>> Spencer
>>    Cheers,
>>    Andy

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 02:53:46 +0100

Hiya,

FWIW, my take:

- I don't care if we use the term liaison or advisor
- I do think the IAOC has to pick the person
- I do think every nomcom needs such a person helping
  out
- I'm fine if a recent but not current IAOC member is
  the stuckee, where recent is say <= 2 years since
  being an IAOC appointee. Weasel wording around that
  goal is fine so long as the intent is clear.
- If the stuckee is not a current IAOC member, then I
  think there needs to be some form of appeal of the
  appointment possible, even if that's via some hard
  to exercise mechanism.

S.

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 22:26:04 -0400

I do not tend to view asking a quesiton as providing information. The 
nomcom can and does ask all sorts of folks questions
The difference is that the liaisons have responsibilities to the bodies 
they come from regarding the process.  This IAOC information source does 
not have such responsibilities.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 17:31:13 +1200

> responsible to their providing bodies.)

That's what I wanted to say, but said in a confusing way.

    Brian

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 22:11:15 -0500

Hi, Stephen,

> - I do think every nomcom needs such a person helping

Sorry for my delay in responding.

On your other points, I think I know what to do with your feedback, but
this one is worth talking about some more.

There are different levels of "Nomcoms needing someone who speaks IAOC-ese
fairly fluently".

I'm shooting for "don't forget to think about how you'll know whether
you've got a viable IAOC candidate to forward to the confirming body, and
if you don't know who can help, the IAOC should be well-placed to make
suggestions about people
who can help".

I could be shooting for "the Nomcom has to ask for help", or even "has to
ask the IAOC for help".

At the extreme, I could be shooting for "change the definition of committee
membership so that if you don't have representation from the IAOC, you've
got a really big problem", to match not having a liaison from the IAB or
IESG.

Are people comfortable with this being more permissive than prescriptive?

Thanks,

Spencer

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 10:58:32 -0400

--On Tuesday, August 22, 2017 22:11 -0500 Spencer Dawkins at
IETF <[email-masked]> wrote:

> On your other points, I think I know what to do with your
> feedback, but this one is worth talking about some more.
> 
> There are different levels of "Nomcoms needing someone who
> speaks IAOC-ese fairly fluently".
> 
> I'm shooting for "don't forget to think about how you'll know
> whether you've got a viable IAOC candidate to forward to the
> confirming body, and if you don't know who can help, the IAOC
> should be well-placed to make suggestions about people
> who can help".
> 
> I could be shooting for "the Nomcom has to ask for help", or
> even "has to ask the IAOC for help".
> 
> At the extreme, I could be shooting for "change the definition
> of committee membership so that if you don't have
> representation from the IAOC, you've got a really big
> problem", to match not having a liaison from the IAB or IESG.
> 

Spencer,

I'm almost always comfortable with more permissive or, more
specifically, with guidelines and principles rather than rules.
That is in part because I think the IETF has a terrible track
record when we try to make specific rules, almost always
discovering either that they are not quite right and require
either workarounds or more effort to try to fix or because they
lead to quibbling about the rules rather than getting useful
work done.

However, as I've tried to say before, I'm worried about a
different problem in this case, which is whether, as the
individual knowledge of Nomcom members goes down, the presence
of all of those liaisons could have undue influence by any of:

(i) influencing the Nomcom for or against particular candidates.

(ii) influencing the Nomcom too much about the role of the
relevant bodies or job descriptions.  That is especially
hazardous because part of the original intent of the Nomcom was
that it be able to make decisions that particular bodies were
going in the wrong direction and then make appointments with the
express intention of changing that.

(iii)  Having a chilling effect on community members who wanted
to make comments (favorable or unfavorable) about particular
candidates that they wouldn't want generally known, or known to
the candidates or their supporters or opponents... especially
when the liaison was believed to have a strong (again, whether
positive or negative) relationship with that candidate.

These are obviously far more general issues than how to add an
IAOC liaison or how, but I believe that specifying an additional
liaison, especially from a body with the composition and role of
the IAOC, could considerable amplify any issues or concerns of
that type.

best,
     john

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 17:17:26 +0100

Hiya,

> Sorry for my delay in responding.

Ditto:-)

> got a really big problem", to match not having a liaison from the IAB or

It's not a hill on which I'd die, but I don't think it extreme
to expect every nomcom to have an IAOC-helper, even for years
when there is no IAOC appointment for nomcom to make. So I think
your last target above is the better one.

I am fine with the description of "helper" being vague-ish to
allow for iasa2 etc.

Cheers,
S.

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:01:11 -0500

Hi, Stephen,

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 11:17 AM, Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]

> your last target above is the better one.

I agree with your starting point, for a couple of reasons.

First, in private conversations, I am told that some Nomcoms get feedback
about AD nominees that is actually more appropriate for IAOC nominees,
because the community isn't quite sure where the dividing line between the
two bodies is. I don't know more details, because that feedback is
Nomcom-confidential, and I wasn't on the Nomcom(s) where that happened,
but, yes, having someone who can say "but that's our job" in the room seems
helpful, whether that particular Nomcom is reviewing an IAOC position or
not.

(I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Nomcoms have also gotten feedback
about IAOC nominees that should have been pointed at IESG nominees, but no
one has told me that, so forget I said it)

Second, and more important than it should be, the reason the past Nomcom
didn't ask for a liaison from IAOC was because it's not part of
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437, and the past chair/advisor didn't
think of it, because he had not reviewed an IAOC position and hadn't asked
for a liaison when he was chair. So, if a Nomcom doesn't have an IAOC
advisor because they're not reviewing an IAOC position, our running code is
that it's easy to forget to ask for one when a Nomcom does review an IAOC
position ;-)

Let me chew on how I can say that Nomcoms really need that input, but what
I'm concerned about is that a Nominating Committee is defined as

   The nominating committee comprises at least a Chair, 10 voting
   volunteers, two liaisons, and an advisor.

and if I state having an IAOC advisor is a (new) requirement, a Nominating
Committee that doesn't have one would be vulnerable to an appeal to the
ISOC board, because the structure doesn't match what's in the BCP - and
because we're talking about IASA 2.0, sending a representative for IAOC may
not even make sense, but the BCP text wouldn't go away by itself (BCP text
that could go away by itself was the point of
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3933, but whatever).

I may be excessively sensitive about making this prescriptive, because we
had to write a new BCP to make a one-word change in a couple of BCPs, so
I'm happy to listen to reason.

Spencer, (in this case) as author of https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7475,
which was less simple than you might hope ...

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 17:48:52 -0400

--On Thursday, August 24, 2017 16:01 -0500 Spencer Dawkins at
IETF <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Second, and more important than it should be, the reason the
> past Nomcom didn't ask for a liaison from IAOC was because
> it's not part of https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437, and the
> past chair/advisor didn't think of it, because he had not
> reviewed an IAOC position and hadn't asked for a liaison when
> he was chair. So, if a Nomcom doesn't have an IAOC advisor
> because they're not reviewing an IAOC position, our running
> code is that it's easy to forget to ask for one when a Nomcom
> does review an IAOC position ;-)
> 
> Let me chew on how I can say that Nomcoms really need that
> input, but what I'm concerned about is that a Nominating
> Committee is defined as
> 
>    The nominating committee comprises at least a Chair, 10
> voting    volunteers, two liaisons, and an advisor.
> 
> and if I state having an IAOC advisor is a (new) requirement,
> a Nominating Committee that doesn't have one would be
> vulnerable to an appeal to the ISOC board, because the
> structure doesn't match what's in the BCP - and because we're
> talking about IASA 2.0, sending a representative for IAOC may
> not even make sense, but the BCP text wouldn't go away by
> itself (BCP text that could go away by itself was the point of
> I may be excessively sensitive about making this prescriptive,
> because we had to write a new BCP to make a one-word change in
> a couple of BCPs, so I'm happy to listen to reason.
> 
> Spencer, (in this case) as author of
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7475, which was less simple
> than you might hope ...
>...

Spencer, noting the concerns I expressed in my earlier note,
consider saying, instead of, "there will be an IAOC Liaison" (or
helper, observer, hanger-on) something like "before starting its
work to filter and select candidates, the Nomcom will consider
which bodies from which to seek advice or representation with
that consideration including, but not necessarily limited to,
all bodies to which Nomcoms are charged with appointing members
whether members are being appointed in that year or not".  That
consideration process will include the precise role of any
individuals included in the Nomcom's work with regard to whether
they simply provide information when asked or participate in
some or all Nomcom discussions or deliberations."

I'm sure you can write better sentences, but an approach like
that reminds the Nomcom that the IAOC is relevant, that, if the
Nomcom should in the future start appointing people to other
bodies internal or external to the IETF, we don't have to redo
this.  And I think it is IASA 2.0 proof -- it that process
abolishes the IAOC and creates three bodies named Tom, Dick, and
Harry, the document still works and the Nomcom gets to figure
out who is relevant.

     john

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:54:34 -0500

Hi, John, and CC Alexey, who is shepherding this draft,

> the IAOC, could considerable amplify any issues or concerns of

I have seen your e-mail about that, and I think I understand this issue
pretty well.

I agree that how the Nomcom reviews positions and nominees has changed
pretty massively since 1992.

The problem with problems with Nomcom is, it's really hard to know what
problems have been encountered over the years, unless one or more Nomcom
chairs reveals a problem that they encountered.

Some do that, pretty publicly, but even in those cases, people outside the
Nomcom don't have the details that would be helpful in solving problems.

I might reasonably point out that there's been an "IAOC liaison" on every
Nomcom from 2009-2010 to 2014-2015, but maybe we've just been lucky - I
just don't know.

So, here's what I'm thinking.

Tl;dr

Alissa (as Gen-AD) is out on leave until October (although she did surface
for an informal telechat earlier today).

I'm not comfortable proposing more than minor changes, until she can
participate in that discussion.

When she returns, I'll tell her what I'm hearing (and that I can't dismiss
that concern out of hand). That's on my calendar as a reminder.

The long part ...

The last time we made a Nomcom process change that was more than a
paragraph long, what Russ did, was convene about ten years worth of Nomcom
past chairs to exchange, maintaining as much confidentiality as they could
(so, no names), descriptions of problems they'd encountered. Common
problems went into
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dawkins-nomcom-3777-issues-00, and that
formed the basis of most of the BCP changes I authored (most notoriously,
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5680/). That's why we had some
confidence that we were talking about real problems.

ISTM like it's worth doing something like that, every decade or so, which
is how long it's been since I was working on that draft.

Maybe all the problems that were identified then have gone away without BCP
changes, or maybe more recent Nomcom chairs have encountered different
problems that are worth thinking about, but (inserting by reference every
conversation you and I have ever had about how hard it is to get BCPs right
the first time), if we've already had problems that recur often enough to
justify BCP updates, I'd like to understand them.

Thanks,

Spencer

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 19:05:28 -0400

Spencer,

--On Thursday, August 24, 2017 16:54 -0500 Spencer Dawkins at

> I have seen your e-mail about that, and I think I understand
> this issue pretty well.
> 
> I agree that how the Nomcom reviews positions and nominees has
> changed pretty massively since 1992.
> 
> The problem with problems with Nomcom is, it's really hard to
> know what problems have been encountered over the years,
> unless one or more Nomcom chairs reveals a problem that they
> encountered.
> 
> Some do that, pretty publicly, but even in those cases, people
> outside the Nomcom don't have the details that would be
> helpful in solving problems.
> 
> I might reasonably point out that there's been an "IAOC
> liaison" on every Nomcom from 2009-2010 to 2014-2015, but
> maybe we've just been lucky - I just don't know.
> 
> Alissa (as Gen-AD) is out on leave until October (although she
> did surface for an informal telechat earlier today).
> 
> I'm not comfortable proposing more than minor changes, until
> she can participate in that discussion.
> 
> When she returns, I'll tell her what I'm hearing (and that I
> can't dismiss that concern out of hand). That's on my calendar
> as a reminder.

Seems completely sensible.
 
> The long part ...
> 
> The last time we made a Nomcom process change that was more
> than a paragraph long, what Russ did, was convene about ten
> years worth of Nomcom past chairs to exchange, maintaining as
> much confidentiality as they could (so, no names),
> descriptions of problems they'd encountered. Common problems
> went into
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dawkins-nomcom-3777-issues-0
> 0, and that formed the basis of most of the BCP changes I
> authored (most notoriously,
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5680/). That's why we had
> some confidence that we were talking about real problems.
>...
> Maybe all the problems that were identified then have gone
> away without BCP changes, or maybe more recent Nomcom chairs
> have encountered different problems that are worth thinking
> about, but (inserting by reference every conversation you and
> I have ever had about how hard it is to get BCPs right the
> first time), if we've already had problems that recur often
> enough to justify BCP updates, I'd like to understand them.

Yes.  But I think there is a source of data that might be hard
to capture and invisible to Nomcom chairs.  That doesn't mean it
isn't there or isn't valid.

I've heard, several times, from IETF participants (just
participants with no leadership responsibilities, although my
list includes a few WG chairs), in conversations that typically
occur after Nomcom appointments are announced.  The
conversations went something like the following:

> How could they possibly reappoint X, he is terrible,
mistreated the WG, and systematically ignored everyone who
disagreed with him.

< Did you discuss those issues and examples with the Nomcom.

> No, I hoped someone else would do so.

< Why not?  If you don't raise the issues, how can you expect
others to do so?

> Y was the liaison (or even X's co-AD), I think they are
buddies, and ADs protect each other anyway, so I'm afraid of
retaliation... from X if X is reappointed and from Y and maybe
the rest of the IESG is X is not.   I have no confidence in Y's
ability to keep my comments, or the fact that I made them, away
from X or other IESG members.

< <selection of bad words>

I've heard similar things four or five times.  Not a huge
number, but enough to cause me to believe that there is a
problem and that others may be hearing the same things.  I've
heard similar things before Nomcoms have made their selections
but then I just suggest private conversations with Nomcom
chairs... something that would be visible to those chairs if
they occurred (and I have no way to know whether they did or
not).

    john

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2017 01:31:12 +0100

Hiya,

> helpful, whether that particular Nomcom is reviewing an IAOC position or

I think a whole bunch of IETF plenaries provide evidence that the
community do get at least IESG/IAOC responsibilities mixed up, (as
they ought - given that loads of I* stuff is just administrivia:-)
but all such comments ought be properly weighed in all cases by the
sitting nomcoms. (I mean "properly" in the sense that whatever sane
community comment is offered is valid commentary by definition and
hence deserves knowledgeable consideration, which requires help
from folks who're up to date on the relevant body's stuff.)

> ISOC board, because the structure doesn't match what's in the BCP - 

I don't get why that's a problem. If this draft updates the BCP, then
it becomes part of the BCP. For a minor update like this, I don't see
a big deal here.

> and

John's suggestion to say that helpers are needed for all the major
bodies to which nomcoms appoint members seems like it should be fine
when well wordsmithed.

Cheers,
S.

PS: I don't think this is mega-urgent, so fixing it for the next
cycle or the one after are both fine.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 21:02:48 -0400

--On Friday, August 25, 2017 01:31 +0100 Stephen Farrell
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> John's suggestion to say that helpers are needed for all the
> major bodies to which nomcoms appoint members seems like it
> should be fine when well wordsmithed.

Just for the record, my suggestion wasn't "are needed" but that
the Nomcom should consider each one and decide what, if
anything, was needed and how any advisors/helpers who are needed
should interact with the Nomcom.  Put differently, I'm in favor
of reminding Nomcoms about cases they should consider (thereby
covering the "no one thought of it" cases) but much less in
favor of telling them what they should conclude or what they
should do about it.

    john

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2017 23:02:47 -0500

Hi, Stephen,

> On 24/08/17 22:01, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:

deleted down to ...

> it becomes part of the BCP. For a minor update like this, I don't see

And Alissa thought I could write coherent text. Based on what, I wonder?

What I was trying to describe was

Updated BCP structure:

>    volunteers, two liaisons, and an advisor, plus whatever the heck
      we call the person bearing IAOC clue.

So, that would make having an IAOC clue-bearer mandatory (which I have some
sympathy with, please see deleted text where I gave two reasons why I
previously agreed with you about this being desirable), and if a Nomcom
didn't have an IAOC clue-bearer, the Nomcom doesn't match the updated BCP
structure.

So, maybe that doesn't actually matter, but the DOS attack is someone who
doesn't like the results of that Nomcom for at least one of the 15 or so
confirmed candidates, and appeals the entire outcome of that Nomcom to the
ISOC Board because the Nomcom wasn't properly constituted.

Maybe that will never happen, but if it did, we would be in for a wild ride
for 6-8 weeks while we tried to figure out who was actually going to be on
the IAB, IESG, and IAOC as people's terms end for the reviewed positions
during the first IETF meeting week of the year, with no confirmed
candidates to replace them. Maybe we really do have a Plan B, but I have no
idea what it would be (noting that we had no quick solution when Wes Eddy's
term expired and there was no confirmed candidate to replace him in 2013, a
situation you and I have some familiarity with).

John's formulation is interesting, but I don't see it as a small change.
Maybe in another draft, or maybe as part of the conversation I've committed
to have with Alissa upon her return, but I'd expect discussion.

Updating BCPs without planting land mines is hard.

Enjoy your day :-)

Spencer