Subject: On revising 3777 as in draft-klensin-recall-rev-00

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 15:57:15 -0800

To give some context:

3777 says that Recall petitions must be signed by 20 people who are 
eligible to be a nomcom voting member.

draft-klensin-recall-rev-00 suggests that this rule "inadvertently" 
disqualifies sitting IAB and IESG members and proposes to allow them 
to sign Recall petitions.

Inadvertent as it may be, I think that the nomcom-qualification is a 
perfectly fine rule, and sets a higher-bar for the recall process 
than the new proposal.  A quick count of the number of IAB and IESG 
seats we have available reveals that IAB and IESG members may get 
into brawls (they go to yearly retreats without us commoners around 
to watch them, and gods only know what happens there! :-)) and may 
choose to initiate a recall process on one or more of the them 
without having to explain what's wrong until the recall committee is 
formed.  As it stands today, 3777 forces recall initiators to find 20 
ordinary folks :-), no more than 2 from a single affiliation and 
convince them that a certain IAB/IESG member needs to be replaced 
before her/his term is up, to start the recall process.

regards,
Lakshminath

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---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:24:15 +0100

I actually think the bar is too high for other reasons.  Those same 20 
people are not allowed to serve as jury, and that makes sense.  but 
we're not a large community, and while I understand the need to prevent 
DOS attacks on the IESG, I would still halve the number.  As it is now 
it's just about impossible to get rid of someone who is really doing a 
bad job, even if it's obvious.  The balance has to be gotten right, and 
that's hard, considering nobody has actually been recalled.  Has anyone 
even tried?

Eliot

---

From: "Dondeti, Lakshminath" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 07:43:21 -0800

Hi Eliot,

The most recent number of nomcom eligible folks is 849, please see https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/show_nomcom_message.cgi?id=446.  20 people out of that isn't all that high.  I think I might easily find 10 like-minded people; but 20 makes the burden of proof a bit harder and that sounds good to me.  Furthermore, there have been (rumors of) cases where IESG/IAB members who were purported to be ineffective have been selected again for their positions.  (As to why that is is a different story, and is closely related to the same reason why only about 10% of the nomcom eligible folks actually volunteer to be on the nomcom: apathy).

regards,
Lakshminath

-----Original Message-----
From: Eliot Lear [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tue 11/15/2005 3:24 AM
To: Dondeti, Lakshminath
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: On revising 3777 as in draft-klensin-recall-rev-00

Eliot

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:49:30 +0100

Dondeti, Lakshminath wrote:
> Hi Eliot,
> 
> The most recent number of nomcom eligible folks is 849, please see 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/show_nomcom_message.cgi?id=446.  20 
> people out of that isn't all that high.  I think I might easily find 10 
> like-minded people.

Prove it.  If you can't then we clearly have the bar *unnecessarily* 
high.    Don't get me wrong.  I think it should be hard to recall 
someone.  And the process should not be abused, so I agree with the 
goals, but I disagree with the numbers.

Eliot

---

From: "Dondeti, Lakshminath" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 08:15:45 -0800

Perhaps that's one way to prove that the bar is high/low.  Another way is to ask around with this in mind and see if we all run into old rumors of what has been tried and with what results :-).

My other point is that we are trying to fix the wrong problem.  I think that the nomcom process may be in trouble.  We have very few people volunteering to be on the nomcom and an easy to launch recall process puts more pressure on the nomcom membership selection process.

Also consider this.  Let's say we give 1 year for someone to figure out their IESG/IAB job; so if a number of discontented people can't wait another year from then on, they should be forced to find a sizable number of people to sign on the recall petition.

I have been on the nomcom last year and again this year (someone smarter than me figured out that this is probably due to the fact that very few people volunteer to be on the nomcom), and we get feedback that a certain IESG member or IAB member should really be replaced.  But, we also receive positive feedback on the same person.  So, if we allow 10 people to launch recall processes everytime they are not happy with an IESG member's decision, the IETF will become more political than it is already.

I will close with saying that we have NOT received a whole lot of community feedback this year on potential candidates or on what's working or what's not on the incumbents.  What's the point of having nominating or recall committes if they are not used by the community?  More importantly, I worry that a recall may even succeed with the recall committee only hearing one side of the story.  

The nomcom processes are very secretive, the process of collecting 20 signatures on a recall petition has a better chance of getting wider exposure and hence the entire IETF may be involved in the decision as opposed to a few people.

Lakshminath

-----Original Message-----
From: Eliot Lear [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tue 11/15/2005 7:49 AM
To: Dondeti, Lakshminath
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: On revising 3777 as in draft-klensin-recall-rev-00

Eliot

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:42:32 +0100

Dondeti, Lakshminath wrote:
> Perhaps that's one way to prove that the bar is high/low.  Another way 
> is to ask around with this in mind and see if we all run into old rumors 
> of what has been tried and with what results :-).
> 
> My other point is that we are trying to fix the wrong problem.  I think 
> that the nomcom process may be in trouble.  We have very few people 
> volunteering to be on the nomcom and an easy to launch recall process 
> puts more pressure on the nomcom membership selection process.

Yes, the point of having a bar is to prevent a DOS on either the recall 
committee process, the IESG, or others.  But if we set the bar too high 
we might as well not have a recall process.  If ten people think a 
complaint against an IESG or IAB member rises to the level where they 
want to recall that person, I think that complaint should be heard. 
This is the high water mark method of the IETF demonstrating that the 
members of the IESG are not beyond reproach.  It also provides us a 
method to reaffirm confidence in an AD who is being attacked.  If we 
find that some wingnut is attracting other wingnuts and causing a DOS 
attack we can raise the bar again.

> 
> Also consider this.  Let's say we give 1 year for someone to figure out 
> their IESG/IAB job; so if a number of discontented people can't wait 
> another year from then on, they should be forced to find a sizable 
> number of people to sign on the recall petition.
> 
> I have been on the nomcom last year and again this year (someone smarter 
> than me figured out that this is probably due to the fact that very few 
> people volunteer to be on the nomcom), and we get feedback that a 
> certain IESG member or IAB member should really be replaced.  But, we 
> also receive positive feedback on the same person.  So, if we allow 10 
> people to launch recall processes everytime they are not happy with an 
> IESG member's decision, the IETF will become more political than it is 
> already.

Has it ever actually happened?

> I will close with saying that we have NOT received a whole lot of 
> community feedback this year on potential candidates or on what's 
> working or what's not on the incumbents.  What's the point of having 
> nominating or recall committes if they are not used by the community?  
> More importantly, I worry that a recall may even succeed with the recall 
> committee only hearing one side of the story.

Good point!

Nuff said.

Eliot

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:55:28 +0000

On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 08:15:45AM -0800, Dondeti, Lakshminath allegedly
wrote:
> Perhaps that's one way to prove that the bar is high/low.  Another
> way is to ask around with this in mind and see if we all run into
> old rumors of what has been tried and with what results :-).

It would be an interesting experiment.  If we don't get any recall
requests, we keep making it easier until we get one or more ... but
then you can't ever raise the bar back up if you then think you're
getting too many.

Let's get some statistics.  Regarding attempts to get a group of 20
together in recent history, how many co-petitioners did they actually
get?  Reports solicited, details unnecessary.

swb

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 08:11:45 -0800

--On 15. november 2005 12:24 +0100 Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> wrote:

> people are not allowed to serve as jury, and that makes sense.  but we're
> not a large community, and while I understand the need to prevent DOS
> attacks on the IESG, I would still halve the number.  As it is now it's
> just about impossible to get rid of someone who is really doing a bad
> job, even if it's obvious.  The balance has to be gotten right, and

I remember talking about this at the time the NOMCOM WG decided.
An interesting argument was that the 20-person limit actually was a lower 
bar to responsible persons than the 1-person limit; with the 1-person 
limit, anyone who used the mechanism knew that he was a) standing alone and 
b) exposing a fundamental flaw in the IETF's DoS protections; with the 
20-person limit, you can easily get there when a crisis is big enough to 
gather lynch crowds, and you get the security of just being one among many, 
while if the crisis is a small one, you won't get that far.....

I don't think the tuning can be said to have succeeded if we get one recall 
request a year under non-crisis conditions.....

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:30:21 -0500

--On Monday, 14 November, 2005 15:57 -0800 Lakshminath Dondeti
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> To give some context:
> 
> 3777 says that Recall petitions must be signed by 20 people
> who are eligible to be a nomcom voting member.
> 
> draft-klensin-recall-rev-00 suggests that this rule
> "inadvertently" disqualifies sitting IAB and IESG members and
> proposes to allow them to sign Recall petitions.
> 
> Inadvertent as it may be, I think that the
> nomcom-qualification is a perfectly fine rule, and sets a
> higher-bar for the recall process than the new proposal.  A
> quick count of the number of IAB and IESG seats we have
> available reveals that IAB and IESG members may get into
> brawls (they go to yearly retreats without us commoners around
> to watch them, and gods only know what happens there! :-)) and
> may choose to initiate a recall process on one or more of the
> them without having to explain what's wrong until the recall
> committee is formed.  As it stands today, 3777 forces recall
> initiators to find 20 ordinary folks :-), no more than 2 from
> a single affiliation and convince them that a certain IAB/IESG
> member needs to be replaced before her/his term is up, to
> start the recall process.

Well, I don't want to get very far into the "10 versus 20"
argument, about which I have no strong opinion, but let me cite
some history and disagree with the above...

First, remember that, before 3777 was adopted and published in
June 2004 with this "20 signature" rule to prevent denial of
service attacks, we had RFCs 2727, 2282, and 2027, going back to
October 1996.  In each of those versions, the number of people
needed to initiate a recall procedure was ... uh, one.    And
the qualification for that one was not "nomcom eligible" or any
other attendance criterion.  RFC  2727 uses the interesting and
highly restrictive term "Anyone" (Section 5 (1)).

During the period in which we had the extreme vunerability to
DoS attacks that initiation of a recall by "anyone" suggests,
the number of recall attempts that reached the ISOC President
was, hmm, zero.  The number of recall attempts that reached the
ISOC President since 3777 was published has also been zero.  So,
if our goal is to tune the number of people required to prevent
DoS attacks based on our experience with such attacks, one
signature is more than adequate.  Personally, I think that is
too few, but I don't know how to pick a good number.  I didn't
propose to change the number in RFC 3777, not because I'm
convinced that 20 is the right number, but because I can't come
up with a good theory as to why any particular different number
is the right one.

However, with regard to the IAB/ IESG members, if the two bodies
are not capable of functioning effectively as groups, then the
whole community suffers.  Your position, as I understand it,
essentially has the implication that, if they stop functioning
and have a nice brawl instead, the community should not find out
about that until, at least, the next nomcom cycle.  That
impresses me as backwards.  If the IESG or IAB is unable to
function due to the personality issues you essentially posit
then the nomcom process has already failed to do the part of its
job that I've sometimes described as picking only those people
who play reasonably well with other children.  If the IAB or
IESG is not functioning effectively, and the problem is being
caused (in the opinion of IAB and IESG members) by a small
number of individuals, that situation should be, IMO, exposed to
the community as early and clearly as possible.   Let's let the
IESG or IAB members who are most impacted by misbehavior be the
ones who initiate the recalls.  Let's not promote leadership by
rumor and conspiracy as they try to collect signatures for
something they can't sign.  And let's not create a situation in
which we invite so much frustration within those bodies that
people quit, or decline to seek reappointment, because they feel
unable to cope with a bad actor.

Also note that your concern that someone, perhaps some IAB or
IESG members, "may choose to initiate a recall process on one or
more of the them without having to explain what's wrong until
the recall
committee is formed." does not seem correct to me.  Under the
RFC 3777 provisions, 

	The petition must include a statement of justification
	for the recall and all relevant and appropriate
	supporting documentation.

and

	The petition and its signatories must be announced to
	the IETF	community.

That doesn't make the nature of the complaint very secret.
Indeed, it is much more open than the nomcom process in which
complaints against the behavior of a particular incumbent are
not public and we rely on the nomcom to investigate, in
sufficient secrecy that complaints can, in principle, just be
ignored, the truth of the matter.  As was pointed out in a later
note, the nomcom has occasionally returned people to the IAB or
IESG who were already seriously disfunctional internally.

The bottom line is that the recall process has never been
abused.  It is the community's last-resort protection against
someone who becomes abusive, relying of the difficulty of the
recall process as protection against any community action
against bad behavior.  And, if there are problems within the IAB
or IESG (or some other relevant body) that are serious enough
for people to start contemplating recalls, it is better than the
community find out about that as swiftly and clearly as
possible, without our erecting barriers that we don't need.

    john

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 09:45:32 -0800 (PST)

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Dondeti, Lakshminath wrote:

> Furthermore, there have been (rumors of) cases where IESG/IAB members 
> who were purported to be ineffective have been selected again for their 
> positions.  (As to why that is is a different story, and is closely 
> related to the same reason why only about 10% of the nomcom eligible 
> folks actually volunteer to be on the nomcom: apathy).

Some noncom eligible folks, who don't volunteer, do so because their IETF 
related workload is already considerable.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       [email-masked]
GPG Key Fingerprint:     5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 10:36:57 -0800

> then you can't ever raise the bar back up if you then think you're

Why do you say that?

before RFC 3777, the number was 1.

-Ekr

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 11:19:49 -0800

Hi John,

Your notes are convincing to me.  In effect, you are saying that if 
the IESG and IAB members cannot function well together, let's hear 
about it before the nomcom cycle.  I missed the sentence "The 
petition and its signatories must be announced to the IETF community" 
in my earlier reading of RFC 3777.

With that condition in place, draft-klensin-recall-rev-00 looks ok to 
me.  Thanks.

regards,
Lakshminath

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 16:56:15 +0100

Lakshminath Dondeti wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> Your notes are convincing to me.  In effect, you are saying that if the 
> IESG and IAB members cannot function well together, let's hear about it 
> before the nomcom cycle.  I missed the sentence "The petition and its 
> signatories must be announced to the IETF community" in my earlier 
> reading of RFC 3777.
> 

The trouble is, all this is based at best on thought experiments. As a
potential victim of recall, I don't want to dive too deep into the debate,
but my assumption is that if there was a near-critical-mass situation
in the IETF or IAB (*) there would be enough energetic neutrons flying
out that 10 or 20 people in the community would know about it. So I'm not
convinced that John's proposed change is likely to change the measured
rate of recall petitions. But I can't find any particular downside,
and it does seem fair.

John, please add some words about the BCP 101 recall process for
the IAOC.

(*) er, if anybody thinks that's the case today, please let me or Leslie
know. Not that we don't have contention, of course.

     Brian

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 08:28:07 -0800

Someone else noted in a private conversation that the current nomcom 
(and I added including the liaisons) should be excluded from signing 
recall petitions.  What are others' thoughts on that?

regards,
Lakshminath

At 07:56 AM 11/16/2005, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>>petition and its signatories must be announced to the IETF 
>>community" in my earlier reading of RFC 3777.
>>With that condition in place, draft-klensin-recall-rev-00 looks ok 
>>to me.  Thanks.
>

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 18:29:41 +0200

I am not convinced that we need to do any change in this
area. First, I think we have higher priority items to worry
about. The IETF really needs to spend its process change
cycles on things that provide a measureable effect and that
has a real impact on timeliness/quality/openess/your favorite
criteria.

And we've never had a recall so optimizing process
for it is premature. Lets wait until we have recalls
and then tune the parameters.

I do believe that if the IESG or IAB has a problem working
together then we should hear about it as soon as possible.
But nothing prevents open discussion, including participation
of IESG members. If the only people who can be convinced
to sign a recall petition can be found in the IESG and IAB,
well, maybe we don't have a problem after all.

Finally, I'm not sure I am comfortable with the idea that
the IESG and IAB (altogether over 20 persons) could
all by itself sign a petion and get it processed. This would
appear to provide a channel to oppose decisions from the
nomcom, for instance.

If there's ever an issue that deserves recall-level discussion,
lets hear about that, publicly, and get enough people behind
it to sign the petition. If you can't get it done, maybe the
issue was not all that convincing to people.

--Jari

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 08:49:35 -0800

--On 16. november 2005 08:28 -0800 Lakshminath Dondeti 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Someone else noted in a private conversation that the current nomcom (and
> I added including the liaisons) should be excluded from signing recall
> petitions.  What are others' thoughts on that?

I see no reason to; they won't be the nomcom that selects them.
The fewer special cases we have, the better - IMHO.

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:04:50 -0800

>has a real impact on timeliness/quality/openess/your favorite

As to whether this is urgent is a good question.  But, the change 
seems straightforward enough that we can accommodate it as part of 
"regular business."

>appear to provide a channel to oppose decisions from the

The confirmation process takes care of this already.  The IAB doesn't 
have to accept the slate of IESG nominations the nomcom sends to 
them, and so on.

The IESG and IAB have something to lose, if you think about it, if 
they go about launching spurious recall petitions.  Their names will 
be published along with the petition and if the recall committee 
comes back saying there is no need to recall, then people will take a 
hard look at the petitioners.  That's a good deterrent, I think.

>issue was not all that convincing to people.

Sometimes, a petition needs to be put together without starting 
discussion on it already, so it makes sense to have some secrecy 
while the signatures are collected.  In that process, if the 
initiators find out that there aren't really 20 eligible people to 
sign, then they know perhaps they need to look inwards to handle the 
issue at hand ;-).  I'd like to think that some recall drives have 
started and probably stopped at some point -- I am not sure healthy 
is the right word, but that seems to fit in the course of IETF operations.

regards,
Lakshminath

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 10:12:24 -0800

At 08:49 AM 11/16/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

>*** PGP SIGNATURE VERIFICATION ***
>*** Status:   Unknown Signature
>*** Signer:   Unknown Key (0xE598D05E)
>*** Signed:   11/16/2005 8:49:35 AM
>*** Verified: 11/16/2005 10:05:00 AM
>*** BEGIN PGP VERIFIED MESSAGE ***
>
>
>

Right.  Here is my line of thinking on that: The nomcom is a great 
place to tell secrets (almost like a confessional box); the nomcom 
members are at a disadvantage in that they can't go fact-checking on 
those secrets (confidentiality rules forbid them from doing so).  If 
I were a petitioner, I'd find nomcom members to be good candidates to 
convince to sign my petition.

Lakshminath

>*** END PGP VERIFIED MESSAGE ***

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:11:36 -0500

I agree with this analysis.  Some additional comments below...

--On Wednesday, 16 November, 2005 10:04 -0800 Lakshminath
Dondeti <[email-masked]> wrote:

> As to whether this is urgent is a good question.  But, the
> change seems straightforward enough that we can accommodate it
> as part of "regular business."

It is useful to do it now for one additional reason and that is
precisely because, at least to the best of my knowledge, no
recall actions are pending or in process.  We don't want to be
rethinking these sorts of things at a time when doing so raises
"who are we trying to get" questions.

>> and then tune the parameters.

Well, if this argument is extended backward, we wouldn't have
the "20 signature" rule at all, but a "1 signature, signed by
'anyone'" rule.  Perhaps that would be better, perhaps worse.  I
have been thinking that "one" is easier to get than ten or 20,
but   I find Harald's "safety and sanity in numbers" reasoning
fairly persuasive.  But the point is that we have already done
some tuning/ process optimization in the absence of experience;
adjusting that process on the same basis seems plausible.

>> well, maybe we don't have a problem after all.

Think about it this way.  Recalls are a nasty, horrible, very
burdensome, and disruptive mechanism.  That is true whether the
petition threshold is one signature or two dozen.  At the same
time, they are the only mechanism we have.  As has been pointed
out at least once on-list, indirectly by Lakshminath below, and
several times in private notes, one of the values of a recall
effort that starts is that it lays the foundation for a
completely unambiguous "this is serious not just random whining;
you need to either clean up your act, resign, or this petition
goes to the ISOC President and all the dirty laundry gets hung
out in public" conversation. That isn't attractive either, but
it is much better for the community than an actual recall.  And,
for that purpose, a petition with several signatures, with
people from both within and outside the relevant body, is far
more persuasive about the reality of serious discontent than one
person whining.

> The confirmation process takes care of this already.  The IAB
> doesn't have to accept the slate of IESG nominations the
> nomcom sends to them, and so on.

But the IESG and IAB don't get to approve nomcom selections to
the IESG and IAB, respectively.  But think about this: If the
IESG and IAB feel strongly enough that someone is a bad actor
that they can get majorities of both bodies, or most of one and
a few from the other, to sign a petition to initiate a very
nasty process that would be almost certain to result in a
low-performance slot while the process plays itself out, maybe
the odds that the nomcom has made a mistake are high enough that
the community deserves the opportunity to do some
second-guessing.  

Remember how the appeals process works: the ISOC President needs
to get a petition.   The secretariat needs to confirm the
signatures, which probably doesn't happen overnight.    The ISOC
President appoints a recall committee chair.  We've never been
through that process, but I'd assume, based on experience with
Nomcom chairs, that the ISOC President would do some
consultation and that the first person selected might say "no".
Figure that, by the time we get signatures verified and a chair
appointed, it is a couple of weeks after the petition
submission, and that is pretty optimistic.  Then, just like the
nomcom, the Chair asks for volunteers from the nomcom-eligible
pool, presumably less the sitting nomcom members (RFC 3777 is
not clear about that, and should probably be fixed).  The
selection process then requires a 30 day volunteer period,
followed by a one-week waiting period, followed by selection,
followed by a one-week challenge period.  Note that we are now
at least eight weeks post-petition and the recall committee
hasn't met yet, much less done anything.  But, unless the "one
month to get organized" of RFC 3777, Section 4.18, is applied to
the recall committee, it is at least ready to start work.   

Now assume that the recall committee can do its job in a couple
of weeks (which I would consider a miracle) and concludes that
the person should be removed.  Circa ten weeks out, the Nomcom
Chair convenes the Nomcom (most of whose members may believe
that they were finished for the year) and starts the process of
soliciting candidate nominations, evaluating them, interviewing
would-be candidates and listening to the community, etc.  Once
they have a nominee, the nomination has to go through the
conformation process.  My guess is that it would be a minimum of
five or six _months_ between initiation of a petition and the
time we have a replacement person in place.  During the first
half (or so) of that time, we've got someone in place who is
probably mad at everyone and possibly continuing to do whatever
got him or her in trouble in the first place only more so.
During the second half, we have a vacancy.  

I suggest that anyone who is willing to initiate a process like
that would need to be quite sure that things are serious enough
to justify it, either in terms of serious bad behavior or in
terms of needing to establish a principle.  With 20 (or even
ten) signatures required, there need to be a lot of such people.
Within the IESG or IAB, where there is a keen understanding of
the implications of operating short-handed for many months, the
threshold is even higher.   And, as Lakshminath points out,
anyone signing these things puts their own credibility and
quality of judgment out for evaluation by the community, for
better or worse.

> The IESG and IAB have something to lose, if you think about
> it, if they go about launching spurious recall petitions.
> Their names will be published along with the petition and if
> the recall committee comes back saying there is no need to
> recall, then people will take a hard look at the petitioners.
> That's a good deterrent, I think.

Agreed.  See above.

>...

regards,   
   john

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:09:17 +0200

John, Lakshminath,

I mostly agree with everything that you wrote and the
nature of the recall process.

Nevertheless, as the central proposal in John's draft appears
to be the inclusion of IESG/IAB in the potential signing members
I still fail to see why this is necessary. If the issue is of
wide enough relevance and serious, the management surely
finds people (privately or publicly) that care enough to sign.

--Jari

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 12:20:50 -0800

>finds people (privately or publicly) that care enough to sign.

The argument has been around why if anyone needs to be excluded from 
signing a recall petition.  I have made a case to exclude the current 
nomcom members and liaisons, but can't think of a reason to exclude 
IAB and IESG members.

John notes correctly that the IAB and IESG members sometimes know 
quicker than other IETF contributors if one of them is disruptive or 
ineffective.  The proposal contends that the burden on a recall 
initiator is too high if she/he happens to be an IAB or IESG 
member.  Earlier I was concerned that if the process is secretive, 
the IAB or IESG members can abuse it, but since recall petitions are 
to be posted as public notices in the IETF list(s), I am fine with 
it.  As John notes, there is a threat of recall vs. an actual recall, 
but again such checks on the power of an IESG/IAB member is a good 
thing, although we are told that the IAB members don't have too many 
levers to pull :-); that's another discussion, however.

Lakshminath

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 22:33:11 +0200

Hi Lakshminath,

> nomcom members and liaisons, but can't think of a reason to exclude 

Good question. But I'm thinking that its simply good established
practise to exclude the leadership from affecting too much
its own evaluation, selection, or - as in this case - firing.

> ineffective.

I would really rather attack this problem (if it exists) from
another direction - by having more openness. I think we have
made a LOT of progress in this area with trackers, minutes,
etc, and I hope that there's a continued work on this.

--Jari

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 15:43:53 -0500

> finds people (privately or publicly) that care enough to sign.

I think it is socially undesirable for IAB or IESG members to go
around in secret, finding people to sign things for them.  While
there is no way to avoid that should IESG or IAB members decide
they prefer that course of action, I'd much prefer to encourage
the people who actually have the complaints to come forward, in
public, and identify and explain them.   Sunshine just seems a
lot healthier to me than forcing people to organize conspiracies.

YMMD, of course.

     john

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:39:36 +0200

John C Klensin wrote:

>Sunshine just seems a
I am in full agreement. So what was the issue we needed
to solve again? Are we solving the case where there's
sunshine but no one else than people in the IESG/IAB
are convinced, so that's why we need them to be the
signers?

--Jari

---

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:15:12 +0100

On 15 nov 2005, at 16.43, Dondeti, Lakshminath wrote:

> https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/show_nomcom_message.cgi? 
> id=446.  20 people out of that isn't all that high.  I think I  
> might easily find 10 like-minded people; but 20 makes the burden of  
> proof a bit harder and that sounds good to me.

even when i was just 1 person needed to start a recall we never had  
one, though there may have been cause on occasion.  a lot of  
discussion went on about the number in the nomcom wg.  i suggest  
people go back to the archives before restarting the whole discussion.
> Furthermore, there have been (rumors of) cases where IESG/IAB  
> members who were purported to be ineffective have been selected  
> again for their positions.  (As to why that is is a different  
> story, and is closely related to the same reason why only about 10%  
> of the nomcom eligible folks actually volunteer to be on the  
> nomcom: apathy).

or perhaps some people secretly really hope to be put on the iab/ 
iesg.  while IETF mythology claims that no one worthy wants the  
roles, i expect it is not true.  though there is the issue that the  
work load seems to have increased from being a half time job for the  
iesg to a full time job, and this may make it difficult for  
independents or people from small companies to contribute the time.   
this may be a good reason for reforming the iesg, but that is a  
difficult topic and probably belongs to another thread.

it may also be that there is an impression that it is always people  
from the same core group are selected.  this may also be a myth, but  
may be enough to dissuade people from getting involved in process  
they may think somewhat futile.

finally, i am not convinced that everyone realizes how vital a role  
nomcom plays in the IETF process, or the fact that it _really_ is  
open to those outside the core group of IETF.

so i think that apathy about nomcom  or willingness to serve in I*  
may be only a small part of the story.

a.