Subject: Re: Last Call: <draft-leiba-3777upd-eligibility-04.txt> (Update to RFC 3777 to Clarify Nominating Committee Eligibility of IETF Leadership) to Best Current Practice

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:26:29 -0400

I agree that this sentence needs changed.  However, I think that one other sentence should be updated while we are dealing with the IAOC in this document.

RFC 3777 says:

   Member Recall: This is the process by which the behavior of a sitting
      member of the IESG or IAB may be questioned, perhaps resulting in
      the removal of the sitting member.

The community should also be able to recall an IAOC member.

Russ

On Sep 27, 2012, at 11:05 AM, The IESG wrote:

> 
> The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
> the following document:
> - 'Update to RFC 3777 to Clarify Nominating Committee Eligibility of IETF
>   Leadership'
>  <draft-leiba-3777upd-eligibility-04.txt> as Best Current Practice
> 
> The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
> final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
> [email-masked] mailing lists by 2012-10-25. Exceptionally, comments may be
> sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the
> beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.
> 
> This document updates RFC 3777 by adding the IAOC to the list of
> bodies whose sitting members are ineligible to serve on the Nominating
> Committee (NomCom).  This document also clarifies that "sitting
> members" includes those in ex-officio positions; however, liaisons
> from other bodies are not excluded from serving on NomCom.
> 
> This document reflects the way that the IETF has been working.  By
> making this update to RFC 3777, the documentation of the formal
> process is catching up to the way that NomCom is actually operated.
> This document actually updates a single sentence in RFC 3777.
> 
> Abstract
> 
>   RFC 3777 specifies that "sitting members" of the IAB and IESG "may
>   not volunteer to serve on the nominating commitee".  Since that
>   document was written the IAOC was formed, and that body is not
>   covered by RFC 3777.  There is also uncertainty about whether ex-
>   officio members and liaisons are included as "sitting members".  This
>   document updates RFC 3777 and clarifies those situations.
> 
> The file can be obtained via
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-leiba-3777upd-eligibility/
> 
> IESG discussion can be tracked via
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-leiba-3777upd-eligibility/ballot/
> 
> No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.
> 
>

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:19:03 -0700

> The community should also be able to recall an IAOC member.

That alters the scope of the draft abit.  Hence the title of the draft 
would now need to be something like:

    Update to RFC 3777 to Clarify Aspects of Eligibility and Recall

As for the earlier discussion seeking to exclude paid staff, I think it 
odd to have criteria that would permit /any/ paid staff to sit on 
Nomcom.  We pay for a number of folk 'staff' folk to show up and IETF 
meetings and none of them should qualify for Nomcom, IMO.

d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:57:39 -0400

Dave:

> That alters the scope of the draft abit.  Hence the title of the draft would now need to be something like:
> 
> As for the earlier discussion seeking to exclude paid staff, I think it odd to have criteria that would permit /any/ paid staff to sit on Nomcom.  We pay for a number of folk 'staff' folk to show up and IETF meetings and none of them should qualify for Nomcom, IMO.

Two things ...

(1) Yes, if my suggestion is accepted, updating two sentences (instead of just one) to include the IAOC does change the scope of the document, and the title should reflect the proper scope.

(2) Looking at the history (https://www.ietf.org/nomcom/committee.html), it does not seem that there has been an issue of 'staff' seeking NomCom spots.  Prior to IETF Last Call, a previous version of this document was discussed on this mail list and on the ietf-nomcom mailing list. It was also discussed by a design team made up of ex-NomCom Chairs,  My sense of those discussions is to exclude as few people as necessary to avoid a self-selecting leadership, and the current document reflects that perspective.

Russ

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:21:38 -0700

On 9/27/2012 10:57 AM, Russ Housley wrote:
>> As for the earlier discussion seeking to exclude paid staff, I
>> think it odd to have criteria that would permit /any/ paid staff to
>> sit on Nomcom.  We pay for a number of folk 'staff' folk to show up
>> and IETF meetings and none of them should qualify for Nomcom, IMO.
...
> (2) Looking at the history
> (https://www.ietf.org/nomcom/committee.html), it does not seem that
> there has been an issue of 'staff' seeking NomCom spots.  Prior to
> IETF Last Call, a previous version of this document was discussed on
> this mail list and on the ietf-nomcom mailing list. It was also
> discussed by a design team made up of ex-NomCom Chairs,  My sense of
> those discussions is to exclude as few people as necessary to avoid a
> self-selecting leadership, and the current document reflects that
> perspective.

So, to provide a specific example, you would be OK with having someone 
from AMS on Nomcom?

d/

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:41:22 -0700

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> So, to provide a specific example, you would be OK with having someone from
> AMS on Nomcom?
>
>
> d/
>

If they met the NomCom eligibility requirements by being a _registered
attendee_ for the requisite number of meetings, then yes.  After all,
they operate an organization that uses some of the protocols we
develop and might have technical input into working groups related to
the web, or authorization, or messaging; in those cases they might
well choose to attend and participate as individual technical
contributors.  If they attend only as staff, then I don't think the
situation is the same, and perhaps we need to clarify 3777 to say that
the confirmation of attendance include a confirmation of registration
(though I have always assumed this was included in the confirmation of
eligibility).

As you may recall, when Neustar provided this service we had other
folks from Neustar who remained technical contributors (and held IETF
leadership positions).  I honestly don't recall if any of them served
on the NomCom as well, but a blanket prohibition on Neustar folks
serving would have seemed wrong to me at that point.

regards,

Ted Hardie

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:38:36 -0400

> The community should also be able to recall an IAOC member.

As Dave says, that alters the scope of the document:
The version that SM and I worked on jointly *did* include more changes
related to the IAOC (and it still didn't try to touch recall).  But
you asked that we trim it back to my original proposal to keep it
simple, and to avoid a lot of involved discussion.  If we add the
recall bit, there's a lot more that we'd really have to add, and I
don't think we want to do that.  It's not clear at all that we simply
want to lump the IAOC recall process in with the others.

For example, all IAB and IESG members are appointed by NomCom, while
only two IAOC members are; do we want the recall process to apply to
all IAOC members, or only the NomCom-appointed ones?  Maybe it should
be all, or maybe only the body that appointed them should be able to
remove them.  Whichever we decide, it's not just a simple matter of
adding another sentence into the draft.

I recommend that we don't go there in this document, and address that
issue in a more comprehensive update later.

Barry