Subject: What I was trying to say in the plenary last week

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 11:29:22 +0100

In practice, the confirming body for a slate is highly unlikely to ever
use its right to reject a candidate. The reason is that if the confirming
body has serious doubts about a candidate, what will in general happen is:

1. It will ask the NomCom pointed questions along the lines of: has the
NomCom consulted all the people necessary, and has the NomCom considered
various specific factors?

2. The NomCom will either immediately, or after additional work, respond
that it has done so, rediscussed the choice, and confirmed the candidate.

3. At that point, the confirming body must conclude that the NomCom has
followed adequate process and the only interpretation of rejecting
the candidate is that the NomCom's collective judgement is wrong.

3a. The timing is such that this would occur approximately 2 weeks
before the March IETF, i.e. far too late for a serious search for
a new candidate (unless the NomCom already had anticipated this result,
which seems unlikely).

4. The consequences of this would be that by rejecting the candidate,
the confirming body would be essentially overriding the pseudo-democratic 
process at the heart of the NomCom procedures and denying the legitimacy 
of NomCom's right to choose.

5. In practice, in my experience in the IAB and the ISOC Board, 
this means that however doubtful the confirming body may be about 
a particular appointment (or non-renewal), it never says "no" for 
fear of creating a consitutional crisis. [This does not refer to
any year in particular; I remember several instances.]

Thus, the "reject" button in RFC 2727 has always been interpreted
as the "nuclear option", i.e. the button you would press only in order
to destroy the whole process.

My conclusion is paradoxically that we do need to retain this option,
but we should change the rest of the process in such a way that it
is much less likely than today that the confirming body will be put
into the dilemma described above. A number of changes could be made,
but the most important one that I would support is: publish the
list of nominees that the NomCom is considering seriously, so that
the entire community has the chance to comment (confidentially).
This will have some unpleasant side-effects (more mail for NomCom to
read, and no doubt some ad hominem attacks) but I think it will
increase transparency to the point where lack of confidence in
NomCom's judgement is much less likely.

---

Truth in advertising: I have been a member of one confirming body (the IAB)
for the last 8 years, and stepped down voluntarily this year. I am still
a member of the other confirming body (the ISOC Board). There is nothing
in the current rules preventing an individual from being a member of
both confirming bodies, but the practice is for an ISOC Trustee to recuse
him/herself when directly concerned by the IAB slate.

   Brian

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 06:11:13 -0800

agree with your problem statement.  but could it not be more simply, and
less contentiously, solved by shifting dates left a month or two?

randy

---

From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:57:31 -0500 (EST)

I'm not convinced adding more time would help as much the proposal Brian
made.

The issue, as I see it, is that in practice the confirming body can not
say no.  Setting aside whether or not this is a feature, at least one
goal of having the confirming body be able to say no is a check and
balance on the activities of the NOMCOM.

It occurs to me this is not the best way to achieve that goal, or at
least it is not the only way.  I think that publishing the list of
nominees (those individuals under consideration *not* the individuals
that have been submitted to the confirming bodies for confirmation)
gives the community an opportunity to see a little of how the NOMCOM
works.

In particular, under the current system the community sees only an
endpoint.  If we publish the list of nominees then the community sees
the starting point as well.  The community now has a basis for
evaluating the goal achieved by the NOMCOM.

Under the current system, the NOMCOM only knows what it asks of the
"select" few people it asks.  Although it is true the community can
always comment on who would be a good or bad candidate, in practice this
does not happen.  The question is too vague and therefore the answer is
necessary vague, viz absent.  If we publish the list of nominees the
community now has a specific question before them.  I don't know if this
will elicit any additional information but I believe it provides a
greater incentive to the community to do so.

It is my opinion that publishing the list of nominees allows the
community to be a part of the checks and balances of the activities of
the NOMCOM.  I consider this is a feature with no downside.

Some might think it is embarrassing to be a nominee and then not get
selected as a candidate.  I would like to observe that in democratic
elections in general we always know who all the nominees are; it is the
way elections work.  I would hope it is an honor to be considered and
recognized as a senior member of the community.

Jim
(speaking for myself)

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Randy Bush wrote:

---

From: Russ White <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 10:23:25 -0500 (EST)

I agree with this logic, and will go one bit farther. Because of
the rules on confidentiality, many people probably feel 'left
out' of the process. They don't know who was nominated, aren't
asked for feedback, and don't know how the process
works. Publishing the list of people who are nominated would at
least help us all understand the process better, and would help
us get better feedback into the process as well.

Further, the confidentiality rule is a bit of a waste in today's
environment, anyway. When the ietf was smaller, and everyone knew
everyone, everyone who was nominated was probably known by at
least a subset of the people who were on the nomcom. Or at least
that's my assumption.

Now, it's just not viable to assume that the people on the nomcom
are going to know everyone who is nominated, so feedback has to
be solicited. In fact, I'll go one step further, and state that
the folks on the nomcom don't even necessarily know _who_ to ask,
in many cases.

The nomcom ends up asking all the working group chairs in the
area, a group of other selected people, and a list of people who
write drafts in the area. In effect, everyone gets asked for
feedback. All under confidentiality. Right.

Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

So, why bother trying to keep the secret?

Russ

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, James M Galvin wrote:

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---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:56:06 +0100

> less contentiously, solved by shifting dates left a month or two?

That might help, but my democratic instincts incline me towards publishing
the list anyway.

   Brian

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 09:23:52 -0800

>> agree with your problem statement.  but could it not be more
>> simply, and less contentiously, solved by shifting dates left a
>> month or two?
> That might help, but my democratic instincts incline me towards
> publishing the list anyway.

your words underline to me what is the basic tension.  to make it a
contrast of extremes, is the purpose of the nomcom to hold an open
democratic election, or is it to create/modify/update a working
management team?

i don't think it is either of these extremes, but am inclined more
to the latter than the former.  there is a massive amount of work
to do, and people are never satisfied with the rate of progress.
so having reasonably well working teams is critical.

i do *not* mean this as an argument for incumbency, but rather for
how difficult and fragile it is to build and maintain engineering
and / or management teams.  and this is what i see is the real
underlying task of the nomcom.

venture capitalists look more at the team than the initial product
plan.  in their expensive experience, team formation is *the*
critical factor.  having played on those teams, i sure know why.
no, the ietf is not a commercial start-up.  but this does not mean
we should ignore the lessons from the successful ones.

as you know from having been on the inside of the i*, it is already
a difficult balance and occasionally the personal and social issues
can be almost paralytic or even destructive.  bright people are not
necessarily well-adjusted socially (present company excepted of
course:-).  i.e. the team building can be fragile given the current
conservative method.  so i am slow to convince that moving to a
seriously open candidate disclosure popularity contest is the best
course.

it's all about where in the middle we feel is most prudent to land.
as usual, since someone has to, i am speaking for the less popular
more conservative position.  thanks for listening.

randy, who does not expect to be here a year from now

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 05:26:14 +1100

Brian Carpenter suggests:

> publish the

There are some very serious risks in this approach. How can you
prevent the process becoming one of a pseudo popularity contest?
Would this be wise? The current process is structured to assist the
Nomcom to decide upon the best qualified individuals for each role,
not necessarily the mostpopular, but the best available. And such
an objective is entirely fit and proper within a culture that seeks
technical excellence in its outcomes.

Your message appears to follow the line of reasoning that, on the
assumption that the Nomcom is somehow untrustworthy, forcing the
process into a public parading of candidates will, somehow, correct 
this. I find the assumption somewhat difficult to understand
and the proposed solution one that will inevitably amplify divisions
within the IETF, rather than assist in supporting a common
endeavour.

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:05:13 -0500

This is an important discussion to have, but we should be clear about
what we are talking about, as I think some of the details are *very*
important.

Terminology (from rfc 2727)

nominee - a person whose name has been sent to the nomcom as someone
to consider for a particular open position. Note that a nominated
person doesn't necessarily know they've been nominated, nor would they
necessarily even agree to serve if selected.

Candidate: Person selected by the nomcom to serve, but not yet
confirmed by the confirming body.

Confirmed candidate: person confirmed by the confirming body, i.e.,
one that is formally appointed.

Note that there are yet more distinctions internal to the nomcom (I'm
making up some of this terminology):

confirmed nominee: a nominee that has agreed to serve (i.e., doesn't
say "no" when asked, fills out the questionaire, etc.) But the nomcom
has done no real filtering yet on this list.

"short list": persons still in the running. Typically, the nomcom
makes several passes over the short list, removing names until it has
a list that is manageable in terms of looking at each of the persons
on the list very carefully (e.g., maybe interviewing them). The short
list can change over time, getting shorter, than maybe longer again,
then maybe shorter, etc., all depending on how the deliberations go.

IMO, publishing the list of nominees is a lot less useful than some
people seem to think. For some positions (e.g., IAB, or IESG where the
incumbant is stepping down) one might get 20-30 nominees.  Asking the
community for feedback on such a long list is pretty useless,
especially when the names on the list that folks are most comfortable
with are in fact not even willing to do the job.  Indeed, for the IESG
case, moving from "candidate" to "confirmed candidate" might winnow
the number down by 2/3rds. Lots of people say no.

The list of "confirmed candidates" gets more interesting. It's
somewhat shorter, but it too may be so long as to not be useful.

What would probably be the most useful to the nomcom is if some
version of the short list is made public. This would give the
community a much better idea of who the nomcom was seriously
considering, which is the point at which frank and broad input is most
useful. Publishing a longer list without knowing which of those on the
list have effectively already been removed from consideration by the
the nomcom makes it too easy for folks to focus on the wrong people or
assume that things are reasonably on track.

But... the short list can change. Would every version need to be
published? (seems problematic and would give too much visibility into
the internal processes). Also, if the nomcom decides it doesn't like
*any* of its choices, and then goes out and recruits someone else,
would the short list need to be published again? If it didn't wouldn't
the community be rather surprised to see someone selected that was
never on the published list? But, when it gets to crunch time, the
nomcom may not be able to wait (say) 48 hours between publishing a
list and making a selection.  All kinds of potential problems here...

Finally, one thing not to forget is that for some positions (IESG
especially), some serious arm twisting is needed to get folks to agree
to serve. It has happened on previous nomcoms that nominees have
effectively said "I'd be interested in serving, but I think the
current incumbent is doing a fine job (and is a friend/colleage/etc/),
thus I am NOT willing to be a nominee unless the incumbant is stepping
down voluntarily. This makes publishing a "confirmed nominee" list
rather problematical if the nomcom is in fact seriously considering
replacing an incumbent.

Thomas

---

From: Matt Holdrege <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 11:35:57 -0800

>technical excellence in its outcomes.

Through various steps in the process, we are already implicitly assuming 
the nomcom will sift through the facts and innuendos when choosing 
candidates. Each fact, lie and rumor are simply data points that the nomcom 
must deal with. So by making the candidate list public, we aren't really 
changing anything fundamental. We are simply opening up the pool of 
comments. Some of the comments are good, some are not. That is the case 
today and would continue to be the case under Brian's suggestion.

>within the IETF, rather than assist in supporting a common

All humans are untrustworthy to a degree, so any improvements to the 
process should be welcome. If we discover that the list of candidates for a 
given area consist of Moe, Larry and Curly, the community can respond in a 
corrective manner.

---

From: Russ White <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 19:13:19 -0500 (EST)

> There are some very serious risks in this approach. How can
> you prevent the process becoming one of a pseudo popularity
> contest?

You have to trust the nomcom to filter the feedback based on the
amount and the people giving it. It's already that way, really,
you just don't see it. A lot of the current process is: "So, x
said <blah> about y. I wonder why? What's the motive? What can I
_really_ get from this information?"

You quite often learn more about the people giving the feedback
than the candidates themselves. :-)

> Your message appears to follow the line of reasoning that, on
> the assumption that the Nomcom is somehow untrustworthy,
> forcing the process into a public parading of candidates
> will, somehow, correct this. 

No, not really--you're trying to balance confidentiality with
getting feedback. Nomcom heard it from both sides this year--some
people said: "You obviously didn't get enough feedback!" and
others said: "You spread the names around too far--you broke
confidentiality!" So, do we cut back on feedback solicited, or
modify the confidentiality rule?

Suppose, for instance, that you are dealing with the routing ad
slot. Let's look at who all you ask for feedback from:

-- Current ad and previous ad's: 5 or 6 people
-- Current wg chairs: about 25 people
-- Current big draft writers in the working groups:
   about 20-30 people
-- IAB folks: ??
-- Others: ??

So, we're talking about asking for input from 50 to 60 people.
Just how secret is this list of people, exactly?

In other words, confidentiality is getting in the way of getting
feedback. Which is more important--feedback or confidentiality?

:-)

Russ

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 11:52:39 +1100

Russ,

I understand your perspective that you see this matter as being represented 
as choice along a single axis, where you see confidentiality and the amount 
of feedback being related in some fashion, and within that perspective your 
points are well argued and accepted.

My concern is, however, outside of that perspective, and I am asserting 
that there are many aspects to weakening of confidentiality, and one of 
them is the ability to have such a process of nominee publication be 
subverted by deliberate campaigning by nominees. I have seen, as many 
Nomcom participants have been aware of, campaigning in the past, but these 
exercises have been relatively low key because, as far as I can tell, 
without any explicit confirmation that the nominee is on any short list, 
the campaigning exercise rapidly loses momentum. But if you provide that 
essential feedback, and you reinforce it with repeated iterations of short 
lists where some nominees are re-listed, then you are providing a degree of 
feedback that makes deliberate attempts to influence the nomcom through 
organized campaigning not only possible, but, I'm afraid, highly likely.

Maybe I don't have as high an opinion of others as I could, maybe I'm just 
too cynical, or maybe I've seen this happen before in other venues and am 
not all that keen to see it repeated in this one, but for whatever reason I 
find this particular proposal to be a first step down a path that is not, 
in my humble opinion, in the best interests of the IETF as a whole, and one 
that does not (again in my opinion) address the base issue of confidence 
that the Nomcom is being diligent in consulting the relevant constituencies.

Geoff

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 23:55:38 -0500

> organized campaigning not only possible, but, I'm afraid, highly likely.

I agree that publishing and republishing all of the short lists would
be a bad idea, and I'm not suggesting that.

My suggestion would be to make public all people who have agreed to be
considered by nomcom.  If nomcom chooses to arm-twist someone new
later in the process, should that person's name be revealed once he
agrees to be considered?  Maybe.  I agree that's a hard problem, since
that inherently is leaking information about how the process is
proceeding.

I'm not so much worried about the possibility of campaigning by
nominees, since nomcom already has to filter such things from its
input.  That's also why I'm not particularly concerned about it
becoming a popularity contest, since just as the IESG could easily
discern what happened Berstein had rallied several thousand Taiwaneese
people send "please reject IDN", with no technical content, I am
fairly confident that future nomcoms will have no problem identifying
content-free "campaigning" messages.  And, if the message contains
actual content about whether or not someone is competent, they can
judge that content, just as they judge that content today.

(Indeed, the real way the nomcom can be manipulated is not by
"campaigning"; that just produces a denial of service attack on the
nomcom.  The real way that you can manipulate the nomcom is by making
having several different people submit inaccurate information to
nomcom, and nomcom doesn't catch on.  So if for example, you observe
that the nomcom has no applications-saavy people on it, a conspiracy
of applications folks could each send consistent messages defaming a
particular candidate, and if it were done well, there's a very good
chance nomcom might not catch on.  After all, the same thing is coming
from multiple people, and since the contents of the notes are
privileged, checking that information with someone else is difficult
at best.  Unfortunately, the only way of fixing this particular
lossage mode would be to make all of the comments public, and that
probably *is* a cure worse than the disease.)

The one argument I've heard against making the candidates name public
which I consider to be a very good one, is that it might deter
potential candidates from being willing to put their names into the
hat.  For example, if the incumbent is popular, someone might not be
willing to have it publically know that he/she was willing to be
considered as an alternative to the incumbent.  That's a valid
concern, and I'm not sure how to address it.  One might be simply to
treat this as an educational problem --- if we point out that in a
healthy organization, there should always be succession planning going
on, and that putting ones name into the hat just so that nomcom can
gather more information just in case a replacement is needed on very
short notice is a good and useful thing to do.  There may be other
ways of addressing this particular short-coming, or we might decide
that the advantages of openness outweigh this particular downside.
But it is something we should consider.

							- Ted

---

From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 10:07:54 -0500 (EST)

SPEAKING FOR MYSELF (not as editor):

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Theodore Tso wrote:

    concern, and I'm not sure how to address it.

As a community, we need to make this a non-issue.  I believe a NOMCOM
should always consider replacing an incumbent.  In fact, personally I
would consider a NOMCOM derelict in its duty if it did not at least
consider replacing an incumbent.  Thus, there should be no downside to
being listed along side a favored incumbent.  It is due diligence.

However, I also have no problem with a prospective nominee who does not
wish to unseat an incumbent.  If an individual is satisfied with the
performance of an incumbent *and* does not wish to replace them that is
their perogative.  It would be wrong to hold that against them in any
way.

Jim
(speaking for myself)

---

From: avri <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 12:15:45 +0100

hi,

from my personal point of view,
i have a different take on Brian's issue.

while i think that publishing the names of willing nominees,
or perhaps of candidates is a good thing to discuss, i think
that the notion of empowering the approving bodies to
effectively reject candidates should also be explored.  in 
fact i think the topics are different and should each be 
weighed on its own merits.  i.e. publishing names should not 
necessarily be considered  as a mechanism for getting around 
a weakness in the approval system.

after serving in 4 nomcoms, i was surprised to learn that 
the approving bodies did not feel they had the right to reject.
in my year as chair, i felt that i was working at the 
pleasure of the ISOC board and that they had the right, and 
perhaps duty, to reject anything i, or the nomcom i chaired, 
had to say. i also felt that the IAB had the right and 
repsonsiblity to reject an IESG candidate they felt was 
wrong. perhaps this was naive since the RFC was quiet on 
this subject, but it is what i thought was the case and it 
governed my behavior.

it has been argued that approval body rejection is not 
possible for at least 2 reasons:
  1 if they reject there is not enough time to come up
     with another candidate
  2. if they reject the nomcom can put forward the same
     candidate again and implicitly threaten deadlock.

personally i think the first issue is less of a problem then 
has been suggested.  in almost all situations, the nomcoms i 
served on had other folks on the 'short list' who would also 
have done a fine job.  in most cases, as would have been the 
case should the chosen one have had withdrawn at the last 
minute, the nomcom could have presented another decent 
candidate in short order.  and in the worse case, a postion 
can remain unfilled while the issues are being dealt with; 
though of course this should be avoided if at all possible. 
discussion of how to avoid rejections involves the function 
of the liaision, including the idea of an ISOC liaison, 
which is another issue probably best discussed in another email.

the second issue seems to me more critical and might require 
a nomcom rule change that prohibits the nomcom from 
presenting a rejected candidate again during its term.  that 
is, once the approving body has considered and rejected a 
candidate, it should  be binding for that selection period. 
  this would enable the approving body to truly be more then 
a rubber stamp.  the possibility of this would also force 
the nomcom to be more attentive to the liaison roles to 
insure that this was as rare a case as possible.  of course 
it would also be possible for the approving body to not 
outright reject, but rather to send an inquiry to the 
nomcom, in its role as the vetting body, clarifying some 
aspect of the candidacy.  but, if in the end, it did reject 
the candidate,  that would be, by rule, the final word on 
that candidacy.

the main point i think it is important to consider is that a 
system of checks and balances on the nomcom requires that 
the approving bodies have a real ability to approve or to 
disapprove.

just an opinion for consideration

a.

---

From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 12:38:55 -0500 (EST)

SPEAKING AS EDITOR:

Avri has made the suggestion that we reinforce the fact that a
confirming body can so "no" to one or more candidates in a slate by
preventing the NOMCOM from resubmitting a rejected candidate during that
NOMCOM's term.  You can read her argument in favor of this below.

Please reply to this message or at least use the subject line of this
message in your reply when responding to the suggestion.

Thanks,

Jim

On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, avri wrote:

    Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 12:15:45 +0100
    From: avri <[email-masked]>
    To: ietf-nomcom <[email-masked]>
    Subject: Re: What I was trying to say in the plenary last week

    hi,

    a.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 09:41:13 -0800

> a confirming body can so "no" to one or more candidates in a slate by

i would not add unnecessary mechanism.  the confirming body may change
their mind six months later when it is time to fill a vacancy.  heck,
they may change their mind after they see the only other choices who were
willing to run.

if it gets to deadlock games, the problems are far deeper than will be
solved by complex words.

imiho, just make it clear that the confirming body can say 'no' at the
per- candidate granularity.

randy

---

From: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 12:58:38 -0500 (EST)

SPEAKING AS EDITOR:

I forgot to change the subject line in the last message.  Please use
this one.

Thanks!

Jim

On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Randy Bush wrote:

    Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 09:41:13 -0800
    From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
    To: James M Galvin <[email-masked]>
    Cc: ietf-nomcom <[email-masked]>
    Subject: Re: What I was trying to say in the plenary last week

    randy

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 13:53:53 -0500

While I am not sure it can be achieved, I agree strongly with Avri's goal 
of enabling the approval bodies to say no without exploding the entire process.

One step that may help is to change the text that says the whole slate is 
approved or rejected so as to allow for specific rejection.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 18:53:52 -0800

> message in your reply when responding to the suggestion.

jim - i strongly disagree with this suggestion, as it misses the whole points of checks and balances. rather than explain why here, please see my next message which places this and several issues into a larger context. (sorry about not following your request re: the subject line...)

/mtr

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 23:50:22 +0200

> approved or rejected so as to allow for specific rejection.

well, it doesn't say that in 2727:

   c. The sitting IAB members review the IESG candidates, consenting to
      some, all, or none.

....

   d. The Internet Society Board of Trustees reviews the IAB candidates,
      consenting to some, all, or none.

the problem is that even rejecting one candidate can be considered "going 
nuclear".

BTW, combating the "nomcom is a black box" feeling that Brian reports may 
be one argument in favour of having an ISOC Board liaison on the Nomcom.

                 Harald

---

From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2002 16:56:39 -0500 (EST)

Given how the ISOC board is re-organizing itself, I really can't see how
this helps, myself.   One black box outside another?

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