Subject: Updating BCP 10 -- round two

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 01:07:29 -0800

I've posted -02 of this draft:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kucherawy-rfc7437bis/

I think it incorporates all of the suggestions I've received except for:

(a) Allison's suggestion for guidance about using "slow thinking" in its
deliberations (waiting for text); and

(b) Michael's suggestion to re-work eligibility (needs more discussion or
an actual text proposal).

Please look at the diff to confirm I captured your ideas and didn't break
the document in the process.  I'll spin up -03 after another round of
feedback and/or the above items appear.

Thanks!

-MSK

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 11:34:14 -0500

> an actual text proposal).

So far, I'm not hearing much support or any clear opposition for the idea.

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

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From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 08:40:22 -0800

Actually I thought it had ample support, but just needed some clarification
about how it would work when stretched over longer time frames.

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 11:44:57 -0500

In theory the idea of trying to recognize a broader class of 
sufficiently involved participants sounds good.
The details did not seem to work for me, but I am happy to wait and see 
the next version of a specific proposal.

Yours,
Joel

On 2/11/15 11:40 AM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
> Actually I thought it had ample support, but just needed some
> clarification about how it would work when stretched over longer time
> frames.
>
> On Feb 11, 2015 8:34 AM, "Michael Richardson" <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>
>     Murray S. Kucherawy <[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>     Michael Richardson <[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>>, Sandelman Software Works

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From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 12:37:26 -0500

Some points on nomcom eligibility criterion:

(1) There is great virtue in simplicity and stability.

(2) No system will be perfect, for many reasons. Everyone's idea of
the perfect criterion is different and changes with time and
experience. Fully implementing any particular person's idea criterion
would, in almost all cases, be way to complex. See item 1.

(3) I see no reason for nomcom eligibility to be sticky. Seems like a
clear move towards an old boy network. If the criterion are good, they
should do a reasonable job of identifying who should be eligible at
any particular point of time. See items 1 and 2.

(4) Over the years, there has been a marked increase in the stridency
of efforts to get more and more volunteers. I never quite understood
this. The claim is almost always made that a bigger pool of volunteers
is more "representative" and always better but, in an organization
with no membership, this is completely meaningless. While too small a
pool (say, less than 42) would be problematic, IETF participants cover
a vast range of interest and involvement and it seems pretty clear to
me that we want only those with relatively high interest and
involvement. Pushing people to volunteer who would not otherwise have
volunteered, on balance, causes more volunteers with a low level of
interest or involvement. I have been on 4 nomcoms, once as chair, once
as past chair, and twice as a voting member. In every case, there was
a voting member that was pretty much deadwood - either doing notably
less than any other voting member or doing almost nothing. In those 4
cases, I'm not aware of any special extenuating circumstances - they
just turned out not to be that interested in doing the work - and
those 4 nomcoms decided to continue with only 9 really active voting
members. Perhaps if the volunteer recruitment was less strident, this
would be less common, but there is obviously always a chance of it
happening for a variety of reasons. So it seems to me to make sense to
have one or two alternates who would not vote unless a voter was
removed/resigned/...

(5) I think the current criteria are pretty good, maybe 80% of ideal.
But, hey, pretty much ignoring my own points 1 and 2 above, I might as
well say what I would do if I had a magic wand: The attendance
requirement could be relaxed some to 3 out of 7 or the like and a
requirement should be added that the volunteer have been either a
shepherd or front page author/editor of an IETF stream RFC issued
within the past 4 years or served on the IESG or IAB within the past 4
years. (I don't see any reason to add WG Chairmanship as, to a first
order approximation, they should have been a document shepherd if
their WG did anything.) But you can see that this is already more than
twice as complex as the existing criteria and still isn't perfect in
any sense. But it is my feeling that this change, if it could ever get
through, would improve the criteria to maybe 90 to 95% of ideal...

Thanks,
Donald

PS: I think Allison's suggested text is good.
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [email-masked]

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 13:50:57 -0500

Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > In theory the idea of trying to recognize a broader class of sufficiently
    > involved participants sounds good.

okay.

    > The details did not seem to work for me, but I am happy to wait and see the
    > next version of a specific proposal.

Is it for the formula for remaining eligible, or was it the specific things
that constitute a "contribution"?

Do you think that the things which are a "contribution" should be maintained
outside of BCP10 in some way?

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From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:11:53 -0500

> (3) I see no reason for nomcom eligibility to be sticky. Seems like a

I'm not proposing sticky. Definitely not.
I'm proposing too levels: a high bar to become, and a slightly lower bar to remain.

    > is more "representative" and always better but, in an organization

Let me propose one quantitative way in which a larger pool is good: it
reduces the odds of hitting the no-more-than-2 rule, and it also may reduce
the number of 2-from-one-company that occurs.  This is something we could
check: compare size of pool each year to how often there was two people from
one entity, or when a person had to be turned away as the third.

    > less than any other voting member or doing almost nothing. In those 4

What I reading is: even when the recruiting was less strident, there was
still deadwood --- that seems to dispel this hypothesis:

    > Perhaps if the volunteer recruitment was less strident, this [deadwood]

    > years. (I don't see any reason to add WG Chairmanship as, to a first

So, this would further increase the burden: further limit the pool.
And this business with an IESG or IAB member... that sounds like creation of
an old-boys club, which you said you didn't want.

3 meetings out of 7, depending on which three, is more or less 1 meeting a
year, but it's not actually 1 meeting a year.
We know that the random selection is going to happen in June/July, ideally
prior to meeting #2 of the year.  So the past 7 meetings will be the March
meeting, plus the three meetings in the past two years.

{The only reason I was nomcom eligible in 2012 after a child restricted my
ability to travel was because in 2012, the selection was in early August,
after meeting #2.  The only reason I argued to attend the next meeting was
because I was on nomcom...  I was a very common remote attendee. You should
all try it a couple of times.}

We need people who can attend at least the November meeting to do interviews.
So in order to be willing/able to volunteer in May/June, if you have only
funding to attend once a year, you need to not attend in March.
But that means that you won't be eligible, so you can't even volunteer.

What that rule did is make sure that the IETF Nomcom only never comes from
well funded entities, most of whom are vendors.  If we want more operators,
we might want to recognize that they have other meetings
(ARIN/NANOG/RIPE/Apricot) that many of them struggle to get funded to attend.

If we want more academics/students, we might also recognize that as well.
If we want more young people represented... I could go on.

--
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        | network architect  [
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:46:19 -0500

I think that moving the qualification rules out of the RFC is a recipe 
for trouble.  Yes, having them in there means we have to go to more 
trouble if we want to change them.  But having them outside means that 
the leadership has more control than we want.  Changing slowly is a 
benefit in my book for this situation.

As for the details of remaining eligible, I think that the problem for 
me is finding a good balance among the constraints of well defined and 
observable, relevant to understanding the community, and indicative of 
caring about the community.  And none of the criteria we have ever found 
directly include our actual goal as a community of improving the 
Internet for everyone (which is probably not solvable, but struck me as 
I was writing the constraints.)

Yours,
Joel

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:07:49 -0500

At 11:44 AM 2/11/2015, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
>In theory the idea of trying to recognize a broader class of sufficiently involved participants sounds good.
>The details did not seem to work for me, but I am happy to wait and see the next version of a specific proposal.

This is a useful goal.  A more important goal is to have a good Nomcom result.  The connection between this goal and the one you stated is not a foregone conclusion.

One of the things I'm seeing in this discussion is a volunteer centric "I can't participate because I didn't meet the requirements, so lower the requirements" cry for consideration.   I'm not sure that's a valid consideration and I don't know how it meets contributes to the "good Nomcom result" goal.

Dave C and others have talked about how to get more qualified Nomcom members for some definition of "more qualified" and I'd spend time on that topic if someone could actually explain what other qualifications made sense.  

The current quals of 3 of 5 meetings are at least objective and quantifiable, and have at least some relevance to the "knowledge of the IETF process is good for Nomcom members" meme.   Any other qualification requirements should ideally be objective and quantifiable and have some relationship to the above.

Later Mike

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:17:02 -0500

>one entity, or when a person had to be turned away as the third.

*sigh* No.

The only factor as to whether you hit the no-more-than-2 rule is the proportion of volunteers you have in the volunteer pool, not the size of the volunteer pool.

 From the binomial distribution, if a company has 30% of the volunteer pool, it has a 2.8% chance of having no members, a 12.1% chance of having 1 member and a 85.1% chance of having 2. (That last number is the sum of the percentages from 2-10 members).

So a big pool does not improve the distribution.

Later, Mike