Subject: AD Time

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 09:41:59 -0400

Hello,

Aaron Falk had asked about AD time and the impacts of less than certain
percentages of time to the work load during the plenary open mic session.
Having recently stepped down from the IESG, my experience may shed some
light on this question: I do think there are impacts.

I attempted to reduce my time spent as AD to 50% to see if a third term
would be possible for me (I could only get funding to be an AD half time),
but I felt I was unable to do an adequate job in that amount of time.

Part of this relates to how the load of an area is shared by the ADs. There
is not only all of the output of the IETF to review, but the Area's WGs to
be managed, AD sponsored documents to handle, and the occasional conflict
review. Additionally the ADs often take on other projects while serving as
they have visibility across all Areas and a unique vantage point as well as
easier access to gather volunteers to assist on projects: this is the
Steering in "IESG".

If one AD in an area is part time while the other is full time, it is
natural that this load will be shared unevenly. But that balance may
constrain how the ADs adjust the time they spend on the job in the future,
the scope for appointing new ADs, and the total work done by the IESG.

I think that as AD my time was consumed because I made a point of reading,
or at least skimming, all drafts prior to publication looking for security
specific issues.  I also felt it was important to keep my queue of items
needing attention as short as possible, and tried to turn them around in a
reasonable timeframe, keeping in mind that others' work may rely on the
quick(ish) processing of documents.  I worked on CodeStand (almost ready
for integration with the datatracker) and listened to the operators to
assist with the Effects of Pervasive Encryption on Operators draft. I did
also have some internal corporate responsibilities, so I didn't spend 100%
of my time as an AD, and it would be unrealistic to expect any AD to be
completely full time.

I guess this comes down to understanding what are the expectations of ADs,
and this is important for NomCom to think about. So long as all the work is
done effectively, and so long as the ADs can agree on the balance between
each other, all is well. But if important work is left undone or is badly
delayed, or if one AD's working time puts additional pressure on other ADs
then an adjustment must be made.

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 15:21:24 +1200

On 25/07/2018 01:41, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:
...
> specific issues.

So would things be better if we formalized the area review teams so
that they perform this function directly and can officially register "No
Objection" in the IESG ballot, with the AD only being involved when the
suggested ballot is "Yes", "Discuss" or "Abstain"?

(We've been talking about AD overload for >10 years, so maybe it's
time to actually change something.)

    Brian

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2018 23:53:18 -0400

The problem with review teams is that if you don't read the documents and
don't know what they are about, you don't have the overview that allows for
synthesis.   One of the advantages of having people who review "all" the
documents is that stuff occurs to those people because they see connections
that people who don't review "all" the documents don't get.   I put "all"
in quotes because it's never really all, but even so, ADs definitely have a
bird's eye view that is not shared by anyone else.

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:21 PM, Brian E Carpenter <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> ....

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:18:48 +1200

> bird's eye view that is not shared by anyone else.

It's true. But do you have any other ideas how to *substantially*
reduce the AD workload?

   Brian

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 00:48:59 -0400

--On Wednesday, July 25, 2018 16:18 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> The problem with review teams is that if you don't read the
>> documents and don't know what they are about, you don't have
>> the overview that allows for synthesis.   One of the
>> advantages of having people who review "all" the documents is
>> that stuff occurs to those people because they see connections
>> that people who don't review "all" the documents don't get.
>> I put "all" in quotes because it's never really all, but even
>> so, ADs definitely have a bird's eye view that is not shared
>> by anyone else.
> 
> It's true. But do you have any other ideas how to
> *substantially* reduce the AD workload?

Sure.  Let the ADs steer and manage and put final document
review and approval somewhere else.  It isn't as if we haven't
discussed that before, e.g., see
draft-klensin-stds-review-panel, whose 2005 abstract read:

	Somewhat over a decade ago, the IETF responded to a
	series of perceived problems with the then-IAB by
	restructuring the way in which the IAB and IESG were
	constituted and assigning all standards- approval and
	closely-related processes to the IESG. In retrospect,
	that decision has had serious downsides: among them are
	the observations that the IESG has become overloaded to
	the point that the role requires an unreasonable level
	of investment and that the intertwining of managing WGs
	and then reviewing and approving their products has led
	to confusion and the risk, and sometimes the appearance,
	of inherent conflicts of interest and abuses. This
	document proposes to re-separate the "steering" and "WG
	management" functions that were orginally the IESG's
	responsibility from the "final review and standards
	approval" roles and respecifies the standards approval
	process in that context. The general concepts outlined
	in this document have been discussed informally in the
	community for some time. This document is provided as a
	specific proposal to facilitate a focused discussion.

IIR, in that round of the discussion, the IESG members concluded
that they preferred the overload to reducing their power and
authority.  Maybe things are different today.

best,
   john

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:19:06 +0100

> time to actually change something.)

I agree with Brian, if we really cannot get find "classic" ADs, we need 
to recognise this with a
formal change in the system.

That said, we need ADs that have enough context that they can have a 
detailed conversation
on the salient points of drafts within the context of the whole of the 
IETF space. I always
found that doing the reviews was the most effective way of acquiring 
that continually evolving
context.

- Stewart

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:20:14 +0100

Exactly

- Stewart

On 25/07/2018 04:53, Ted Lemon wrote:
> The problem with review teams is that if you don't read the documents 
> and don't know what they are about, you don't have the overview that 
> allows for synthesis.   One of the advantages of having people who 
> review "all" the documents is that stuff occurs to those people 
> because they see connections that people who don't review "all" the 
> documents don't get.   I put "all" in quotes because it's never really 
> all, but even so, ADs definitely have a bird's eye view that is not 
> shared by anyone else.
>
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:21 PM, Brian E Carpenter 
> <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     .....

---

From: Behcet Sarikaya <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 09:23:52 -0500

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:18 PM, Brian E Carpenter <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> It's true.

> But do you have any other ideas how to *substantially*
> reduce the AD workload?
>
>
I don't think there is any desire to reduce the AD workload.

There should not be in this system.

Behcet

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:29:32 -0400

I did like having the context between drafts and across areas.  Area
reviews were very helpful to clear up issues and also to flag which
documents may require more attention.

As a counter example, Stephen Farrell kept up the entire security area on
his own while I was on maternity leave, but I think he';s an exception.
Every mailing list was followed and all but recent documents were in
process.  I did try to have WGs clear their queues in advance as much as
possible.

I may have been able to get to 50% with a few changes, but the balance
between ADs is a consideration for the NomCom.  Benoit & Joel had varying
amounts of time to dedicate and they made it work between them.

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 10:49:54 -0400

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 10:30 AM Kathleen Moriarty
<[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> I did like having the context between drafts and across areas.  Area reviews were very helpful to clear up issues and also to flag which documents may require more attention.
>
> As a counter example, Stephen Farrell kept up the entire security area on his own while I was on maternity leave, but I think he';s an exception.  Every mailing list was followed and all but recent documents were in process.  I did try to have WGs clear their queues in advance as much as possible.
>
> I may have been able to get to 50% with a few changes, but the balance between ADs is a consideration for the NomCom.  Benoit & Joel had varying amounts of time to dedicate and they made it work between them.
>

The role also expands to fill all *available* time -- there are weeks
where all I've done is IESG work, but other weeks (like when I'm at
e.g RIPE and have other things to do) I've managed to get by with just
an hour or two.

There has been much discussion in this thread about the time required
(as though it is a huge imposition) but very little said about the
rewards --- apart from the satisfaction of doing something useful for
the community[0], you also get to work with smart people, and also are
"forced" to read documents outside your normal / interest zone.

This last one has been really fascinating - before becoming an AD I'd
often stumble across some draft about something like how HIP traverses
NAT and think "Huh, weird. I don't know how that works, I'll read this
draft sometime....", and then forget about it completely / go read
Slashdot instead. Now that I'm expected to read these documents I'm
discovering all sorts of really interesting subjects and details that
I've never known about...
Many (most?!) ADs serve more than one term - if they all felt
overloaded all the time they wouldn't reapply...

W
[0]: or, at least the feeling that you are doing something useful for
the community :-)

> On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 5:20 AM, Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Exactly
>>
>> - Stewart
>>
>> The problem with review teams is that if you don't read the documents and don't know what they are about, you don't have the overview that allows for synthesis.   One of the advantages of having people who review "all" the documents is that stuff occurs to those people because they see connections that people who don't review "all" the documents don't get.   I put "all" in quotes because it's never really all, but even so, ADs definitely have a bird's eye view that is not shared by anyone else.
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:21 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>>

-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 07:52:06 -0700

On 7/25/18 7:29 AM, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:

> As a counter example, Stephen Farrell kept up the entire security area
> on his own while I was on maternity leave, but I think he';s an
> exception.  Every mailing list was followed and all but recent
> documents were in process.  I did try to have WGs clear their queues
> in advance as much as possible.
>
> between ADs is a consideration for the NomCom.  Benoit & Joel had
> varying amounts of time to dedicate and they made it work between them. 
I don't really have much to say about my experience vs Kathleen's. I
think the areas are relatively idiosyncratic (we had yang/netmod, the
security area has security area review, etc), so the common (and heavy)
work-load is very much around the IESG review process. 

From an insider's view, I think Kathleen did a great job with the time
available, probably more-so then I did.

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 11:04:01 -0400

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 10:52 AM, joel jaeggli <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I don't really have much to say about my experience vs Kathleen's. I think
> the areas are relatively idiosyncratic (we had yang/netmod, the security
> area has security area review, etc), so the common (and heavy) work-load is
> very much around the IESG review process.
>

I agree that different areas have different requirements.  For security,
it's applicable to most documents which means more telechat reading.  WG
distribution can have an impact.  Some WGs are busier than others and
require more time, some require more management.  A rebalance of WGs may
have helped me, but this is part of why I raised the question - for NomCom
to think about the balance between ADs and ask all ADs of an area what
works for them or if their job has changed the time they are able to allot
to the AD role.

> available, probably more-so then I did.

Thanks, Joel!  You did a great job working within the bounds you were able
to time-wise.

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 11:26:09 -0400

There is also a problem with directorate reviews of highly variable
quality. I don't want to name any names but I have seen reviews from
the X directorate that said absolutely nothing about the X aspects of
the reviewed draft and merely commented on a couple of things the
automated nits checker complained about. Such "reviews" are virtually
a no-op.

Thanks,
Donald
===============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 1424 Pro Shop Court, Davenport, FL 33896 USA
 [email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 11:56:47 -0400

No, what I'm getting at is that I think that's the wrong knob to turn.

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 12:06:27 -0400

Arguments about not being able to find enough good AD candidates (are you
prepared with your nominations?) who can spend time basically amount to not
having a day job convinced of the value.  Explaining the businesses value
of the IETF & the role is needed - not assuming that investments aren't
possible.

Regards,
Alia

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 11:58 AM Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> and
>> > brian.e.carpenter@gmail..com <[email-masked]>> wrote:
>> >

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:44:35 +0100

It should be no surprise that I, too, have seen this debate before.
 
A very large part of the question hinges on what ADs actually spend their time on. How much of an AD-fortnight [1] is spent reviewing document and handling the backwash from those reviews. When on the IESG I found it (surprisingly?) hard to get the IESG to answer that question.
 
But Stephen Farrell raised this in two ways that might be helpful:
 
1. If we only had one AD for each Area, would that AD feel the need to commission additional reviews to make up for the missing second (or third) AD? If so, then let's do that anyway. If not, then why have all ADs reviewing all the documents? In fact, you could argue for releasing at least 5 ADs from all of their reviewing and follow-up tasks.
 
2. Cannot two ADs from the same Area not share the review load with a little discussion before reviewing starts? This might lead to a 65/65 split (rather than 50/50) and some further brief discussion, but surely it could be made to work. [Hint: some ADs have done this in the past.] This argues for releasing each AD from 35% of their reviewing and follow-up tasks.
 
It should be up to the IESG to self-organise! The only limits we should set are on what work we expect the IESG to get done. The constraint we should give NomCom are that we expect the work to get done, and that any restrictions on work-load should not negatively harm the work of an Area or the IESG as a whole. Thus, questions:
- to the candidates about how much work they can achieve and what
   they would 'sacrifice'
- to the continuing ADs about how much work they are achieving and
  what they need from a co-AD
- to the IESG as a whole about where the pinch-points are with current
  and projected work-loads, and so where resources are needed in the
  new appointments
- the community about what work appears to be falling by the way-side
  and what additional tasks need to be picked up.
 
Thanks (and thanking NomCom for the hard job they are embarking on)
 
Adrian
 
[1] This unit is chosen because the document review cycle in the IESG is currently based on a telechat that occurs every two weeks.
 
From: ietf [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Alia Atlas
Sent: 25 July 2018 17:06
To: Ted Lemon
Cc: IETF Discussion Mailing List
Subject: Re: AD Time
 
Arguments about not being able to find enough good AD candidates (are you prepared with your nominations?) who can spend time basically amount to not having a day job convinced of the value.  Explaining the businesses value of the IETF & the role is needed - not assuming that investments aren't possible.
 
Regards,
Alia

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 12:18 AM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:

   Brian

> brian.e.carpenter@gmail..com <mailto:[email-masked]> > wrote:
>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 12:44:54 -0400

The thing is, AD is a job.   Do we want the job to be done well, or not?
 If we want it to be done well, why is it a volunteer position?

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:33:23 -0400

>  If we want it to be done well, why is it a volunteer position?

The problem is that making it to be a job where the employer is a
non-profit isn't necessarily a much better option.  (Not that many
top-notch engineers would be interested in taking a long-term job with
a non-profit who almost certainly can't pay as well as a Hi-Tech
for-profit corporation, and which by definition can't offer equity
compensation.)

So effectively either it needs to be:

* A volunteer position which can only really be staffed by someone
  whose employer is willing to let them work on it as a full-time job.
  (This tends to bias the IETF leadership to towards employee of large
  firms like Cisco, Microsoft, etc.)

* A volunteer position structured so it really can be run by someone
  holding down a full-time job (where multiple other volunteers are
  helping the volunteer AD).

* A paid full-time job for someone who is willing to work for a
  non-profit organization, and who is willing to resign from what is
  almost certainly a much better paid position to take on a "Public
  Service" role.

These choices all have trade-offs.  So there is no one obvious right
answer.

					- Ted

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:37:32 -0400

It's true that there is no one obvious right answer.   However, we are not
lacking in data about all the three conjectures you've proposed.

As to the first, we are having this conversation because this method is not
producing a diversity of candidates.
As to the second, we are having this conversation because this method has
been shown to be similarly sketchy.
As to the third, we have no data.

You see where I'm going with this?   :)

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:45:52 -0400

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 12:44 PM, Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote:

> A very large part of the question hinges on what ADs actually spend their
> time on. How much of an AD-fortnight [1] is spent reviewing document and
> handling the backwash from those reviews. When on the IESG I found it
> (surprisingly?) hard to get the IESG to answer that question.
>
>
>
> 1. If we only had one AD for each Area, would that AD feel the need to
> commission additional reviews to make up for the missing second (or third)
> AD? If so, then let's do that anyway. If not, then why have all ADs
> reviewing all the documents? In fact, you could argue for releasing at
> least 5 ADs from all of their reviewing and follow-up tasks.
>
>
>
> 2. Cannot two ADs from the same Area not share the review load with a
> little discussion before reviewing starts? This might lead to a 65/65 split
> (rather than 50/50) and some further brief discussion, but surely it could
> be made to work. [Hint: some ADs have done this in the past.] This argues
> for releasing each AD from 35% of their reviewing and follow-up tasks.
>
>
>
> It should be up to the IESG to self-organise! The only limits we should
> set are on what work we expect the IESG to get done. The constraint we
> should give NomCom are that we expect the work to get done, and that any
> restrictions on work-load should not negatively harm the work of an Area or
> the IESG as a whole. Thus, questions:
>

This is a good list, thank you Adrian!

> [1] This unit is chosen because the document review cycle in the IESG is
> currently based on a telechat that occurs every two weeks.
>
>
>
> *From:* ietf [mailto:[email-masked]] *On Behalf Of *Alia Atlas
> *Sent:* 25 July 2018 17:06
> *To:* Ted Lemon
> *Cc:* IETF Discussion Mailing List
> *Subject:* Re: AD Time
>
>
>

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 21:10:08 +0300

> On 25 Jul 2018, at 20:33, Theodore Y. Ts'o <[email-masked]> wrote:

>  almost certainly a much better paid position to take on a "Public

This is not the same as quitting your high-paying job to teach math in an inner-city school.  Those public service roles at least offer job security. ADs are up for re-election every two years.

If anything, we’re looking for the kind of people who quit a well-paying job to work in politics.

---

From: "BRUNGARD, DEBORAH A" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 18:19:41 +0000

+1 Warren

Doing cross-area reviews themselves vs. totally dedicating to a directorate, not only helps the AD learn, it also helps an AD determine the potential for collaborating more on work/sorting out drafts. For me, not only security (yes, routing's fav topic) but also transport have been learning experiences. We just added a transport advisor for detnet which is proving extremely valuable.

Directorate reviews are very helpful, but they are "one document at a time", and as not everyone on the directorate is reading every mail, may not be aware of a previous identified issue or resolution. Even reviews within an area (as we do in routing) may miss cross-working group inconsistencies with multiple documents.

For routing, we went to 3 ADs to help spread the work when it became too much for 2 ADs. Adding ADs or splitting Areas may help the workload, though I know from history, it's not necessarily the right answer for all. Quick scan of Adrian's mail - in routing, we talked about allocating telechat documents among the 3 of us, but decided we all want to "have a look". Not because we don't "trust" the other. But as Warren says, there may be something, which probably doesn't have anything to do with routing, which we think can help improve the document or personally learn about. But it doesn't necessarily mean a line-by-line review. So yes, we are personally responsible for how much time we are committing.

As others are saying, one probably does need to allocate more than 50%. Especially if want to do more than process documents after publication is requested. The difficulty with defining "one" number, as others are saying, is the unpredictability - your own working groups, telechat reviews, and IESG-discussion topics. Sure, you don't need to read every mail, but as Warren says, you don't want to miss out on the "fun" part of the role.

+1 to Adrian's list. If there's a problem to find someone able to commit the time, then the area, IESG, and NomCom should have the discussion on what to do for that specific AD role for that specific cycle. Maybe shake up the pool and consider a volunteer from one of the other areas.

Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Warren Kumari
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 10:50 AM
To: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Cc: IETF Discuss <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: AD Time

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 10:30 AM Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]> wrote:
> As a counter example, Stephen Farrell kept up the entire security area on his own while I was on maternity leave, but I think he';s an exception.  Every mailing list was followed and all but recent documents were in process..  I did try to have WGs clear their queues in advance as much as possible.
>

The role also expands to fill all *available* time -- there are weeks where all I've done is IESG work, but other weeks (like when I'm at e.g RIPE and have other things to do) I've managed to get by with just an hour or two.

There has been much discussion in this thread about the time required (as though it is a huge imposition) but very little said about the rewards --- apart from the satisfaction of doing something useful for the community[0], you also get to work with smart people, and also are "forced" to read documents outside your normal / interest zone.

This last one has been really fascinating - before becoming an AD I'd often stumble across some draft about something like how HIP traverses NAT and think "Huh, weird. I don't know how that works, I'll read this draft sometime....", and then forget about it completely / go read Slashdot instead. Now that I'm expected to read these documents I'm discovering all sorts of really interesting subjects and details that I've never known about...
Many (most?!) ADs serve more than one term - if they all felt overloaded all the time they wouldn't reapply...

W
[0]: or, at least the feeling that you are doing something useful for the community :-)

>>> > I think that as AD my time was consumed because I made a point of 
>>> > reading, or at least skimming, all drafts prior to publication 
>>> > looking for security specific issues.
>>>
>>> that they perform this function directly and can officially register 
>>> "No Objection" in the IESG ballot, with the AD only being involved 
>>> when the suggested ballot is "Yes", "Discuss" or "Abstain"?
>>>

--
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair of pants.
   ---maf

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:23:46 +0100

> If anything, we’re looking for the kind of people who quit a well-paying job to work in politics.
Some people might be in between jobs or looking for a change. If the 
option is available, it might be used.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 14:26:24 -0400

Moreover, while the amount IETF could pay would not be a competitive
Silicon Valley salary, it would probably work pretty well for candidates
from other parts of the world.

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 2:23 PM, Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
wrote:

>> This is not the same as quitting your high-paying job to teach math in an
>> inner-city school.  Those public service roles at least offer job security.
>> ADs are up for re-election every two years.
>>

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:37:03 +0100

> e.g RIPE and have other things to do) I've managed to get by with just
Indeed. Same here.
> I've never known about...
The depth of my knowledge certainly increased since I started on IESG.

For me the job is around 30-40% of full time. The workload in ART is a 
bit smaller than in some other areas, but only having 30-40% certainly 
makes me pick my battles. This means:
1) I don't read every document. I made a decision few years back that 
chances of improving certain documents or chances of me finding serious 
bugs in some documents are very slim, so not worth doing. This saves 
quite a bit of time.
2) I try not to get sucked into endless debates or volunteer for things 
I don't have time to do a reasonable job at. It also means that things 
like appeals end up eating into my time that I can spend doing useful 
work like helping to progress important documents.

Best Regards,
Alexey

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 11:59:09 -0700

> The thing is, AD is a job.  Do we want the job to be done well, or
> not?  If we want it to be done well, why is it a volunteer position?

in the new IETF Corporation, will there be a dress code?  will ADs fly
business class?

randy

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 21:05:53 +0100

Ted,

I was trying to stay out of this one, as I think the high-order bit
is in one of the things Adrian said: the IESG of the day need to be
the ones to self-organise. But I can't leave this bad idea go by;-)

On 25/07/18 17:44, Ted Lemon wrote:
> The thing is, AD is a job.  

No. It's a role, temporarily filled by a few members of the
community of IETF participants.

All three of those aspects (role, temporary, community) are, for
me, hugely important to the IETF. One of the very few things more
important for the IETF and IESG is that ADs not take themselves too
seriously (which I actually do mean seriously:-)

>  Do we want the job to be done well, or not?

The AD role not being a job, no answer to that rhetorical question
is needed or relevant.

>  If we want it to be done well, why is it a volunteer position?

I'd be vehemently and indefatigably against professional, paid ADs.
I hope we don't even need to debate the many reasons to avoid such
sclerosis.

Cheers,
S.

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:09:48 -0400

> I hope we don't even need to debate the many reasons to avoid such

I agree with this, it should remain a volunteer position and didn't mean
for the thread to evolve to that as a question with my original comments.

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:11:36 -0400

--On Wednesday, July 25, 2018 11:59 -0700 Randy Bush
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> The thing is, AD is a job.  Do we want the job to be done
>> well, or not?  If we want it to be done well, why is it a
>> volunteer position?
> 
> in the new IETF Corporation, will there be a dress code?  will
> ADs fly business class?

As the risk of agreeing with Randy (this is beginning to feel
like the good old days), let me add an observation that I think
is consistent with his comments.  Most of us have observed what
happens when standards bodies and similar entities, including
ones with regulatory effects (or close to them) start relying on
paid staff to make the actual technical and organizational
decisions.  For those lucky enough to have avoided those
situations, the result is almost always expanding and
self-protective bureaucracies, concentration of power, and
decisions that get made in ways that reflect the interests of
those bureaucracies.   In many cases,  those jobs tend to
attract people who can't or won't get jobs doing what the IETF
might describe as "real work" -- design of protocols that have a
succeed in the marketplace, implementation, operations, and so
on.

Let's not go there.

I have to suggest that, if the IESG job has come to involve too
many responsibilities and too much workload, it is at least
partially because IESG members, over time, have chosen to allow
that.  I think that the community should be very concerned if we
are simultaneously discussing an overloaded IESG and moving
strategic responsibilities away from IASA and toward the IESG
(see the IAOC plenary report).  Whether splitting the IESG's
management and steering functions away from document approval
(as discussed in a draft I mentioned a few days ago) is a good
idea or not --and I can argue that either way-- it would be a
way to radically change the workload.  There are certainly other
ways and perhaps we should start with a serious review of the
number of things the IESG needs to have its fingers in and what
that costs.  Similarly, there have been proposals in the past to
adjust the workload the IETF takes on to match community
resources (including IESG time); perhaps it is time to revisit
them.

Or we could figure out how to pay the IESG (and, by an extension
of the same reasoning, the IAB and the LLC Trustees), and then
start worrying about supporting those people in the style to
which they would like to become accustomed and/or at a level
corresponding to their perception of their importance.  Dress
codes, business class travel, deluxe suites in meeting hotels,
etc., would be only a few steps behind.

    john

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 13:51:27 -0700

listen to kathleen and read between the lines.  observe, respect, and
support those who create and those who do the heavy lifting.  observe
and replace those who do little and those who obstruct.

talk with the nomcom.

randy

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:55:45 +1200

> automated nits checker complained about. Such "reviews" are virtually

Of course, if an AD decided to delegate authority to a review team,
that would require that the AD also trusted the review team to
do its job correctly. At the moment, review teams are *not* formally
on the hook, but if they were to hold real power, they would need
to be explicitly responsible to the community.

As John Klensin implied, it's really up to the IESG. If the IESG wants
to limit its workload, that means giving up some of its power. Something
for the NomCom to consider when evaluating candidates.

    Brian

>>>> reading,

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:56:08 -0400

> for the NomCom to consider when evaluating candidates.

Why do you believe that the IESG hasn't limited its workload?
Given that, I believe, the majority of ADs are not essentially full-time,
what
changes do you all see as needed?

Much of this conversation feels like a discussion from 6-8 years ago.

Regards,
Alia

> "No

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 10:16:58 +1200

On 26/07/2018 09:56, Alia Atlas wrote:
> what changes do you all see as needed?

IMHO, more delegation of authority by the *steering* group.
 
> Much of this conversation feels like a discussion from 6-8 years ago.

Yes, or longer. But every year we hear that NomCom is short of
available candidates. If we were talking about a typical 25% job
instead of 50%, there would definitely be more candidates.

Regards
   Brian

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 18:18:40 -0400

This is what I'm getting at.   These discussions have been going on for a
long time, and nothing much has come of it, because (I think) once you're
in the position and get what it entails, it tends to become as large as
you're willing to allow it to become.

I will point out that Stephen is speaking from a position of privilege when
he talks about not wanting it to be a paid role, or job, or whatever verbal
gymnastics you want to use to describe it.   That's how it was for me too,
so I'm not entitled to criticize, but I would say that a pretty large
number of the people in the IETF who would be qualified to take on the role
simply can't, because they couldn't get funded to do it.   How does the
same job, but funded, become a bureaucratic role with people flying first
class?   Did I suggest abolishing the nomcom?   Do students on scholarship
suddenly start wearing suits and flying first class due to their new-found
wealth?

The fact is, as far as I can tell, that the ADs who have time to do the job
really well are being paid to spend as much time on it as they need to, and
that is why they are able to do a really good job at it.   Right now, those
ADs come from a fairly small number of companies, and that number is
dwindling.   One thing we can do is to simply have ADs do so much less that
it becomes something that can be hidden inside a real job doing something
else.   Another is that we can own the fact that people need to be paid to
do the work, and ask the question of whether those people should be paid
directly by some corporation, or whether the role should be funded in a way
that is a bit more egalitarian.

I am not claiming that the answer is that it should be an IETF-funded
role.   What I'm saying is that I haven't heard a response to my suggestion
that was anything other than that it should indeed be a paid role, just not
paid by the IETF.

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 5:56 PM, Alia Atlas <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> >  1424 Pro Shop Court
>> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1424+Pro+Shop+Court&entry=gmail&source=g>,
>> Davenport, FL 33896 USA
>> >  [email-masked]
>> >
>> >

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 23:55:46 +0100

Hiya,

> you're willing to allow it to become.

I agree with that.

> so I'm not entitled to criticize, 

I disagree with the proposition that having found a way to get
paid whilst being an AD disqualifies one from commenting on the
topic. It is as appropriate for you to criticise your bad idea
as for me:-)

> but I would say that a pretty large
> simply can't, because they couldn't get funded to do it.  

Yep. If you assume I was ever qualified, that applied in my case,
for a number of nomcom cycles. At one point my funding and a nomcom
cycle aligned and I ended up trying to be an AD for a bit. (And
my issue wasn't ever lack of funding for day#1 of being an AD, it
was having current and usable research funding that spanned the
time from the nomcom interview to the end of the 2-year term,
which isn't actually the most likely thing to happen.)

> How does the
> class?   Did I suggest abolishing the nomcom?  

IMO, yes, you implicitly did. If ADs were paid, that'd not work for
just 2 year terms. The inevitable consequence would be ADs being in
the  "job" (as it would then become) until they expire, as would
nomcom. It'd take a while but would be IMO a sure bet.

> Do students on scholarship

Not with the dosh we give 'em:-)

> that is why they are able to do a really good job at it.  

Disagree. I could quote cases of time- or resource-constrained
folks who I think did a fine job. And of time or resource-rich
folks who I think were crap. But naming either wouldn't be a
good plan I guess:-)

I do assert that I've seen both whilst on the IESG.

I also claim that I saw no strong correlation between available
time and excellence or crappiness in carrying out the AD role.

Mostly it was down to the person's technical capability and
personality.

Aiming for less time being required of ADs is a good goal, but
aiming to guarantee plenty of time is, I think, a bad goal.

> Right now, those
> dwindling.   

Ahem. Some academics have acted in the AD role, and still do.
I think the relatively fewer axes one has to grind makes having
2-3 academics as ADs a good idea. I do agree that the relevance
of the IETF and IESG for for-profit companies changes over time.
But is "dwindling" actually right? I think we see different
companies (who are currently on the "up") providing folks for
the AD role these days, which is ok. We also see much more
centralisation of companies involved in the Internet, which I
think applies to AD employers as much as anything else.

> One thing we can do is to simply have ADs do so much less that

I await your egalitarian proposal. I don't believe such a thing
exists that wouldn't have the inevitable consequence of killing
nomcom. And I'd personally hate anything that involved some of
the richest companies ever having their costs for employees who
do the AD thing being re-imbursed. I also doubt that many people
would believe having those same companies sponsor all the ADs
would give much of a perception of independence. But perhaps you
have some idea of how to better launder that dosh so it can pay
for ADs without such things being a worry.

> that was anything other than that it should indeed be a paid role, just not

I can't parse that last sentence. But in case it helps, while I
was an AD I did get paid. Not that much, and from various funders,
mostly involving the pretence that I was doing research, which
pretence was mostly fine with most funders. Thing was, it was up
to me to organise that dosh, and that's a good thing IMO. Just
as ADs should pay to register at an IETF meeting, they should
bring their own salary IMO.

Cheers,
S.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:28:38 -0400

What I am getting at here is that the role is always a paid role; the
question is whether it's paid by sponsors through the IETF, or whether it's
paid by corporations to their own employees who are given leave to spend
most of their time being ADs.   Anybody we'd want in an AD role would have
no trouble getting hired after they finished holding the position, and we
already know that it's pretty typical for ADs who are sponsored by
corporations to wind up effectively having to start an internal job hunt
after their AD position has ended because their old position got filled by
someone else when they didn't have enough time to keep it going.   We've
seen in several instances recently that the imagined job security of being
employed by some external corporation while AD isn't all it's cracked up to
be.

Your approach of finding funding yourself isn't a bad one either, of
course, but the problem with it is that it's a "try nothing new"
approach—it worked for you because of your circumstances, but isn't
generalizable.   If I wanted to be AD again, I think I could probably do it
the way you did (fortunately I don't).   But now you're fund-raising when
you could be working—this works, of course, but is it really a better
approach than just addressing that problem independently?   The way I would
expect this to would would simply be that the IETF would solicit
sponsorships for AD positions, at a certain pay rate, and if someone was
appointed, they'd get paid.   I don't think there would be a "reimburse the
employer" process—the AD would just get paid, and it would be a contract
with a clear termination date, and exit clauses for termination with cause
by the IETF AD removal process.

As for getting rid of nomcom and terms if ADs are paid, I guess anything
could happen, and I agree with you that that would be a really bad
outcome.   The RFC that described this new procedure, if one were written,
would have to talk about how to prevent that.   Maybe the IAB could help...

What I meant by the last paragraph that you found confusing is that this is
a thought experiment for me.   I don't know that it's the right thing to
do, but I think that it's a possible thing we could do, and if we think
it's the wrong thing to do, we should come up with better reasons why it's
the wrong thing to do.   The best reason I can come up with is that it
might be hard to actually get sponsorship for the number of ADs we
currently have, not because the money isn't there, but because it's in the
wrong budgets.

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 6:55 PM, Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> documents

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:49:45 -0700

On 7/25/2018 4:28 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> question is whether it's paid by sponsors through the IETF, or whether
> it's paid by corporations to their own employees who are given leave
> to spend most of their time being ADs.  

Not just "their own employees". It is not impossible to get a consulting
gig, or a a research contract.

> Anybody we'd want in an AD role would have no trouble getting hired
> after they finished holding the position, and we already know that
> it's pretty typical for ADs who are sponsored by corporations to wind
> up effectively having to start an internal job hunt after their AD
> position has ended because their old position got filled by someone
> else when they didn't have enough time to keep it going.   We've seen
> in several instances recently that the imagined job security of being
> employed by some external corporation while AD isn't all it's cracked
> up to be.

That's the problem with being away from the main business. In many
corporations, bonuses and promotions depend from how much your hierarchy
believes you are contributing to the business. If you are away, you are
going to miss on that somewhat.

But there is a flip side. Apart from helping the Internet, the AD job is
also a big occasion to develop experience and expertise. You will learn
something by reading and reviewing all these drafts, and by managing of
these WG. Your career development might slow down when you are serving
as AD, but it will very likely pick up after that.

Of course there is a flip side to that too. The employer that funds your
participation may be concerned that you will bring this newly acquired
expertise somewhere else. So you will need to build trust somehow...

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 00:56:56 +0100

Hiya,

Getting to the specific ickiness...

On 26/07/18 00:28, Ted Lemon wrote:
> The way I would
> appointed, they'd get paid. 

Ick. So then we'd have 10 QUIC ADs? And maybe 10 from up-and-coming
companies from up-and-coming places working in up-and-coming spaces.
And of course, we'd be motivating companies to get rid of what they
might currently consider problematic AD roles - so no more of those
pesky security ADs say the rich (e.g. routing) companies de-jure? I
can imagine them earnestly explaining how they just don't have dosh
this year for that role, and are genuinely sorry. Ick.

If you really wanted a sponsorship scheme, the money would need to
be thoroughly laundered, which then hands control to the laundry.
It's just a bad plan.

> I don't think there would be a "reimburse the
> employer" processâ€”the AD would just get paid, and it would be a contract

Do you know that according to Irish (and likely other EU) labour
law, that'd mean that a 4th AD term would entitle that person to
a full-time permanent employee position? That's good legislation
IMO, but I do not think the IETF ought be risking it applying for
the AD role.

And of course, if a recall ever happened, then the money involved
would make a law suit quite likely.

But a much more likely a bad consequence, is that whomever is the
sponsor may expect that "their" AD would act in their interests.
We have in the past seen such motivations impact on nomcom, and I
have very occasionally seen ADs worry about potential hidden agendas
of other ADs. What you're suggesting would make all that much worse,
and likely quite quickly.

None of this is worth the time we've spent on these emails. It's
just a bad idea - wrong target (guaranteeing time), wrong method
(sponsorship) and IMO guaranteed wrong outcome (death to nomcom;-)

Cheers,
S.

PS: I do agree that the end of an AD's term is tricky, in very
many cases. That's another reason to try reduce the time needed
without affecting the rest of the AD's week. It is not a reason
to try fund 100% paid-for ADs. OTOH, what Christian and Warren
have said is entirely true (of me at least) - I learned a whole
lot doing the AD thing, and I feel the better for that, so it's
well worth doing.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 20:11:18 -0400

Obviously the sponsorship can't have strings attached.   If you want there
to be a QUIC AD, you had better make sure that there's enough funding for
all the AD positions that exist.   You suggest that this would make things
worse in terms of corporate control of the IESG, but if you take such a
pessimistic view, that's already the status quo.   There is the potential
for a feedback loop if you can stack the IESG, but one thing that
sponsorships allow is for orgs that can't afford to fund an FTE can still
participate, as with your term, which you say required multiple sponsors at
the same time.

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 01:19:33 +0100

Hiya,

On 26/07/18 01:11, Ted Lemon wrote:
> pessimistic view, that's already the status quo. 

No. I'm neither pessimistic (since I don't believe your idea
will fly), nor do I agree that your proposal is equivalent to
the status-quo. Yours is worse IMO.

>  There is the potential
> participate, 

Again, you assume that full-time ADs is a good thing. I do not
agree that that's a good goal.

> as with your term, which you say required multiple sponsors at
> the same time.

I didn't say that. It was different funders sequentially in my
case.

Honestly though - in the absence of any worked-out proposal isn't
it time to end this thread or take it offlist? I'm happy to chat
more but unhappy to be boring the full list, which I suspect is what
we're doing.

Cheers,
S.

>>> employer" processÃ¢â‚¬â€the AD would just get paid, and it would be a
>> contract

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 20:43:07 -0400

> agree that that's a good goal.

I don't, either, with an exclamation mark!

We keep having this same discussion and it keeps being somewhat
unfocused and disorganized, with people proposing solutions
before we've got much clarity about what problems we're trying
to solve.  I think it's worth pointing out (as we always do
when we have this discussion) that we tend to get IESG members
from large companies, because that's whose employers can
afford it.  I think it's pretty clearly the case that not having
enough candidates, not having many candidates from startups,
academia (pace Stephen), or consultancies, and having those
positions turn into extremely time-consuming gigs are all
related.  People whose employers don't object to them spending
massive amounts of time on AD responsibilities are going to
tend to be people who aren't going to have as much reason to
object to those roles growing in scope.

Aside from wouldn't-it-be-nice-to-have-more-candidates, I tend
to think it would be nice to have a greater variety of
candidates, as well, but the current responsibilities and
structure are going to tend to militate against that.

(and yes, there are a lot of unhelpful directorate reviews).

Melinda

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:20:25 -0700 (PDT)

> I don't, either, with an exclamation mark!

+1

> object to those roles growing in scope.

Speaking as someone who worked for a startup during the time I was on the IESG
and IAB, the main issue was always time, not money. Money can usually be found,
but nobody has figured out a way to create more time. (More's the pity.)

A startup needs your attention now. It cannot be deferred. The same thing goes
for consultancies: Clients lost because you don't have time for them now are
not easily regained later.

I also spent many years in academia, and while in theory things there are
more flexible, in practice... not so much.

> structure are going to tend to militate against that.

Agree 100%. AFAICT the most that can be done is to try to be as flexible as
possible in accomodating candidates with unusual backgrounds and requirements.
But this needs to be done - and IME has been done - on a case-by-case basis.

				Ned

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:10:13 -0400

> You see where I'm going with this?   :)

I do, but it isn't really true that we have no data about what
happens when SDOs have directly-paid staff with an interest in
advancing "their" standards.  I can think of a few examples off the
top of my head, though I am loathe to name them.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 11:27:34 -0400

It's interesting that it's seen by quite a few people who have responded to
this idea that an AD who is paid by the IETF would be _less_ neutral than
an AD who is paid by some company that's sending them to the IETF.   I
would like to think that the ADs that nomcom appoints would be neutral in
either case, but it seems to me that the incentives for an AD to play
favorites are worse, not better, if the AD works for a company than if they
are paid by the IETF, all other factors being equal.   Of course, if
companies that want to buy ADs were able to do so, that would be bad, but
if the funding commitment is made in advance of AD selection, I don't see
how that would happen.   Maybe I'm just naive?

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 08:50:04 -0700

> On Jul 28, 2018, at 8:27 AM, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> It's interesting that it's seen by quite a few people who have responded to this idea that an AD who is paid by the IETF would be _less_ neutral than an AD who is paid by some company that's sending them to the IETF.   I would like to think that the ADs that nomcom appoints would be neutral in either case, but it seems to me that the incentives for an AD to play favorites are worse, not better, if the AD works for a company than if they are paid by the IETF, all other factors being equal.   Of course, if companies that want to buy ADs were able to do so, that would be bad, but if the funding commitment is made in advance of AD selection, I don't see how that would happen.   Maybe I'm just naive?

Yes you are. As Andrew points out, there is plenty of evidence of organizations captured by staff. Yes there is a possibility of AD influenced by their companies' agenda, but this is balanced by short terms and by diversity of companies. With staff you would get longer terms and fewer diversity.

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 08:53:56 -0700

> On Jul 25, 2018, at 17:19, Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 

Even though not participating, I am interested in reading this discussion to learn about AD’s various issues, time et all.

Paul

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 18:31:56 +0200

So, how about keeping everything the same (NomCom et.al.) but
offering elected ADs financial sponsoring through ISOC as an option.

Shouldn't that improve the outcome by creating more diversity of
candidates ? 

-- Toerless

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 12:39:16 -0400

--On Saturday, 28 July, 2018 11:27 -0400 Ted Lemon
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> It's interesting that it's seen by quite a few people who have
> responded to this idea that an AD who is paid by the IETF
> would be _less_ neutral than an AD who is paid by some company
> that's sending them to the IETF.   I would like to think that
> the ADs that nomcom appoints would be neutral in either case,
> but it seems to me that the incentives for an AD to play
> favorites are worse, not better, if the AD works for a company
> than if they are paid by the IETF, all other factors being
> equal.   Of course, if companies that want to buy ADs were
> able to do so, that would be bad, but if the funding
> commitment is made in advance of AD selection, I don't see how
> that would happen.   Maybe I'm just naive?

Ted,

I don't think this is worth a long discussion and it appears
that most people don't read my in-depth analyses anyway, but
there are a long list of things wrong with your idea, most of
them, as Andrew suggests, proven by bad experience elsewhere.
As just two examples:

* ADs who come from different companies at least have, we hope,
limited incentives to collude.  Maybe we should be requiring
most explicit and public disclosures about day job commitments
and entanglements, but one of our protections come from the IETF
being made of of people from competing (or at least
non-affiliated) organizations.  If everyone were paid by the
IETF, that safeguard would presumably disappear, leaving people
to promote their own collective ideas.

* Even if you don't believe that, consider the pragmatic issues.
People end up on the IESG at various stages of their careers and
from different career paths.  Would you expect all of them to be
paid the same amount or for IETF-supplied salaries to reflect
the most recent day job one?  Also, while a company can make a
decision to lend someone to the IETF for a few years and those
who are self-employed can choose to reduce other workloads to
make time for AD responsibilities, if someone is going to take a
salary from the IETF, many (perhaps most) employment agreements
would require that such a person either resign from the day job
or be put on a leave of absence, possibly with guarantees about
being allowed to return.  In some cases, the requirement would
be for the salary to be paid by the IETF to the company and for
the ADs to continue to draw their normal salaries, giving the
worst of both worlds -- IETF spending the money with no effect
on real or imagined conflicts of interest.  Those kinds of
issues all suggest that, even if "IETF pays ADs" were otherwise
a good idea, which I don't believe it to be, sorting out all of
the issues would be very complex and probably well beyond the
limits of where this community can reach even rough consensus.  

Of course, some of those problems would disappear if the ADs
were hired by the IETF and expected to make the IESG a career,
but the latter has not worked out well in the past even without
being complicated by a compensation package.

    best,
     john

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 12:55:48 -0400

John, have you never had a consulting job?   When you have had one, were
you required to not do other work as a condition of employment?   I agree
that some of the issues you've brought up are real obstacles, but it's not
as if there aren't real obstacles as it is, and I think it is definitely
true that there are completely insurmountable obstacles for a lot of IETF
participants—being at a company that can afford to have you on the IESG is
a fairly privileged situation.

Christian, what prevents the IETF from being captured by the ADs now?   Is
it the case that any organization that pays its workers is hopeless, that
there is no feedback mechanism that can prevent the kind of capture you
describe?

Toerless, what you described is what I'm talking about, except that I think
the ISOC would have to raise funds to pay for this, and that would probably
involve some corporate sponsorships.

---

From: Victor Kuarsingh <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 14:52:29 -0400

Anyone willing to respond,

A question and a few comments.

<< Question >>

 If given such a choice, it would be interesting to know if the community
would prefer a candidate whom may have more time (say 100%) to spend on the
AD role but may be less qualifed or a candidate whom may have less time
(say 50%) but may be more qualifed.  What’s more important?  Doing less
work with higher potential quality, or more work with more moderate quality
?

I suspect there would be many opinions here, but it would be interesting to
see what people think about that.   In my mind, if quality is the most
important attribute then we do need to sort out how to lower the workload
to match a lower time profile to ensure we focus on that and attract more
candidates with potentially more time constraints.

<< Commnets >>

I have no religion on the matter of paid vs. Unpaid AD roles, but what’s
apparent to me is that the trend of getting enough qualified candidates is
a challenge (seems to be a longstanding issue).  I would say using
historical modes of operation (say 10 years, ago, longer perhaps) is a good
data point, but we should not rely on that to best understand what is
needed now (we need new ideas, not just protection of old ones).   It’s
possible ADs have historically been able to execute the roles in a
traditional manner of employer supported volunteer mode (100% time for IETF
paid for by employer) but this general model may not last forever.  We can
try accept that as a potential trend, or we can ignore it.

Even though many key larger companies have supported candidates to spend
most/all of their time in volunteer roles, times change and so do
economics.  I have seen more then one company pull back from traditional
support (in terms of full time employees whom spend a lot of time at the
IETF) due to changes in leadership, economics and other factors.  Such
trends can only be observed and reacted to by us, not controlled.   Again,
I am not saying the old model will not work, but continuing to insist that
it worked in the past, may be a poor way of planning for the future.

The other item that continues to weigh on my mind is the need for
potentially good candidates needing to “sell” their value to a company to
support such initiatives.  Some (maybe most?) of the historical candidates
may have been able to do this successfully, but that also may have been
opportunistic as companies may have had leadership which already recognized
the value - so the sales function internally was not that hard.  As we move
forward, if companies shift focus or leadership changes, we may have many
potential candidates who may not have the opportunity/ability to sell the
opportunity inside their company, therefore we as a community will miss out
on some good candidates.

What I see in our industry is a fundamental change to the power/position of
many traditional corporate sponsors who have supported folks in the IETF.
These companies will likely continue to see competition, which impacts
profits which impact money directed to positions that support candidates
ability to do full time industry roles (like ADs at the IETF).   This shift
will change at least some of our historical approach to finding candidates
who will be supported by their companies.   I think this is not a trivial
issue to be overlooked.

Regards,

Victor K

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 12:57 PM Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Toerless, what you described is what I'm talking about, except that I
> think the ISOC would have to raise funds to pay for this, and that would
> probably involve some corporate sponsorships.
>

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 16:18:31 -0400

Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > responded to this idea that an AD who is paid by the IETF would be _
    > less_ neutral than an AD who is paid by some company that's sending
    > them to the IETF. I would like to think that the ADs that nomcom
    > appoints would be neutral in either case, but it seems to me that the
    > incentives for an AD to play favorites are worse, not better, if the
    > AD works for a company than if they are paid by the IETF, all other
    > factors being equal. Of course, if companies that want to buy ADs were
    > able to do so, that would be bad, but if the funding commitment is
    > made in advance of AD selection, I don't see how that would happen.
    > Maybe I'm just naive?

I pondered this question as well a bunch.

I think it's because an AD that works for company X has a very clear
conflict-of-interest.  It's easy for everyone to see, and thus easy for that
AD to either recluse themselves from some decision, or for them to go out of
their way to appear un-biased.

An AD paid by the IETF has no obvious conflict-of-interests.  That is, they
have only hidden conflicts of interest: some of which may come from access
that the entities funding the IETF might have, and some from outright behind
the scenes bribery.     We see shades of this in the Olympic committees,
the Soccer (Football) organization (with actual charges having been recently
laid), and we think that we see it in other SDOs.

I don't think that we have to go down that road as well.
I think we can avoid things, and our randomized nomcom is a key part of it.
Another key part would be term limits.  This might possibly imply slightly
longer terms (3 or 4 years rather than 2).  Asking someone to take on a
4-year term paid-position in their career would be very different than asking
them to take on a 2 year interruption...

Another aspect might be paying ADs, but only part-time.
This removes part of the finanicial burden to their host organization, while
not actually pulling them away completely.  It also might enforce more of a
50% commitment ("of the 80 hour week", as the joke used to go).

    > On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 9:10 AM, Andrew Sullivan
    > <[email-masked]> wrote:

    

    > ----------------------------------------------------
    > Alternatives:

    > ----------------------------------------------------

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

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 22:21:32 +0200

> to promote their own collective ideas.

What are "their own collective ideas" ? I only understand "their own"
and "collective", but not what they'd mean together.

NomCom already needs to perform character and sponsoring judgments
and at least when i was in NomCom tried to avoid electing candidates
perceived by the community input to be company drones or self
grandiosing marketers. Adding IETF as a funding option just results
in more variety in those judgements. I think that would be a good
thing for more variety.

> the most recent day job one? 

Same amount. Separate travel budget (no business class), because 
i fear diversity candidates might have to pay more to get to common
meeting places (travelling from far out places etc..).

NomCom could also decide on an offer. May be able to get younger
candidates for less money as the job could be a career improving
move for later.

> Also, while a company can make a
> being allowed to return.

So somebody who could persuade his company to fully pay for the
AD role would stick to the current scheme, but we'd get new candidates
were the companies would not want to support the job role, and
maybe its also a reduction to 50% paid on the normal job, 50% by
IETF. Or as you described above 100% by IETF.

Your argument sounds like "something that doesn't work in all cases
shouldn't be tried at all".

> In some cases, the requirement would
> on real or imagined conflicts of interest.

Sure. Payment only to the individual.

> Those kinds of

I don't see above issues as really problematic. I can definitely
see how there could be a lot of issues, not in the least how to pay
for someone who may be living on some place of the planet not called
USA. And creating more financial obligations.

> being complicated by a compensation package.

Right. the current average terms seem to be a good thing for the
community.

Cheers
    Toerless

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 16:55:09 -0400

--On Saturday, 28 July, 2018 12:55 -0400 Ted Lemon
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> John, have you never had a consulting job?    When you have had
> one, were you required to not do other work as a condition of
> employment?   

I have no employment other than consulting since early 2002, had
periods of consulting-only work before that, and had consulting
privileges during most of the circa 25 years I had an MIT
appointment.  I don't believe I've ever been in an exclusive,
nominally full time, consulting role for a single company, but I
have certainly had clients and potential who had strong opinions
about who I should be spending my time with and on what when I
was not working on their tasks, combinations that have led to
some rather complex negotiations.   I've also had clients who
don't want what I'm doing for them, or that I'm doing anything
at all for them. made public and a few where I've restricted
their rights to make the relationship public.  I've been through
a few situations where someone has wanted to pay for only a few
hours a week but wants me to drop all of my other clients and
have no responsibilities except to them or where they have
wanted to know about and pre-approve any other possible clients
and the work I propose to do for them, but those discussions
have either led to their adjusting their expectations or my
walking away without a contract with them. So, yes, I've had
consulting jobs and I don't quite understand your point.

> I agree that some of the issues you've brought
> up are real obstacles, but it's not as if there aren't real
> obstacles as it is, and I think it is definitely true that
> there are completely insurmountable obstacles for a lot of IETF
> participants—being at a company that can afford to have you
> on the IESG is a fairly privileged situation.

Indeed.  And there is no question that is a problem for the
potential pool of candidates nor that, as the list of companies
willing to lend talented people to the IETF for at least two or
four years (and support extensive travel, etc.) gets smaller
(due to consolidation and economic ebb and flow) the risks of an
IESG (or IAB) dominated by a small number of companies
increases.  So does the risk, with some companies, of our having
volunteers to serve who are either second-rate of whose job
specialties are other than engineering design, implementations,
or operations because the time of the people whose talents lie
in those areas is just too valuable to the company. 

I think we should be worried about those issues, indeed very
worried.  I think there are some things we should be doing to
mitigate the problems and risks although it is not clear to me
that many of them are compatible with our pretending that
everyone is participating as an individual nor with the Nomcom
model as currently practiced.    I just don't think that having
the IETF employ and pay ADs is any part of a plausible fix (or
even improvement).

> Christian, what prevents the IETF from being captured by the
> ADs now?   Is it the case that any organization that pays its
> workers is hopeless, that there is no feedback mechanism that
> can prevent the kind of capture you describe?

My answer to the first question is that very little prevents
such capture, other than the different organizations and
perspectives of the ADs, and that it would be wise for us to
think more about what precautions are appropriate.  As to the
latter, if you have a way to prevent a collection of IETF-paid
ADs, especially ones who also control IETF administrative
strategy and include people who sit on the IAOC, etc., from
turning into a long-serving and self-perpetuating bureaucracy
(noting, e.g., that the IAD and Secretariat are paid out of the
same pocket and are likely to have mutual interests), maybe
there is a way to prevent the problems to which Christian (and
others) have referred.  History in other organizations suggests
there is not, even with much stronger firewalls between bodies
than we have chosen to create.

   john

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 08:59:55 +1200

> Shouldn't that improve the outcome by creating more diversity of

I don't think that paying a salary would work out well. Even if an
employer was willing to making such an arrangement (and it would
be complicated, with international tax and social security issues),
it might be harmful to the person's career, because the employer
would end up paying someone else to do the person's job, and after
2 or 4 years they'd discover that they didn't need the person back
again.

Paying travel and hotel expenses might be an idea, though. In places
I've worked, that would have made quite a difference.

> work with higher potential quality, or more work with more moderate quality

*Definitely* the second choice. A good AD knows how to delegate anyway;
getting WG Chairs and document reviewers to do their jobs properly is
probably the most important thing an AD can do.

This relates to my previous point: an AD who does nothing for her or his
nominal employer for 2 or 4 years is taking a career risk.

   Brian

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 23:56:44 +0200

> 2 or 4 years they'd discover that they didn't need the person back

First of all, just because the IETF pays support doesn't meant
the person becomes an employee of the IETF. This should rather be
handled as it is for politicians (and hopefully the amount of time
in an AD role is short enough that there will be no entrenchment
to the financing body).

Secondly, we already do have i think experiences with ADs that where
where fully paid by their company, but had not that much success in
getting back into their job role. I would argue that the ability to
receive payments from the IETF does not change that risk. It only opens
the opportunity to run into that risk to more candidates. 

> I've worked, that would have made quite a difference.

Sure. And given these expensive IETF locations, maybe just offering
to cover official AD business travel costs might already make a difference
in the pool of candidates.

Cheers
     Toerless

> > (say 50%) but may be more qualifed.  What???s more important?  Doing less

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 15:11:28 -0700

On 7/28/18 8:27 AM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> responded to this idea that an AD who is paid by the IETF would be
> _less_ neutral than an AD who is paid by some company that's sending
> factors being equal.   Of course, if companies that want to buy ADs
> were able to do so, that would be bad, but if the funding commitment
> is made in advance of AD selection, I don't see how that would
> happen.   Maybe I'm just naive?
Where is the skin in the game with a funded AD? It would appear at first
glance that the incentive would be to attempt to remain in the role as
long as being involved in the IETF was the goal.

/Politik als Beruf/(Weber)

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 18:23:40 -0400

ADs don’t choose their terms: nomcom does.

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 6:11 PM joel jaeggli <[email-masked]> wrote:

> It's interesting that it's seen by quite a few people who have responded
> to this idea that an AD who is paid by the IETF would be _less_ neutral
> than an AD who is paid by some company that's sending them to the IETF.   I
> glance that the incentive would be to attempt to remain in the role as long
> as being involved in the IETF was the goal.
>
>
> *Politik als Beruf* (Weber)
>

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 14:26:51 -0800

> in an AD role is short enough that there will be no entrenchment

You might want to chat with someone from the US about money
and politicians.  Anyway, it's not at all clear to me that
a funded position is necessarily funded by the IETF or ISOC -
there may be opportunities to get support funding from an
outside charitable organization/foundation as a way to broaden
IETF leadership (I believe that the narrowness and homogeneity
of the candidate pool for I* positions narrows the scope and
effectiveness of the IETF, as well).

That said, I suspect that this is another problem space in
which the law of unintended consequences will tend to dominate
and I would guess that adding a professional technical staff to
the IETF will change the character of the organization, and
not for the better.  I am rather certain that there are a number
of other ways in which the problem of a shallow candidate pool
can be addressed, many of which will not carry the same
risks (say, for example, reducing our dependence on meetings,
changing the document review and publication process, improving
the technical chops in some of the directorates, etc.).

Melinda

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Jul 2018 19:01:01 -0400

In article <[email-masked]> you write:
>IETF leadership ...

I suppose, although getting grants from ISOC would be a lot
easier than from anyone else.

I agree that paying ADs, beyond perhaps travel costs to the meetings,
seems unwise.  It's not the same thing, but people around ICANN say
that paying their trustees is the worst thing they ever did.

R's,
John

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 19:58:59 -0400

> that paying their trustees is the worst thing they ever did.

How are ICANN trustees appointed?

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Jul 2018 20:00:17 -0400

> How are ICANN trustees appointed?

It's on their web site.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 20:04:09 -0400

> It's on their web site.

The web site doesn't even mention trustees.

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 20:12:16 -0400

> ADs don’t choose their terms: nomcom does.

So this biases the people available to nomcom to those people who are
either (a) consultants, or (b) willing to resign from their well-paid
corporate job to take a job with a non-profit SDO.

I don't believe this will result increasing the quality of the slate
of candidates available to Nomcom compared to what we have now.  Which
was the whole point of this proposal, was it not?

    	      	       	    	      	  - Ted

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 01:16:56 +0100

On 29/07/18 00:01, John Levine wrote:
> seems unwise.  

I'd say unwise is a significant understatement.

Even paying AD travel costs seems like a bad plan to me.

I would support(*) a generic travel-to-IETF fund to which anyone could
apply, if that was operated in a very open manner and with an explicit
goal of funding people who contribute effectively but who don't have
other funding.

I'd be fine if an AD needed to use that, so long as their application
was evaluated in the same way as anyone else's, and was as public as
anyone else's. I'd not be fine if lots of that money ended up funding
AD travel.

S.

(*) When I say I'd support this, I think it'd be a bad plan to try
organise such funding in isolation - it'd be much better if that was
part of a bigger plan, from the IESG, to  try reduce the overall f2f
meeting load needed for effective IETF participation.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 12:40:09 +1200

On 29/07/2018 12:16, Stephen Farrell wrote:
...> Even paying AD travel costs seems like a bad plan to me.

Can you explain why? I don't see any perverse incentive there.

   Brian

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 Jul 2018 20:47:58 -0400

> goal of funding people who contribute effectively but who don't have

In principle that's what ISOC funded IETF technical fellows are, although 
the program could use a little refinement.

Regards,

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 20:51:52 -0400

--On Saturday, 28 July, 2018 20:47 -0400 John R Levine
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I would support(*) a generic travel-to-IETF fund to which
>> anyone could apply, if that was operated in a very open
>> manner and with an explicit goal of funding people who
>> contribute effectively but who don't have other funding.
> 
> In principle that's what ISOC funded IETF technical fellows
> are, although the program could use a little refinement.

You mean like removing the developing area preference, a normal
maximum of two meetings,...  Seems rather different to me.

john

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 20:59:32 -0400

Ted, it sounds like you're suggesting that right now there's no bias, and
if this change were made, it would create bias.   The reality is that if we
did exactly the change you suggest, it would indeed shift the bias away
from people who can get corporate sponsorship to those who can afford to
take bigger risks/work for less money.   Of course, that's not the only way
to do it—we could also make it available as an option, while allowing the
old form of sponsorship as well.   What's the old quote, "the law, in its
infinite grandeur, forbids the rich and poor alike from sleeping under
bridges..."

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 18:29:07 -0700

Hi Toerless, Victor,
>in an AD role is short enough that there will be no entrenchment

The paid support triggers a potential conflict of interest issue.  A 
funder usually asks for something in return.

At 11:52 AM 28-07-2018, Victor Kuarsingh wrote:
>  If given such a choice, it would be interesting to know if the 
> community would prefer a candidate whom may have more time (say 
> 100%) to spend on the AD role but may be less qualifed or a 
> candidate whom may have less time (say 50%) but may be more 
> qualifed.  What's more important?  Doing less work with higher 
> potential quality, or more work with more moderate quality ?

It is not possible to know about the quality of work unless the 
candidate is an incumbent.  The time spend does not matter as much 
as, for example, organizational skills.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 22:09:37 -0400

> effectiveness of the IETF, as well).

Has anyone tried writing up basically a business case (possibly per area)
to help candidates convince their management - possibly with relatively
well-known folks willing to talk to them or provide feedback on perceived
value?

I do think the consolidation & industry changes are a real problem - but I
also think that when large companies aren't willing to fund, it is from not
being convinced of the value (including opportunity cost) and not from
actual lack of money.  Where money for such a role is may be quite
different
than in the development part of a company, where candidates may be located.

I now I don't have all the details right for how to do this, but it seems a
relatively
low-cost mechanism to work on broadening the pool.  An informal broker who
knows about options for consulting folks looking for support, might also be
useful.

Or we can continue to fret & see no change - or hear better ideas & act on
them.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Leif Johansson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 10:11:28 +0200

> meeting load needed for effective IETF participation.

Agree. As somebody who was unable to get support for a nomination let
me say this: it was never about the direct _monetary_ cost but about
the time spent away from $dayjob.

Having a travel fund ... maybe... but probably best spent on new talent
instead of keeping old farts around.

	Cheers Leif

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 11:57:02 +0100

> Can you explain why? I don't see any perverse incentive there.

Fairness. ~1000 people travel to IETF meetings, probably some
more would like to but cannot, and I bet there are many more
deserving of, and needing, funding assistance than the 15 ADs.

I'm also unkeen on anything that adds "VIPness" in general.

As I said though, I'd be fine if an AD needed to apply same as
anyone else.

And lastly, once someone is an AD (as opposed to putting their
name forward), it's entirely possible to go find someone who'd
be willing to help fund your AD travel. (That happened in my
case, about the middle of my 2nd term. As always, my funding
sources de-jure were named in the bio on the IETF site.)

S.

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 11:35:42 -0500

> well-known folks willing to talk to them or provide feedback on perceived

I believe this has happened informally in the past (at least in the
security area).  In my case, I had a couple of senior engineers in the
company that could provide justification for the business case to
management, but the option of involving previous ADs in making that
justification was available.

I'm not sure what disadvantages there would be in having a unified written
version of such a justifcation that's available on a less informal basis
than has been done in the past.

-Ben

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 14:03:59 -0400

> well-known folks willing to talk to them or provide feedback on perceived

I had to pull together a presentation the first time my name was in the
hat, so I could try to dig it up.  Stephen & I regularly offered to speak
with management and did a few times. I also asked colleagues to write a
letter about annually as my management had very little insight into what I
was doing and this helped quite a bit once in the role.

> than in the development part of a company, where candidates may be located.

We do tend to have IESG members that have been doing something significant
for their employer and the candidates are hard to part with for a period of
time. My management at the time, felt strongly that good technical people
require change every 2 years or so to stay engaged, so that helped too.

>
> I now I don't have all the details right for how to do this, but it seems
> a relatively
> knows about options for consulting folks looking for support, might also
> be useful.
>

I think this could be useful, especially if someone is with a corporation
and goes independent during a term.  They may not have the resources to
know how to pull together funding and this has happened to several people.

Best,
Kathleen

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:29:11 -0400

> infinite grandeur, forbids the rich and poor alike from sleeping under

I wasn't referring to the bias that the people might hold, but the
bias of the sort of people that would stand for selection by Nomcom if
it required them to resign from their present job and be paid
non-profit wages by a SDO.

If you are saying that it would be an option (so either their current
employer could choose to keep them on their payroll, and allow them to
continue to accrue equity compesantion), *OR* the IETF would somehow
find the salary for the AD, somehow, then that would avoid decreasin
the slate of people willing to stand for selection by Nomcom --- but
that transfers the burden to the organization that needs to be able to
find the salary for the AD if it turns out to be necessary.  It's hard
to raise money when it's not clear whether or not it's needed.
Especially if it turns out if the answer is trying to hold out a tin
cup and beg for donations (sorry, sponsorships).

Or what other alternative did you have in mind for finding the $$$ to
pay for a full-time AD's salary?  I hope you're not proposing that the
IETF start charging hundreds or thousands of dollars for
fourth-generation xerox copies, ala what was needed to get a hold of a
(legal) copy of the ASN.1 spec from ANSI....

					- Ted

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 08:32:12 +1200

...
> was doing and this helped quite a bit once in the role.

I doubt that a one-size-fits-all business case can be written. I had
to convince two very different managements (a non-commercial scientific
research lab, and a major IT vendor) to fund participation in IETF
roles, and the arguments I had to use were utterly different in the
two cases.

    Brian

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 08:47:31 +1200

> deserving of, and needing, funding assistance than the 15 ADs.

Of course. But it's strongly in the IETF's interest to have the
best people we can get in the steering group, and they're already
providing their time, so I don't think it's unfair to (potentially)
fund their travel. I think it's a different issue than encouraging
general particpants, which is also a good thing of course.
 
> I'm also unkeen on anything that adds "VIPness" in general.

OK, but I don't perceive travel expenses for people in service
roles as doing that. (We should probably make more of the
fact that ADs are in service roles, to counteract VIPness.)

> sources de-jure were named in the bio on the IETF site.)

I think that's relatively unusual, though.

    Brian

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 13:51:47 -0700

On Jul 29, 2018, at 1:47 PM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:

> best people we can get in the steering group,

I hope you’re not under the delusion that this is true.  

You get the best from among the pool whose employers subsidize time and who are willing.  That’s a very small subset of participants in general. 

Just take a look at where ADs work - and where they don’t - and you’ll see the bias. 

Joe

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 17:29:48 -0400

> roles, and the arguments I had to use were utterly different in the

That's a perfect being the enemy of the good enough argument.
Start with 1-3 business case for a common set ; see how useful they are and
add more as needed.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:53:41 +0200

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 02:26:51PM -0800, Melinda Shore wrote:
> and politicians.

I was thinking which of the problems with politician payments would
similarily occur with ADs if we'd offer payment through IETF/ISOC, but
i could not come up with one. Maybe i don't have enough imagination.

> Anyway, it's not at all clear to me that
> IETF leadership

Definitely.

> (I believe that the narrowness and homogeneity
> not for the better.

Opening up funding options for AD candidates does not mean that
they would become more professional. Maybe even rather the opposite,
but i think that cold be fixed by providing more training options.

> I am rather certain that there are a number

Given how a lot of those options have also been discussed, i don't
think we will make progress if we just try to argue option stack
ranking instead of trying to figure out what the best approach to
ech individual option would be.

In any case, i think it would be great if NomCom could collect any
insight into whether the candidate pool would have increased if there
where more funding options. E.g.: if nominees decline due to funding
have a NomCom talk with them and ask if such funding option would have
made a difference. Otherwise it's all theory anyhow.

Cheers
     Toerless

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:06:26 +0200

> I'm also unkeen on anything that adds "VIPness" in general.

Sponsoring to be able to travel is IMHO not VIPness.

Providing ADs with early pick at hotel rooms, paid lunch, meeting
rooms etc. pp is IMHO a lot more "VIPness", but also IMHO good
value for the community overall to help ADs deal with their work load.

To me VIPness means waste of money. I don't see how anything
we're discussing would need to get up to that level.

> As I said though, I'd be fine if an AD needed to apply same as

How are you going to rank applications ? Total number of work items
affected seems like an easy criteria, and that would put ADs on top,
so your idea is IMHO good (if there was travel money spread it well),
but would IMHO not change the outcome re. ADs.

> sources de-jure were named in the bio on the IETF site.)

You probably do not want to accept a NomCom nomination to figure out
later you can't fund it.

Cheers
    Toerless

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:26:12 +0200

> long as being involved in the IETF was the goal.

Could equally be true for ADs funded by companies. Depending on why
a company funds the AD role. Likely also fairly irrelevant given
how NomCom operates.

I can think of a lot alternative reasons motivating someone to be
AD without having a sponsor.

Cheers
    Toerless

> /Politik als Beruf/(Weber)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_as_a_Vocation

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:34:19 +0200

Ted: consider for example companies that would not want to pay
full time for a good engineer because their margins are lower or
they do not see much RoI for the company, but maybe for the engineer
herself.

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 08:12:16PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> > ADs don???t choose their terms: nomcom does.
>

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:45:12 +0200

On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 03:29:11PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> the slate of people willing to stand for selection by Nomcom

Right.

> but that transfers the burden to the organization that needs to be able
> to find the salary for the AD if it turns out to be necessary.  It's hard

Sure. I have not seen anyone here chime in what amount of funding
would even be possible, so this is right now a pretty hollow discussion.

Once there are other funding options offered through the IETF than
employer it certainly would be important to keep employers who can
fund their employee still interested to do so. For example by counting
AD time from the employer as an IETF sponsership.

> (legal) copy of the ASN.1 spec from ANSI....

Doubling the prices on > PG13 .org domains should suffice.

Cheers
   Toerless

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 11:16:05 +1200

> Start with 1-3 business case for a common set ; see how useful they are and

I didn't mean that we should do nothing. I think we could pull together
a set of what are called "talking points" in management-speak, but each
potential AD (or IAB member, or WG chair...) would have to build their own
argument according to its audience.

I definitely think that a boilerplate business case would be ill
advised; the wording needs to be adapted to the individual situation.

    Brian

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 19:19:15 -0400

> Doubling the prices on > PG13 .org domains should suffice.

Note that the rent-seekers who get the money from those domains
are, in general, not beholden to the IETF (already being serfs of ICANN).

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 16:23:45 -0700

> That's a perfect being the enemy of the good enough argument.  Start
> with 1-3 business case for a common set ; see how useful they are and
> add more as needed.

give the volunteer a laundry list and they choose what to use

randy, who already regrets entering this discussion

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 19:33:55 -0400

A little less catastrophization might make this conversation more fun!  :)

Seriously, each of the questions you're asking implies a fairly obvious
answer.   For example, fundraising: this is straightforward: always have
enough money to pay all the ADs for the next year or two.   Figure out how
to raise that money.   If it's not available, then this option isn't open
to us: end of story.  Once that endowment exists, keep funding it.   If the
funding dries up, oh well, we tried.   The only way to find out if this is
possible is to try it; the only reason to try it is that we think it's
worth trying.   I think this conversation is about whether we think it's
worth trying (the running consensus appears to be "no," but we haven't
heard much from people who would have tried for IESG if this option were
available).

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 19:47:25 -0400

On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 7:16 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> >>> letter about annually as my management had very little insight into
> what
> >> I

Of course - starting with talking points makes sense.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 01:54:03 +0200

> heard much from people who would have tried for IESG if this option were

1) As mentioned in my prior email, maybe we want to start asking NomCom
if they can investigate lack of funding as a possible reason for
limited candidate pools. Aka: ask nominees that withdraw if/how future
options for funding sources could have changed their decision to withdraw.

2) Then the next step could be to look for funding sources. I am obviously
clueless about those options (thanks, valdis).

3) Third step would be to revisit in more detail the most beneficial 
policies for such funding.

Maybe these can be done in parallel, but so far we've only discussed
point 3, and it seems obvious that we guess about point 1) and more
evidence would be very helpfull.

Btw: Alias suggestion goes IMHO also to point 1 - have NomCom provide
candidates pondering whether to accept/negotiate with their current
employers  all the material we can provide to make them succeed in
getting funding from thei employer by being able to pitch up the value of
AD work for their employer (and for them).

Cheers
    Toerless

> > > to do it???we could also make it available as an option, while allowing the

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:09:21 +0000

> A little less catastrophization might make this conversation more fun!  :)

I've yet to see any fun.
 
> worth trying (the running consensus appears to be "no,"

Agreed. And that's the correct conclusion :-)

S.

> but we haven't

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Jul 2018 20:11:10 -0400

In article <[email-masked]> you write:
>pay for a full-time AD's salary? 

If the IETF sent ISOC a proposal for something like this, we'd
certainly look at it.  Do remember that ISOC already covers more than
half of the IETF's budget.

R's,
John

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 21:47:31 -0400

I have real trouble with the notion of raising $10 million for an 
experiment that I think is likely a bad idea.

And no, I did not pull that number out of thin air, but I would rather 
not explain most of my calculations.  In order to be fair to the folks 
pushing for this, I use a 60% time estimate rather than the 80% estimate 
I think is more reasonable for doing the AD job properly.  (Yes, it is 
variable among areas and individuals.  I really can't imagine that we 
would want to try to create different expectations for different areas 
formally.)

Also, having helped actually hire individuals for the Internet 
community, the notion that the nomcom would be using its very ad-hoc 
processes to choose who got paid significant sums of money strikes me as 
something that should frighten everyone involved.

Yours,
Joel

On 7/29/18 7:33 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> enough money to pay all the ADs for the next year or two.   Figure out 
> how to raise that money.   If it's not available, then this option isn't 
> open to us: end of story.  Once that endowment exists, keep funding it.  
>   If the funding dries up, oh well, we tried.   The only way to find out 
> if this is possible is to try it; the only reason to try it is that we 
> think it's worth trying.   I think this conversation is about whether we 
> think it's worth trying (the running consensus appears to be "no," but 
> we haven't heard much from people who would have tried for IESG if this 
> option were available).
> 
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 3:29 PM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>      > On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 8:12 PM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>      >

---

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 02:12:59 +0000 (UTC)

but which argument was true?

Lloyd Wood [email-masked] http://about.me/lloydwood 

On Monday, 30 July 2018, 06:33:03 GMT+10, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote: 

    Brian

---

From: Jeff Tantsura <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 19:45:37 -0700

+1

Regards,
Jeff

> On Jul 29, 2018, at 16:47, Alia Atlas <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:23:03 -0400

> but which argument was true?

<voice=Obiwan Kenobi>
Both.. from a certain point of view
</voice>

---

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 03:49:57 +0000 (UTC)

> find the salary for the AD, somehow, 

The IETF should incorporate, and issue shares, which could be issued to ADs and WG chairs to incentivise them appropriately.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

L.

also, being on nomcom should be a paid position, to improve nomcom decision making and align it with best management practice.

On Monday, 30 July 2018, 05:30:05 GMT+10, Theodore Y. Ts'o <[email-masked]> wrote: 

                    - Ted

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 00:47:17 -0400

On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 03:49:57 -0000, "[email-masked]" said:

> The IETF should incorporate, and issue shares, which could be issued to ADs
> and WG chairs to incentivise them appropriately.

I'm hoping there was a /sarcasm flag in there that my MUA didn't render. The
current US tendency to do things to maximize current shareholder value no
matter what the long-term consequences, is totally opposite what we need
for stewardship positions for the Internet.....

---

From: Suzanne Woolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:02:01 -0400

> On Jul 28, 2018, at 8:04 PM, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> On Jul 28, 2018, at 8:00 PM, John R Levine <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>> It's on their web site.
> 
ICANN doesn’t have trustees, it has directors, and they’re selected by several constituencies and a variety of methods. A community-wide nomcom selects some; specific constituencies select others. 

On the general question of compensation for “volunteer” roles, I can speak from experience that it’s a mixed bag— complicates some things, simplifies others. In the ICANN case, the compensation isn’t even close to a reasonable consulting rate for the workload involved, even before the opportunity cost of the conflicts of interest for someone who works in the field. But the compensation makes it easier to sign up for someone who is self-employed, retired, or otherwise not in a position to do the job as part of salaried employment, so it can add to the diversity of the pool. (People serving while they held salaried jobs were generally barred by their employer from accepting the additional compensation.) At the same time, it’s not pocket change and can add to the challenge of remaining both “independent” and a fiduciary of the corporation. 

There’s also a significant base of experience on whether corporate directors should be compensated, how much, and how to tell whether compensation is improving the candidate pool or the competence of the resulting board. At least in the US, there’s a small industry, within business academia and consulting, specifically on the “professionalization” of the role of corporate director.

In my view this has nothing at all to do with the question of enabling more qualified people to serve as IETF leadership. ADs and even IAB members are not directors in the corporate sense; the legal responsibility in particular is vastly different.

Making sure that there’s no compensation from the community specifically for the role of AD means we get mostly people with corporate support, along with occasional “pure” volunteers who rely on other means for paying their bills. This mostly rules out people who don’t have salaried corporate jobs with interested or generous companies, and keeps people whose incentives within the IETF and their salaried jobs are at least roughly aligned. 

If we want different people or to align different interests, “follow the money” is reasonably part of the analysis. It does strike me as naïve to pretend that people aren’t paid for their IETF work one way or another, or that their IETF service isn’t aligned with their other commitments and interests, or that discussing compensation from other sources somehow creates an issue we don’t otherwise have around finding people with enough incentive to take on these time-consuming and difficult “volunteer” roles. 

Suzanne

---

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:20:07 -0400

On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 7:35 PM Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Seriously, each of the questions you're asking implies a fairly obvious answer.   For example, fundraising: this is straightforward: always have enough money to pay all the ADs for the next year or two.   Figure out how to raise that money.   If it's not available, then this option isn't open to us: end of story.  Once that endowment exists, keep funding it.   If the funding dries up, oh well, we tried.   The only way to find out if this is possible is to try it; the only reason to try it is that we think it's worth trying.   I think this conversation is about whether we think it's worth trying (the running consensus appears to be "no," but we haven't heard much from people who would have tried for IESG if this option were available).

Something else to keep in mind is that having the *option* for paid
ADs changes the tone of the role, and may make some people unable (or
unwilling) to serve.

My management is willing to let me serve as an AD because is is a
volunteer position (and because I made it clear that I really wanted
to serve) - if there was the option for the IETF to "hire" people for
the role, it is entirely possible that they would not have let me do
so ("Eh, we pay Warren lots of money - if the IETF can hire their own
people let them do that, and we'll put Warren to work on "real work"
instead"). Also, if I were being paid by the IETF / ISOC / Endowment /
Cake Bake Fund I would (personally) feel different about the role --
currently I serve because I really like the IETF and want to feel like
I'm giving back. If I were being paid (or if others were being paid) I
would feel very differently about the organization and it would go
from a labor of love to a job. In addition, instead of balloting what
I believe, I would feel an implicit obligation to get documents out
the door fast (measurable) versus as good as they can be
(unmeasurable).

Just some thoughts,
W

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:34:47 -0400

Warren, why would you feel an implicit obligation to get documents out fast
rather than good?   That doesn't make sense to me.   The whole point of
having ADs is that they get documents out good, not that they get documents
out fast.   If we valued getting documents out fast over getting them out
good, we would have no ADs.   The recent comments on the session signaling
doc are a great example of this: several very smart people took a
significant chunk of time to read these documents carefully, and had lots
of thoughtful comments.   The document had already been through several
layers of review.   What we got from the IESG on this document is exactly
what I want out of the IESG: a view from someone smart and careful who
otherwise wouldn't have read the document, and who has some ability to make
my life less smooth if I try to take the easy way out and not make the
requested changes.   That's not the only aspect of the AD job, but in my
mind it's one of the most important aspects of it.   So the idea that a
paid AD would suddenly abdicate that responsibility is the exact opposite
of what I'd personally want, and I don't understand why that seems like a
natural conclusion to you.   Not saying you're wrong—just not following
your logic.

As for "Google wouldn't let me do the job," do you think that's really
true?   Is Google really that dumb?

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 11:13:41 -0400

> for stewardship positions for the Internet.....

I think Lloyd forgot to include a proposal for issuing an Initial Coin
Offering (ICO) to raise even more money!   :-)

(And in case it wasn't obvious, </sarcasm>)

							- Ted

---

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 13:15:01 -0400

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 10:35 AM Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> Warren, why would you feel an implicit obligation to get documents out fast rather than good?   That doesn't make sense to me.   The whole point of having ADs is that they get documents out good, not that they get documents out fast.   If we valued getting documents out fast over getting them out good, we would have no ADs.   The recent comments on the session signaling doc are a great example of this: several very smart people took a significant chunk of time to read these documents carefully, and had lots of thoughtful comments.   The document had already been through several layers of review.   What we got from the IESG on this document is exactly what I want out of the IESG: a view from someone smart and careful who otherwise wouldn't have read the document, and who has some ability to make my life less smooth if I try to take the easy way out and not make the requested changes.   That's not the only aspect of the AD job, but in my mind it's one of the most important aspects of it.

Thank you, we try. It's always nice when people appreciate our feedback.

> So the idea that a paid AD would suddenly abdicate that responsibility is the exact opposite of what I'd personally want, and I don't understand why that seems like a natural conclusion to you.   Not saying you're wrong—just not following your logic.

And it's the opposite of what I would want as well -- but I suspect
that I would feel a need to do what is best for the "organization",
which is not the same thing as the "community" - I could see the
organization wanting metrics to evaluate employees, which I suspect
will lead to measuring number of documents progressed (good), amount
of time you held up documents with discusses (bad), number of nits
pointed out (good), WGs chartered (good), etc. Also, I currently feel
that I have the freedom to speak out when I think that the
organization is doing something dumb / not in the interest of the
community - if I'm paid to serve, I'd feel a sense of loyalty to the
IETF, not the community.
I suspect I'm not really articulating this very well...

>
> As for "Google wouldn't let me do the job," do you think that's really true?

I'm not sure, but I suspect it is possible.
If I went to Google and told them that I'd like to spend a significant
amount of my time working for Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) helping run
a.root-servers.net they would presumably wonder why Verisign doesn't
just hire someone. Google kindly lets me spend some of my time helping
USC ISI run b.root-servers.net (and before that, helping ISC run f);
some of this is because of the type of organizations these are. I also
use some of my personal time to help run various community (and
similar) networks specifically because they are community / volunteer
type roles - if they hired people to do the same work I'd be much less
inclined to spend my time doing this.
I'll happily spend hours helping sort wood at my local makerspace, but
wouldn't do the same thing for Home Depot.

Somewhat related to this is a *fascinating* NPR podcast -
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/08/02/187373801/episode-386-the-cost-of-free-doughnuts
- well worth a listen.

> Is Google really that dumb?

... and now you are trolling / that is a loaded question (see, if I
worked for the IETF I would implicitly be working for you, and
wouldn't feel comfortable saying that :-) )

Google isn't dumb, but they *do* pay me well[0] - if the IETF was able
and willing to hire for the AD role, why wouldn't Google prefer that
they do that, and instead put me to work doing something more directly
related? Having organizations each contribute their employees' time as
volunteers creates a feeling that the organizations are all
contributing to the good of the Internet. If the IETF were hiring
people for this role, I think that feeling would change and it seems
likely that employers would rather spend their employees' time
elsewhere, either internally or for organizations who cannot hire
their own.

These are my views, they may be completely wrong...

W
[0]: Hmmm... not sure who's point I'm making here :-)

W

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 13:34:19 -0400

I guess it sounds like you're proposing a much larger change than I'm
proposing.   Right now, you serve the community and Google pays you to
serve the community.  I'm suggesting that an AD could be paid by the IETF
to serve the community.   I'm not suggesting that an AD would be paid by
the IETF to serve the IETF.   Actually, I don't even know what it means to
serve the IETF as a separate thing from the community.   The IETF is a
weird organization.    But your job description would be to serve the
community, not to serve the organization.   We already pay people to serve
the organization.   Who do you think would be doing all of those metrics
you speak of?   You?   Why would you be doing that?   That wouldn't be
serving the community.   Would the IETF chair be tracking those stats?

Organizational leaders are not tracked on the basis of how many widgets
they produce.   They are judged on the basis of whether they help the
organization to succeed or fail.   This can be a problem when "succeed" and
"fail" are defined badly, as is the case with companies that think their
job is to serve the immediate needs of the stockholders, but we aren't
talking about that here, and I think we all understand these problems
pretty well.   So it surprises me how many different ways various people
who have joined in in this conversation believe it would be done wrong,
when if it is done at all, it would be we who are having this conversation
who decide what "done right" and "done wrong" look like.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 1:15 PM, Warren Kumari <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > Warren, why would you feel an implicit obligation to get documents out
> fast rather than good?   That doesn't make sense to me.   The whole point
> of having ADs is that they get documents out good, not that they get
> documents out fast.   If we valued getting documents out fast over getting
> them out good, we would have no ADs.   The recent comments on the session
> signaling doc are a great example of this: several very smart people took a
> mind it's one of the most important aspects of it.
>
> > So the idea that a paid AD would suddenly abdicate that responsibility
> is the exact opposite of what I'd personally want, and I don't understand
> why that seems like a natural conclusion to you.   Not saying you're
> wrong—just not following your logic.
>
> true?
> >> > Seriously, each of the questions you're asking implies a fairly
> obvious answer.   For example, fundraising: this is straightforward: always
> have enough money to pay all the ADs for the next year or two.   Figure out
>  If the funding dries up, oh well, we tried.   The only way to find out if
> this is possible is to try it; the only reason to try it is that we think
> it's worth trying.   I think this conversation is about whether we think
> it's worth trying (the running consensus appears to be "no," but we haven't

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:35:08 +0200

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 01:34:19PM -0400, Ted Lemon wrote:
> to serve the community.

+1
I made the helpless comparison with how politicians are meant to be paid.

The problem of course is that the community really does not pay most of the
money. If ISOC pays for half of IETF already, where is that money coming from
for example ?

Of course, we could try to change financing of IETF to one where there is
clearly a community part, and that one would be used to pay for sponsoring
community members doing chores (starting with ADs).

Other organizations have models where you have individual membrership fees
(not tied to an employer), and that one does also give you cheaper meeting
fees. Maybe something to consider. Larger theme of community financing of
course. But it will be very necessary if IETF wants to move more into
non-f2f meetings (which i think pay for IETF primarily now).

> I'm not suggesting that an AD would be paid by
> serve the IETF as a separate thing from the community.

Make the organization look good even when its output sucks. That at least
is i think what folks on the thread rejecting IETF sponsoring of ADs fear.

Cheers
    Toerless

> The IETF is a
Well, Jari unfortunately 
> > wrong???just not following your logic.
> >

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 11:36:40 -0700

>From the numerous discussions here,  "paid by the IETF" seems to be
interpreted differently.

1. If "paid by the IETF" means compensation as in salary then I foresee a
number of difficulties in implementing it
The salary disparity according to regions/countries for one is tricky. Who
will decide who much depending on location?
Along with the salary comes the issues of benefits ( in some countries
there are health coverage to be integrated for example and others not ...)
There is also the different labor laws for each different country: employer
paid benefits, retirement, taxes....
Will IETF hold this payroll structure for potentially 1 employee per
region/country for only 2 years?

2. If "paid by the IETF" means reimbursement of travel expenses then this
may be more doable IMHO.

Circling back to the issue of diversity of candidates, then I do not see
how 2 will increase diversity. It may still favor for example those who
just do not want to incur costs but have other sources of income.

"Diversity" is also open for interpretation ... Gender/age/??
In this context, IMHO, it should include having a balance between "types"
of companies/org (operators, edge, network vendors, academia, consulting
... ) not just only "names" of companies.

my 2 cts
Padma

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 10:34 AM, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> Thank you, we try. It's always nice when people appreciate our feedback..
>>
>>
>> .... and now you are trolling / that is a loaded question (see, if I

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 14:48:21 -0400

To be clear, I'm suggesting that the IETF pay a stipend so that the AD can
pay some or all of their living expenses.   I propose that this would be
set at some reasonable but not silicon-valley level, so if you work in
Silicon Valley you probably want to get your employer to pay you to do it.
 I would think that the right number would be something 33% or 50% of a
reasonable silicon valley salary—around USD $100k.   This would be too low
for someone living in Silicon Valley to do as a full-time job, unless they
live with roommates or take on additional consulting work, for which clear
disclosure guidelines would have to exist.   The IETF would also pay travel
expenses to meetings and retreats.   And by "the IETF" I am hand-waving a
bit, since obviously the IETF doesn't have the budget to do this.

I don't see any point in the IETF paying just travel expenses: either you
have a sponsor or you don't.   I think it's really quite unreasonable for
the IETF to expect someone to be an AD for free—it's more work than makes
sense for anybody who isn't independently wealthy to do as a volunteer.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> There is also the different labor laws for each different country:
> employer paid benefits, retirement, taxes....

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:21:05 +0100

> I suspect I'm not really articulating this very well...

FWIW, Warren I think I got exactly what you mean and if so,
I fully agree with you.

Another way to try say it might be: If you muck with the
volunteer ethos too much, as is being suggested by a few
people on this thread, you are very very likely to destroy
that volunteer ethos entirely.

The half-baked ideas I've seen throw out in this thread seem
to be exemplars in mucking about carelessly, or would be if
taken seriously. (And in case someone wonders, I don't see
any value in this thread as a thought-experiment either.)

S.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:32:27 -0400

> that volunteer ethos entirely.

This response (1) assumes without demonstrating that it is true that there
is, generally, a volunteer ethos, and (2) presumes, without showing why,
that this purported volunteer ethos would be destroyed by the various
half-baked proposals that have been bandied about here.

> any value in this thread as a thought-experiment either.)

I could say the same about every post you've made so far.   If the
half-baked proposals are so bad (and I agree that they are half-baked: the
way things get fully baked is by deciding to explore them in enough detail
to bake them), and you want to shut them down, you should come up with
better arguments.   I'm not saying that your conclusions are wrong: maybe
they are correct.   Maybe you even have good reasons for believing them.
 But you haven't actually argued in support of your conclusions—you've just
stated them in a way that suggests that it should be obvious to any reader
that they are correct, and that if the reader does not find them correct,
the reader, and not the argument, is what's broken.

---

From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:41:25 -0400

> half-baked proposals that have been bandied about here.

I *strongly* encourage everyone who thinks paying AD's is a good to
read this transcript of a Planet Money podcast:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/13/156737801/the-cost-of-free-doughnuts-70-years-of-regret

also of interest:

https://www.nonprofitrisk.org/resources/articles/tempting-but-confusing-and-dangerous-paying-volunteers-just-a-little-something/

						- Ted

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:45:02 +0100

Ted,

> half-baked proposals that have been bandied about here.

I'm sorry, but much as I respect you, I'm just not interested
in engaging in what I see as purely rhetorical arguments with
you on this. I believe I have already offered real arguments
against your self-proclaimed half-baked ideas. See Melinda's
and Ned's mails agreeing with one such for example. And I do
consider Warren's mails and the above as substantive argument
too, and am surprised that that's not clear to you. But please
don't expect me to come back with an enumeration of all the
problems with your not-yet-even-a-proposal, nor with yet more
words on this, as I am not willing to spend/waste time doing
that - for me, the already over-long discussion on this is
abundantly clear with an equally clear and obvious conclusion
to be drawn. (I'll be happy to chat about this next time we're
f2f, but I'm not willing to spend time typing more given the
discussion to date.)

Cheers,
S.

>  But you haven't actually argued in support of your conclusionsâ€”you've just

---

From: Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:50:58 -0700

> sense for anybody who isn't independently wealthy to do as a volunteer.
<Padma2>

To Warren's point, once we open this pandora box, a lot of companies may
reduce or even eliminate their sponsorship.
Also, we need to be careful that a new set of biases are not introduced.

The problem seems to be the amount of time ADs spend, there are a number of
ways to solve this
1. Reduce number of docs
2. Increase number of ADs
3. Create a supporting structure to reduce workload by delegating

 <Padma2>

>> The salary disparity according to regions/countries for one is tricky.
>> Who will decide who much depending on location?
>>>> > Warren, why would you feel an implicit obligation to get documents
>>>> out fast rather than good?   That doesn't make sense to me.   The whole
>>>> point of having ADs is that they get documents out good, not that they get
>>>> > So the idea that a paid AD would suddenly abdicate that
>>>> responsibility is the exact opposite of what I'd personally want, and I
>>>> don't understand why that seems like a natural conclusion to you.   Not
>>>> saying you're wrong—just not following your logic.
>>>>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 16:02:18 -0400

Padma, all of these solutions reduce the breadth of view of each AD, which
in turn limits the opportunity for there to be someone in whose head a lot
of siloed threads of work are known.   This is why I am arguing that this
isn't the right approach to the problem.   When I was AD (and I realize
that not everybody considered this a feature) I really felt like if I just
relied on directorate reviews without reading the documents myself, I
wasn't going to have that overview, and that cross-pollination of ideas
would suffer as a result.

I would not say that this is an impossible problem to solve, but what
you've described will not solve it.   In order to solve it, we'd need for
the directorate reviews to concisely summarize what each document does,
with enough detail that the AD who's the recipient of the review has
roughly the same mental picture they would have had if they'd read the
document in detail; just with less detail.   I think this would be great,
but unfortunately this relies on the directorate reviews being of generally
_much_ higher quality than they are now.   And I say this having been the
recipient of some very good directorate reviews recently: these reviews
would not have served the purpose I'm describing.

So if the right answer to this is to make AD a 10% position, we have to
figure out how to *significantly* increase the quality of even already-good
directorate reviews.   I'm not saying that's impossible, but we'd have to
figure out how it can be possible.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 3:50 PM, Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
wrote:

>> To be clear, I'm suggesting that the IETF pay a stipend so that the AD
>> can pay some or all of their living expenses.   I propose that this would
>> be set at some reasonable but not silicon-valley level, so if you work in
> The problem seems to be the amount of time ADs spend, there are a number
> of ways to solve this
> 1. Reduce number of docs
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Padma Pillay-Esnault <
>> [email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> 1. If "paid by the IETF" means compensation as in salary then I foresee
>>> a number of difficulties in implementing it
>>> 2. If "paid by the IETF" means reimbursement of travel expenses then
>>> this may be more doable IMHO.
>>>
>>> In this context, IMHO, it should include having a balance between
>>> "types" of companies/org (operators, edge, network vendors, academia,
>>> consulting ... ) not just only "names" of companies.
>>>
>>> my 2 cts
>>> Padma
>>>
>>>

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 22:38:04 +0200

+1

As an AD, what would be the top questions you would like to see addressed in
such an executive summary that are not already part of the shepherd review Q&A 
template ?

Cheers
    Toerless

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 04:02:18PM -0400, Ted Lemon wrote:
> document in detail;
> >> reasonable silicon valley salary???around USD $100k.   This would be too low
> >> the IETF to expect someone to be an AD for free???it's more work than makes
> >>> there are health coverage to be integrated for example and others not ....)
> >>>>> saying you're wrong???just not following your logic.
> >>>>>

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 16:45:44 -0400

I would like to see a four-paragraph summary of what the purpose of the
document is, how it fits in with other documents in the space, who the
consumers of the document are, what the hoped-for result of publishing the
document will be, and so on.   In principle this would just be the
introduction to the document, but often introductions are written assuming
that they will be read by subject matter experts; the strength of the AD
system is that people who are not SMEs in a particular space, but are just
as smart as those SMEs, gets a view into what those SMEs are doing and why.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 4:38 PM, Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > >>>>> > On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Warren Kumari <
> [email-masked]>
> > >>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>> >>
> > >>>>> >> > A little less catastrophization might make this conversation
> more
> > >>>>> fun!  :)
> > >>>>> >> >
> > >>>>> >> ADs changes the tone of the role, and may make some people
> unable
> > >>>>> (or
> > >>>>> >> unwilling) to serve.
> > >>>>> >>
> > >>>>> >> to serve) - if there was the option for the IETF to "hire"
> people
> > >>>>> for
> > >>>>> >> so ("Eh, we pay Warren lots of money - if the IETF can hire
> their
> > >>>>> own
> > >>>>> >> currently I serve because I really like the IETF and want to
> feel
> > >>>>> like
> > >>>>> >> > On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 3:29 PM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <
> [email-masked]>
> > >>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>> >> >>
> > >>>>> >> >> > Ted, it sounds like you're suggesting that right now
> there's
> > >>>>> no bias, and
> > >>>>> >> >> > if this change were made, it would create bias.   The
> reality
> > >>>>> is that if we
> > >>>>> >> >> > did exactly the change you suggest, it would indeed shift
> the
> > >>>>> bias away
> > >>>>> >> >> > from people who can get corporate sponsorship to those who
> can
> > >>>>> afford to
> > >>>>> >> >> > take bigger risks/work for less money.   Of course, that's
> not
> > >>>>> the only way
> > >>>>> >> >> > to do it???we could also make it available as an option,
> while
> > >>>>> allowing the
> > >>>>> >> >> > old form of sponsorship as well.   What's the old quote,
> "the
> > >>>>> law, in its
> > >>>>> >> >> I wasn't referring to the bias that the people might hold,
> but
> > >>>>> the
> > >>>>> >> >> employer could choose to keep them on their payroll, and
> allow
> > >>>>> them to
> > >>>>> but
> > >>>>> >> >> that transfers the burden to the organization that needs to
> be
> > >>>>> able to
> > >>>>> >> >> Especially if it turns out if the answer is trying to hold
> out a
> > >>>>> tin
> > >>>>> >> >> Or what other alternative did you have in mind for finding
> the
> > >>>>> $$$ to
> > >>>>> >> >> > > either (a) consultants, or (b) willing to resign from
> their
> > >>>>> well-paid
> > >>>>> >> >> > > I don't believe this will result increasing the quality
> of
> > >>>>> the slate
> > >>>>> >> >> > > of candidates available to Nomcom compared to what we
> have
> > >>>>> now.  Which

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 08:49:57 +1200

On 31/07/2018 06:48, Ted Lemon wrote:
...
> have a sponsor or you don't.

Not so simple. At least in the academic or publicly-funded research world,
it may well happen that your employer is happy for you to spend some
of your research *time* on standards-related work, but you don't have any
research *money* for the associated expenses.

It's quite different working for a business, where your time is measured
and company rules may even forbid you to accept outside funding.

In some cases, service to the technical community gets kudos in annual
performance reviews. In other cases, it's considered a waste of time.

One size absolutely does not fit all.

   Brian

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:14:31 +0200

> and company rules may even forbid you to accept outside funding.

Except that it is a lot more likely that the employer will be fine with
outside engagements that have "(partially) expenses covered", given how
that is fairly common when you are a speaker at some event and therefore do not
have to pay registration fees or the like. Of course even that can be turned
into a torture chamber ceremony by corporate HR, Travel and Legal bureaucrats,
but at least its just waterboarding and not guillotine.

> One size absolutely does not fit all.

FlexAD ? ;-)

Toerless

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 22:48:30 +0100

And this begs an interesting (to me :-) question.

When someone says she works at being AD 37.6% of her time, does she mean "37.6% of her paid time" or "37.6% of the time that is available to work on anything"?

That would seem to cut into the "volunteer ethos" a lot.

So, clearly, someone who puts in 45 hours a week as AD is a hero when they are paid for those hours, but when 39 of those hours are voluntary, unpaid time, then they are a super-hero.

And it is important for ADs reporting how much time the role takes up to report the total hours spent (modesty should not come into it!).

Adrian

> From: ietf [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Stephen Farrell
> Sent: 30 July 2018 20:21
> To: Warren Kumari
> Cc: IETF Discuss
> Subject: Re: AD Time
> 
> 
>

---

From: Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:43:25 -0700

Ted

I did not mean those options as cure all but as steps to help. Fully agree that this will reduce the breadth of view just as areas did.

To make any kind of progress something will need to give though...

Many suggestions has already floated on the list...
Is it better to keep the breadth or not? 
How can we keep breadth and lighten load? 
Is delegation an option?

We can poll ADs (current and ex) to give 1-3 suggestions that would be helpful for them? 

We can then look at how the process can be enhanced or not for a trial period and see if it actually helps at all. 

My 2 cts 
Padma 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 30, 2018, at 13:02, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Padma, all of these solutions reduce the breadth of view of each AD, which in turn limits the opportunity for there to be someone in whose head a lot of siloed threads of work are known.   This is why I am arguing that this isn't the right approach to the problem.   When I was AD (and I realize that not everybody considered this a feature) I really felt like if I just relied on directorate reviews without reading the documents myself, I wasn't going to have that overview, and that cross-pollination of ideas would suffer as a result.
> 
> I would not say that this is an impossible problem to solve, but what you've described will not solve it.   In order to solve it, we'd need for the directorate reviews to concisely summarize what each document does, with enough detail that the AD who's the recipient of the review has roughly the same mental picture they would have had if they'd read the document in detail; just with less detail.   I think this would be great, but unfortunately this relies on the directorate reviews being of generally _much_ higher quality than they are now.   And I say this having been the recipient of some very good directorate reviews recently: these reviews would not have served the purpose I'm describing.
> 
> So if the right answer to this is to make AD a 10% position, we have to figure out how to significantly increase the quality of even already-good directorate reviews.   I'm not saying that's impossible, but we'd have to figure out how it can be possible.
> 
>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 3:50 PM, Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> To be clear, I'm suggesting that the IETF pay a stipend so that the AD can pay some or all of their living expenses.   I propose that this would be set at some reasonable but not silicon-valley level, so if you work in Silicon Valley you probably want to get your employer to pay you to do it.   I would think that the right number would be something 33% or 50% of a reasonable silicon valley salary—around USD $100k.   This would be too low for someone living in Silicon Valley to do as a full-time job, unless they live with roommates or take on additional consulting work, for which clear disclosure guidelines would have to exist.   The IETF would also pay travel expenses to meetings and retreats.   And by "the IETF" I am hand-waving a bit, since obviously the IETF doesn't have the budget to do this.
>>> 
>>> I don't see any point in the IETF paying just travel expenses: either you have a sponsor or you don't.   I think it's really quite unreasonable for the IETF to expect someone to be an AD for free—it's more work than makes sense for anybody who isn't independently wealthy to do as a volunteer.
>>> 
>> 
>> <Padma2>
>> To Warren's point, once we open this pandora box, a lot of companies may reduce or even eliminate their sponsorship.
>> The problem seems to be the amount of time ADs spend, there are a number of ways to solve this
>> 1. Reduce number of docs
>>>> On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> From the numerous discussions here,  "paid by the IETF" seems to be interpreted differently.
>>>> 
>>>> 1. If "paid by the IETF" means compensation as in salary then I foresee a number of difficulties in implementing it
>>>> The salary disparity according to regions/countries for one is tricky. Who will decide who much depending on location?
>>>> Along with the salary comes the issues of benefits ( in some countries there are health coverage to be integrated for example and others not ...)
>>>> There is also the different labor laws for each different country: employer paid benefits, retirement, taxes....
>>>> Will IETF hold this payroll structure for potentially 1 employee per region/country for only 2 years? 
>>>> 
>>>> 2. If "paid by the IETF" means reimbursement of travel expenses then this may be more doable IMHO.
>>>> 
>>>> Circling back to the issue of diversity of candidates, then I do not see how 2 will increase diversity. It may still favor for example those who just do not want to incur costs but have other sources of income.
>>>> 
>>>> In this context, IMHO, it should include having a balance between "types" of companies/org (operators, edge, network vendors, academia, consulting ... ) not just only "names" of companies. 
>>>> 
>>>> my 2 cts
>>>> Padma
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> I guess it sounds like you're proposing a much larger change than I'm proposing.   Right now, you serve the community and Google pays you to serve the community.  I'm suggesting that an AD could be paid by the IETF to serve the community.   I'm not suggesting that an AD would be paid by the IETF to serve the IETF.   Actually, I don't even know what it means to serve the IETF as a separate thing from the community.   The IETF is a weird organization.    But your job description would be to serve the community, not to serve the organization.   We already pay people to serve the organization.   Who do you think would be doing all of those metrics you speak of?   You?   Why would you be doing that?   That wouldn't be serving the community.   Would the IETF chair be tracking those stats?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Organizational leaders are not tracked on the basis of how many widgets they produce.   They are judged on the basis of whether they help the organization to succeed or fail.   This can be a problem when "succeed" and "fail" are defined badly, as is the case with companies that think their job is to serve the immediate needs of the stockholders, but we aren't talking about that here, and I think we all understand these problems pretty well.   So it surprises me how many different ways various people who have joined in in this conversation believe it would be done wrong, when if it is done at all, it would be we who are having this conversation who decide what "done right" and "done wrong" look like.
>>>>>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 19:26:19 -0400

Maybe it's my roots showing, but the idea that people should be working
over 40 hours a week in order to be able to be ADs is extremely bad.   If
that's what you have to do to be an AD, we have a problem.   (And yes, I
know that that *is* what you have to do to be an AD, for some people who
are and/or have been ADs; what I'm saying is that that's not a good way to
run an organization, and I personally do not approve, FWTW. :)

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 5:48 PM, Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote:

> When someone says she works at being AD 37.6% of her time, does she mean
> "37.6% of her paid time" or "37.6% of the time that is available to work on
> anything"?
>
> So, clearly, someone who puts in 45 hours a week as AD is a hero when they
> are paid for those hours, but when 39 of those hours are voluntary, unpaid
> time, then they are a super-hero.
>
> And it is important for ADs reporting how much time the role takes up to
> report the total hours spent (modesty should not come into it!).
>
> Adrian
>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 19:27:29 -0400

In my opinion, obviously, the breadth is important, but I don't get the
impression that there is resounding agreement on this.

Just bear in mind that you can ask for whatever you want from reviewers,
but you get what they give you.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 6:43 PM, Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> Ted
>
> I did not mean those options as cure all but as steps to help. Fully agree
> that this will reduce the breadth of view just as areas did.
>
> We can then look at how the process can be enhanced or not for a trial
> period and see if it actually helps at all.
>
> My 2 cts
> Padma
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> figure out how to *significantly* increase the quality of even
> already-good directorate reviews.   I'm not saying that's impossible, but
> we'd have to figure out how it can be possible.
>
>>> I don't see any point in the IETF paying just travel expenses: either
>>> you have a sponsor or you don't.   I think it's really quite unreasonable
>>> for the IETF to expect someone to be an AD for free—it's more work than
>>> makes sense for anybody who isn't independently wealthy to do as a
>>> volunteer.
>>>
>>>
>> <Padma2>
>>
>>>> Circling back to the issue of diversity of candidates, then I do not
>>>> see how 2 will increase diversity. It may still favor for example those who
>>>>> Organizational leaders are not tracked on the basis of how many
>>>>> widgets they produce.   They are judged on the basis of whether they help
>>>>> the organization to succeed or fail.   This can be a problem when "succeed"
>>>>> and "fail" are defined badly, as is the case with companies that think
>>>>> their job is to serve the immediate needs of the stockholders, but we
>>>>> aren't talking about that here, and I think we all understand these
>>>>> problems pretty well.   So it surprises me how many different ways various
>>>>> people who have joined in in this conversation believe it would be done
>>>>> wrong, when if it is done at all, it would be we who are having this
>>>>> conversation who decide what "done right" and "done wrong" look like.
>>>>>
>>>>>> more fun!  :)
>>>>>> can afford to
>>>>>> not the only way
>>>>>> --- but

---

From: Mary B <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 18:45:07 -0500

So, this whole discussion started based on Kathleen sharing her experiences
as SEC AD.  I've always thought that ADs could rely more on their
directorates, but I do think SEC (and maybe OPS) is unique in that security
applies to all our documents, as opposed to ART area, for example.  We have
3 ADs for ART and RTG.  So, maybe for SEC specifically a 3rd AD could help
spread the day to day workload for the WGs for which they're responsible.
I apologize if that has been mentioned - I gave up on reading all the
emails in this conversation - if it has, then +1.

The idea of paid staff is a terrible place to go IMHO.  The organizations
with paid staff have memberships - pay to play...

Regards,
Mary.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:03:07 -0400

On Jul 30, 2018, at 7:45 PM, Mary B <[email-masked]> wrote:
> The idea of paid staff is a terrible place to go IMHO.  The organizations with paid staff have memberships - pay to play...

Okay, we both agree that if the IETF had to switch to paid membership in order to have paid ADs, that would be a reason not to have paid ADs.

Also, just to point out, ISOC pays about half our expenses right now, and ISOC _does_ have members.   In principle, ISOC already has the ability to exert influence on the IETF by withholding money.   Have they done that?   Is this, in practice, a problem?   If so, what are we going to do about it?  If not, why not?

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:42:30 -0400

Replying further to Ted Lemon:

>> is, generally, a volunteer ethos, and (2) presumes, without showing why,

I don't understand how anyone who has participated much in the IETF
could claim that there isn't a significant volunteer ethos.

>> half-baked proposals that have been bandied about here.

Pretty much everyone has the same amount of time. Not so for money.
    There is a feeling (at least I have such a feeling) that in some
sense every volunteer who spends an hour advancing IETF work is
sacrificing the same amount by devoting their hour to that IETF work,
whether posting comments to mailing lists or voting on an AD ballot or
something in between. This breaks down as soon as any volunteer is
paid any money by the IETF for their time. Suddenly some people are
ahead getting money they would not have otherwise received while
others are behind, sacrificing a larger payment if they used that hour
for something else.

Money is just different from free meals, t-shirts, plaques, etc.
    Why do US Government security regulations prohibit storing
classified material in the same secure container with money? Too many
actual cases where the container was stolen/broken open for the money
and the classified documents left to be blown across the landscape by
the wind.
    Why do almost no child care centers have a charge for picking up a
child late? Because it leads the customers to view this, rather than
as an exceptional thing they might get away with in an emergency (but
if they do too often, they will get kicked out of the service) as a
service they can buy at the last minute whenever they want it leading
to scheduling and operational chaos. This might seem unrelated but the
point is that as soon as you monetize something (that in this case was
in the nature of an exceptional favor), you change everyone's attitude
towards it with major operational consequences.

Paying ADs (other than for direct expenses with some reasonable
limits) is just a bad idea.

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-333-2270 (cell)
 1424 Pro Shop Court, Davenport, FL 33896 USA
 [email-masked]

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 20:12:49 -0500

> emails in this conversation - if it has, then +1.

It's unclear how useful that would be -- roughly speaking, my AD time is
split into four buckets: document review for telechats, following up with
authors about my outstanding DISCUSS positions, AD review of documents from
WGs (and keeping up with the WG traffic prior to publication requests), and
generic IESG tasks.  The fourth category is quite fungible, locally
speaking, and does not need to claim much of my time unless there a topic
comes up where I am a domain expert (but I do try to support my colleagues
when time permits), so if I have time pressur during a given week, that
number can fall to almost zero.  With the biweekly telechat schedule, I
tend to spend a lot of time on document review durinig telechat weeks,
which pushes the other two categories mostly to the off-telechat weeks.  I
trust that my WG chairs will let me know if I have been remiss in my duties
following WG traffic and advancing documents past publication request, but
so far, it does not feel like WG management is consuming an unduly large
portion of my time.  Document review for telechats is the biggest factor,
perhaps 25-30 hours on a telechat week, depending, so I usually don't
specifically plan for other tasks during those weeks.  (I do have some
slop time for timely things that come up, of course.)  Other current and
former ADs have discussed strategies for splitting telechat workload across
ADs in the area (not 50/50, but perhaps 65/65, IIRC).  Ekr and I have mostly
not needed to make such a split yet, and we do tend to find different
things in our ballot positions, so there does seem to be a plausible risk
that splitting telechat review workload could reduce document quality.

I don't have enough data to make any real rigorous conclusions, but
hopefully this can help give a picture of how the SEC area is currently
functioning.

-Ben

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 21:15:04 -0400

> could claim that there isn't a significant volunteer ethos.

The reason I keep saying things like this is not that I think there's no volunteer ethos here.   It's that I have heard something like a dozen repetitions of the same argument, which boils down to:

1. The IETF is a special place, unlike any other
2. People come to the IETF purely out of the goodness of their hearts, and not because they (a) value the IETF and (b) are able to get funding to come.
3. Providing funding in some way that is not paid for by the employer of the person who comes will cause problems because [emotional reason|something bad happened in some other completely different organization].

The volunteer argument is one of those.   Do I keep going to the IETF because I think it's socially valuable?   Yes.   Would I do it if I weren't paid to do it?   Only if I had some standard I wanted to get published, and thought the IETF process was worth the really significant amount of time and effort it would take, as compared to just publishing it in a blog, which is what I usually do when I want to share something trivial.

Look, it's clear that there's no appetite here to have the IETF pay ADs.   You really don't need to keep throwing arguments at me to get that point across.   But it's a bit frustrating to see so many people I respect making arguments that basically amount to appeals to emotion or the presumption that a correlation seen in some other context must necessarily imply a causal mechanism that will also apply to this context.   That's the reason I keep replying to these messages, not because I expect to get the IETF to adopt my modest proposal.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 03:45:30 +0200

> but you get what they give you.

Working 40 hours a week and training members of a directorate to provide the
executive summaries you mentioned might be better spent AD time than trying
to work 60 hours  a week reviewing every document yourself as an AD.

> >>> for the IETF to expect someone to be an AD for free???it's more work than

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 21:49:17 -0400

> to work 60 hours  a week reviewing every document yourself as an AD.

Definitely.   But also, reviews that are sufficient that the AD has the cross-area view without having had to read the whole document  are substantially more work than even very good reviews that don't, so there's a question of time.   But absolutely, if I had it to do over again I'd spend more time training and less time reading (full disclosure, I never did 60 hours a week outside of IETF meetings).

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 03:50:01 +0200

On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 06:45:07PM -0500, Mary B wrote:
> The idea of paid staff is a terrible place to go IMHO.

I don't think anyone here is promoting paid staff. we're only talking
about additional funding/spnsoring options for ADs while maintaining the
same oversight. ADs report to their conscience and the community for
their AD job, nobody else.

> The organizations with paid staff have memberships - pay to play...

I thought IETF as paid staff already, and effectively, if you want to move
things in the IETF you must go to the meetings (few exceptions proving the
rule), so i wouldn't take these factors as binary wisdoms.

Cheers
    Toerless

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 03:55:23 +0200

Maybe a first stab at getting ADs more insight is to extend the
shepherd questionaire and therefore get at least WG chairs to try to figure
out better what the AD needs to make the right calls (or whever is the
shepherd).

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 21:57:23 -0400

> out better what the AD needs to make the right calls (or whever is the

That wouldn't hurt, but there's some value in having somebody who wasn't part of the process do the summary.   The same reason that it's good to have someone who didn't write the spec build an implementation and try to interoperate—often someone who is in the middle of things won't realize what they are leaving out.

---

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 02:15:26 +0000 (UTC)

7 days a week * 24 hours = 168 hours.

37.6% of 168 hours is 63 hours and ten minutes a week,
which sounds about right for an AD workload.

Really, the maths isn't hard.

L.

On Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 07:49:32 GMT+10, Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote: 

Adrian

---

From: Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 19:29:06 -0700

Ted

Different areas or different ADs may have different needs depending on how many technologies and the crossovers.

Long term training has good ROI but I also think the outcome should be a flexible and flowing process adjusted to current needs rather than a regimented one which ends up being inadequate for other areas or worse obsolete very fast because different ADs or areas have different styles.

If ADs  cycles get burn just to keep current then we are missing out on opportunities to delegate.

Imho, there are a number of volunteers in the larger community with their heart in the right place willing to help/learn but they are not solicited enough. 

We should start at least with identifying what is needed to scale better or delegate in a useful manner.

Cheers
Padma

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 30, 2018, at 18:57, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 22:37:53 -0400

> Different areas or different ADs may have different needs depending on how many technologies and the crossovers.

Yup.   One great thing about the directorates is that although they technically report to ADs from their areas, their work is available to all of the ADs.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 04:57:18 +0200

> others are behind, sacrificing a larger payment if they used that hour

I do not understand that. Whoever might get sponsoring from the
IETF (or ISOC) would definitely still end up making less per hour than 
what anyone of the average current silicon valley level "volunteers" get
from their employer while serving as AD.

How about: Somebody whose total bottom line is lower in the end is more
of a volunteer than someone getting paid the big bucks while doing the job ? 

> and the classified documents left to be blown across the landscape by

Fascinating.

> to scheduling and operational chaos.

Sure. Broken workaround for a broken system.

> This might seem unrelated but the

I agree with the generalization. But:

As we see in politics, the candidates who are independently rich
are doing a much better job than those having to finance their 
committee memberships from congressional compensation and lobby
support. Not!

Aka: The ability be an AD IS ALREADY MONETIZED because you can't do the job
without a funding source. we're just discussing adding one more funding option.

> limits) is just a bad idea.

Well, maybe we do get rough consenus on at least trying to figure out such
expense funding option for ADs.

As for why anything beyond that is a bad idea in your opinion, i am still
interested to get an argument i could understand. All i have right
now is a child care center letting rich silicon valley tech-parents
pay for overtime and rejecting to consider a support fund for
night-shift single mom kids with the argument "it is just a bad idea"
and "some argument with confidential documents and explosions".

;-)

Cheers
    Toerless

PS.: i always appreciate color- and insight-full comparisons, i just didn't
 understand how yours where really proving the points you where trying to
 make. As opposed to rather proving the opposite to me.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 05:04:16 +0200

> Long term training has good ROI but I also think the outcome should be a flexible and flowing process adjusted to current needs rather than a regimented one which ends up being inadequate for other…

I couldn't quite parse that.

+1

> Imho, there are a number of volunteers in the larger community with their heart in the right place willing to help/learn but they are not solicited enough. 

Or they are simply rejected by leadership without explanation.

> We should start at least with identifying what is needed to scale better or delegate in a useful manner.

+1.

I think its the classical problem of individual contributors elevated
into a management role without enough time for role training. Worsened by the fact
that it may actually be a lot of fun to overload oneself trying to be
all-knowing about whats going on.

Cheers
    Toerless

> > That wouldn't hurt, but there's some value in having somebody who wasn't part of the process do the summary.   The same reason that it's good to have someone who didn't write the spec build an implementation and try to interoperate???often someone who is in the middle of things won't realize what they are leaving out.
> > 

-- 
---
[email-masked]

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 03:58:33 +0000 (UTC)

I was mulling the mechanisms of a possible ICO for the IETF overnight. 

So, here's the thing. The IETF is, as always, complaining about shortage 
of funds, while having trouble attracting unfunded volunteers to do the work. 

The IETF manifestly failed to cash in on the dot-com boom pre-Y2K.
Instead of making squillions like everyone else did, it sold itself
to ISOC for a pittance and the safety of some legal insurance and
governance and did not float when the market was hot for IPOs. 
(Even Wired Ventures tried to IPO. Twice.) A sure-fire revenue
stream was foregone.

What about other revenue streams? Well, the IETF isn't even really in
the selling-T-shirt business, which is about as low as you can go on
the making-money-on-the-Internet totem pole. (IETF Companions on
Cafepress? Not a big earner, I'm guessing.) 

Compare this with academic publishing, where there is no shortage of funds, 
and the academic volunteers are funded by someone else to do all the work:
write the papers, review them, edit the journals... just for the assumed
prestige of getting to post something  in someone else's printed blog.
What a glorious con with 40%+ margins! (For example, Robert Maxwell made
his fortune in that arena with Pergamon, and later came unstuck with ambition.)
  
So, if the IETF charged for RFCs, and more for standards track documents,
there would be a revenue stream. There could be a proper Internet Journal
of New RFCs which libraries and corporations should be forced to subscribe to.
The RFCs could be securely locked down using all the security standards that the
IETF has developed. Heck, you could do a bundle of secure subscriptions with
T-shirts to really attract the librarian crowd you're marketing to. They
earn less than you do, and so they value free clothing more. Plus, an even
weaker sense of what might be considered fashionable.

But even that subscriber model is slowly dying; it's not new. And that doesn't
address the reputational attraction problem that must be solved to make people
want to volunteer long hours for little pay and illusory kudos to create the
things that keep the organisation afloat.

Charging to attend conferences barely covers the cost of the conferences, even
when they're in Minneapolis. Charging for the right to post to mailing lists
might work - if on an organisational basis, which could filter out all of the
random annoying crazies using free email addresses. 

Really, the IETF should cash in on the ICO craze by leveraging the IETF brand
and launching its own fully distributed networked coin based on IETF RFCs.
Secured with RFC1321 for lightweight scalability, distributed by RFC5050 for
robust resilience.

The fact that the infrastructure isn't yet in place doesn't matter; the IETF
has consistently shown itself to play a very long game for benefits
deferred suspiciously long, and it's taken over twenty years for
e.g. IPv6 to go from nowhere to reach the point where you can
finally have it but really want to turn it off because the supporting
infrastructure sucks, and all the bad ideas that IPv6 was supposed to
get rid of (such as fragmentation) are now being rediscovered and
introduced by the next generation as good new ideas ('truncation'),
while all the bad ideas that IPv6 introduced have flowered with
multiple incompatible variants (so many ways to allocate an address
to a client, but the client won't support the subset your servers use!)

IPv6 clearly has benefits, and we are all absolutely clear on that
party line. But actually benefitting from IPv6 is just that little
bit further into the future, rather like the heat death of the universe.

IETF protocol development is delay tolerant; it has to be.  But if you want us
to work with a bunch of random workgroups or IPv6, you're going to have to incentivise us.
  
So this is the promise of a coin technology; a virtual coin, if you will.
Like so many IETF RFCs, it doesn't have to actually work. Like many ICOs and the IETF
as a whole, it doesn't have to make money immediately; it just has to hold out the promise
of making money, as stock options do. They're virtual too. It just has to provide
a fashionable tasty carrot to IETF goers, because we're fresh out of sticks. 

L. 

this IETF contribution is brought to you for virtual VintCoin! 
Join the Internet revolution and invest in your and our future! 
Help us make the Internet better, because it's really sick!

________________________________
From: Theodore Y. Ts'o <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked] 
Cc: "[email-masked]" <lloyd.wood=[email-masked]>; ietf <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, 31 July 2018, 1:14
Subject: Re: AD Time

                            - Ted

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 00:46:29 -0400

I don't think paying ADs works. And if you remember, I had a position as a
paid AD at W3C.

Why don't people think they are equivalent? Well, its because the people
you can afford pay to do that job are going to be folk starting out in
their careers. And it is the person, not just the position that gives the
position authority.

Once you have paid staff, the relationship becomes very different. I
thought we were going to create something like the MIT media lab. Having
made billions for Microsoft et. al., they could give us a few million to do
whacky stuff with little expectation of success. Ask for $50K from
Microsoft and it will come from a middle manager with a budget and the need
to show they are spending it wisely. Ask for $2 million and they know they
are never going to see it back.

Of course in the proto-IETF, the AD positions were paid, they were the ARPA
program managers. I can't see going back to that model.

Once you have staff you need reporting structures and accountability. The
AD selection process is intentionally designed to avoid accountability.

If the IETF was going to have paid staff, it would be a different
organization and the staff would be in support roles rather than
quasi-managerial and they would be looking at the needs of Internet users
generally. If the IETF was going to do that then it would really need
another name like the Internet Society, say.

The IETF could do things that would allow the IESG to avoid doing quite as
much makework but I don't know if a reduction in work is possible because
even if all the vanity crypto and RFCs that are only needed to issue code
points in registries are stripped away, work will expand to fill the
available time.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 07:56:44 +0200

> their careers. And it is the person, not just the position that gives the

Is this a recommendation to NomCom ? If the candidate can't show
that he/she is drawing top dollars from a big industry player, he/she is
not going to have the authority for the job ?

I think exactly this is the problem, not the solution, but this
whole discussion is a mood secondary point. The initial proof point IMHO
is for NomCom to have a discussion with candidates stepping away from
nominations or worse from acceptance of a section due to funding. And
figure out from such discussions if any actual evidence could be
collected that additional funding options would widen the pool of
_relevant_ candidates.

> Once you have paid staff, the relationship becomes very different.

There where several memos in this thread that nobody is talking about
paid staff but the same independent/, unaccountable individual
contributors OVERSEEING IETF operations, just with additional
funding options - but no ties attached.

> I thought we were going to create something like the MIT media lab. Having

At best the IRTF has a chance at such risky money since the IETF
stepped away from most technology innovation that is any further away
than what product manager in the big players can foresee to make money
from without a lot of risk. Also Media Labs works on solutions/applications,
which is much easier to sell to venture capital than a lot of strange
alterations to the network infra without any clear linkage to easy money.

> Of course in the proto-IETF, the AD positions were paid, they were
> the ARPA program managers. I can't see going back to that model.

Sure. Its reverted. ADs are now more likely the IETF program
advisor if not manager in their big industry player employer.

> AD selection process is intentionally designed to avoid accountability.

See memos.

Cheers
    Toerless

---

From: Padma Pillay-Esnault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:07:26 -0700

> Long term training has good ROI but I also think the outcome should be a
flexible and flowing process adjusted to current needs rather than a
regimented one which ends up being inadequate for other areas or worse
obsolete very fast because different ADs or areas have different styles.

> I couldn't quite parse that.
There is no one fix for all the documents or all areas even. Depending on
the area technologies, style of work the AD, or his/her background,
defining what is really helpful for the particular document currently is
bound to have variations. Attempts to codify this rigidly is only going to
lead to inefficiency imho. Boils down that delegation to be efficient is a
collaborative process.

Padma

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 08:26:15 +0200

> lead to inefficiency imho. Boils down that delegation to be efficient is a

Thanks!

Definitely no codification because we seem to be far away from any proven
process that works better than how its handled by ADs today. BUt i wonder
if there is any process to accumulate institutional wisdom. Like Ted's
comments re investing into the directorate.

Cheers
    Torless

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 31 Jul 2018 11:37:47 -0400

I've been trying to find something in this message with which I
disagree.  So far, no suck luck.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 11:35:19 -0700

>> you could do a bundle of secure subscriptions with T-shirts to really
>> attract the librarian crowd you're marketing to. They earn less than
>> you do, and so they value free clothing more. Plus, an even weaker
>> sense of what might be considered fashionable.

as i wrote to lloyd privately, i think he vastly overestimates the
sartorial abilities of the average ietf attendee when compared to
that of librarians.

randy

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 15:23:19 -0400

I agree that Lloyd's model is the wrong one. But there is probably a model
that would work if we had someone with a little commercial savvy.

What I would do is to talk to folk like the IEEE and BCS and find out how
they fund themselves. I have not been to the BCS HQ but the other
engineering institutes have palatial buildings in Mayfair and the like.

No, don't charge for RFCs. That would not work. But training and
accreditation could be the right fit if the business could be run so as to
accumulate a sufficiently large float to weather the inevitable downturns.

I used to wonder how we could charge $800/day for training courses to
classes of 16. Then the dotcrash came along and I realized it was because
training companies only last one business cycle and then go bust.

---

From: Toerless Eckert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2018 23:51:29 +0200

ICNA - ISOC Certified Network  Ass..istant 
ICIE - ISOC Certified IPv4, oops: Internet Expert
ICv6 - you get the point

Would be happy to help with that training material.
I once reviewed wonderfull vendor certification training and testing
material on which i was SME, and i was happy to see so many
useful questions such as inquiring the hair color of the third
bit of be ACME field in the FOOBAR protocoll. And the name of
its siblings.

Of course, we need to selling IETF re-branded Red Bull cans as the only
permitted energy drink during training and testing. 

-- 
---
[email-masked]