RE: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
I saw proposals for two pools from which nomcom members might be chosen. I don't think that anyone is proposing that once chosen, there is any distinction between the 10 voting nomcom members. When I was a liaison to nomcom, it seemed to me that the ten voting members acted as peers, with no one knowing, nor caring, whether any particular member had attended 3 IETFs or 50. This ten peers approach should and I expect will continue regardless of how the 10 voting members are chosen. Each nomcom member comes in with their own experiences and personalities. Thus for example one voting member might have more experience with one IETF area, and another might have more experience in a different IETF area. Similarly, some might have management experience in the IETF, some might have management experience inside their employer, and some might have implemented communications protocols. Each can talk from their point of view. In my experience as nomcom liaison it seemed very valuable that some of the nomcom voting members had significant experience in IETF leadership. It also seemed very valuable that all of the voting members appeared to be taking the process very seriously and doing their best to do the right thing (which was also true the one time that I was on a jury - a somewhat similar and also very important process). That being said, However, each needs to listen carefully and then make up their own mind based on their own judgment of what is best for the IETF and for the Internet. That being said, I think that the points idea is interesting. Ross From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Falk Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2010 1:08 AM To: Donald Eastlake Cc: IETF-Discussion list Subject: Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process Hi Donald- You present an interesting idea and I appreciate your desire to avoid a two-class nomcom. If you were to take that approach, I'd suggest allocating points as below: High points (e.g., 10) - served as a working group chair - served on the IESG or IAB Medium points (e.g., 5) - served as a liaison - authored an IETF Stream RFC - shepherded an IETF Stream RFC - served on a directorate or liaison (there are probably others) Low points (e.g., 1 per meeting) - meeting attendance Giving meeting attendance points 1 per meeting without bound seems like a good idea since someone who has attended 20 IETF meetings may be a lot more plugged in than someone who has attended 5 or some of the 'medium points' items. Just a thought, --aaron On 7/30/10 11:23 PM, Donald Eastlake wrote: I can see the desire to have some more experience on the nomcom. However, I am completely opposed to invidious schemes to divide the nomcom voting members into two (or more) classes. And I think the desired results can be obtained without doing so. The current qualification is attendance 3 out of the last 5 meetings but no one notices or cares whether any particular nomcom volunteer attended 3, 4, or 5 meeting. If you want more experienced members, just tighten the attendance criteria a bit but give points for other experience. As an example, set a threshold of 4 or 5 points where you get one for each meeting you attend out of the last six, one point for being on either of the two most recent nomcoms, and one point for having been a working group chair in the past two years. You could even make the probability of selection non-uniform based on points and I'd be willing to modify the code normally used to allow that, but I don't think it would be necessary. This way you will get more experience without the dominance effects of some nomcom members being labeled Senior and some Junior or whatever. Thanks, Donald = Donald E. Eastlake 3rd 155 Beaver Street Milford, MA 01757 USA d3e...@gmail.commailto:d3e...@gmail.com ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.orgmailto:Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Just to add my two cents to this discussion from a (past) noncom chair perpsective, having more experienced IETF participants on the Nomcom helps tremendously. It makes it far easier for the noncom chair and non-voting members (previous nomcom chair and liaisons) to stick to the roles as specified in RFC 3777 in terms of facilitatng and ensuring the integrity of the process and not influencing the decisions of the nomcom. In the end, each voting member gets one vote (using a methodology agreed by the voting members), so the positives of ensuring the nomcom has experienced members far outweigh any perceived negatives in my experience. Thanks, Mary. Dave, John, On 7/24/2010 2:24 PM, John Leslie wrote: How can we impose additional experience requirements on some NomCom members without implying that we want their opinions to be considered better? I've been on 3 Nomcoms. Voting members with experience are typically notable, but those without have yet to show anything I'd call deference or intimidation. On the average, IETF participants are each and all rather independent-minded and painfully unintimidated by folks with extensive experience. During a discussion among members, being able to cite experience when offering an opinion helps, but I haven't seen anything that looked like inherently preferential position because a member has more experience. Decisions still require making a good case for a position. I'll be the IAB's liaison to NomCom this year, but I haven't served on a NomCom previously. You're addressing a concern I had (and I don't think I was the only one) about part of the committee deferring to more experienced participants. I hadn't heard anyone saying not a problem in my experience previously. Good to know. Thank you. Spencer ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Jul 30, 2010, at 3:11 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Just to add my two cents to this discussion from a (past) noncom chair perpsective, having more experienced IETF participants on the Nomcom helps tremendously. It makes it far easier for the noncom chair and non-voting members (previous nomcom chair and liaisons) to stick to the roles as specified in RFC 3777 in terms of facilitatng and ensuring the integrity of the process and not influencing the decisions of the nomcom. In the end, each voting member gets one vote (using a methodology agreed by the voting members), so the positives of ensuring the nomcom has experienced members far outweigh any perceived negatives in my experience. I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. Regards Marshall Thanks, Mary. Dave, John, On 7/24/2010 2:24 PM, John Leslie wrote: How can we impose additional experience requirements on some NomCom members without implying that we want their opinions to be considered better? I've been on 3 Nomcoms. Voting members with experience are typically notable, but those without have yet to show anything I'd call deference or intimidation. On the average, IETF participants are each and all rather independent-minded and painfully unintimidated by folks with extensive experience. During a discussion among members, being able to cite experience when offering an opinion helps, but I haven't seen anything that looked like inherently preferential position because a member has more experience. Decisions still require making a good case for a position. I'll be the IAB's liaison to NomCom this year, but I haven't served on a NomCom previously. You're addressing a concern I had (and I don't think I was the only one) about part of the committee deferring to more experienced participants. I hadn't heard anyone saying not a problem in my experience previously. Good to know. Thank you. Spencer ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On 7/30/2010 9:46 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. As someone who was on last year's Nomcom, and has been on 2 before that, I'd decline the opportunity to be overwhelmed and exhausted in that fashion, two years in a row. If there were some way to make the workload more reasonable, your suggestion could prove useful. So far, no one seems to have floated a proposal that makes Nomcom tolerable as a sustained activity for an on-going set of people. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 03:46:12AM -0400, Marshall Eubanks wrote: I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. A 50% replacement rule would be, in my view, very much preferable to the two-tier version that's been proposed. The original proposal will, in my view, make the Nomcom effectively the domain of the experienced people -- i.e. the elect will just take over, and Nomcom decisions will be whatever those three want (regardless of the best intentions of all the participants). This new proposal will still create a differentiation in the Nomcom, but that differentiation is not based on being the product (either direct or indirect) of previous Nomcoms. This is a change I would support. A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
I also think that a 50% replacement rule - or even a 66% replacement rule would be very useful. The work load is very high, but much of that is gathering knowledge and opinions on the different candidates. Since the candidate set from year to year is not disjoint, I think that the work load for consecutive years would be feasible. One advantage of this is having recent historical knowledge - currently the NomCom must depend upon this from the previous NomCom chair and liasons, which gives added strength from the non-voting members. It may be the case that those NomCom members who are old would wield more influence the second year, but I think that will pull more randomly from the members than having a separate experienced pool. Alia On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:09 AM, Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 03:46:12AM -0400, Marshall Eubanks wrote: I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. A 50% replacement rule would be, in my view, very much preferable to the two-tier version that's been proposed. The original proposal will, in my view, make the Nomcom effectively the domain of the experienced people -- i.e. the elect will just take over, and Nomcom decisions will be whatever those three want (regardless of the best intentions of all the participants). This new proposal will still create a differentiation in the Nomcom, but that differentiation is not based on being the product (either direct or indirect) of previous Nomcoms. This is a change I would support. A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
I do not think it is reasonable to ask people to commit for serving a two year term on nomcom. Some folks have the energy and interest to do so. Wonderful and thank you to them. But given that it is an intense personnel selection process, I do not think expecting two years of service for it is reasonable. Yours, Joel Alia Atlas wrote: I also think that a 50% replacement rule - or even a 66% replacement rule would be very useful. The work load is very high, but much of that is gathering knowledge and opinions on the different candidates. Since the candidate set from year to year is not disjoint, I think that the work load for consecutive years would be feasible. One advantage of this is having recent historical knowledge - currently the NomCom must depend upon this from the previous NomCom chair and liasons, which gives added strength from the non-voting members. It may be the case that those NomCom members who are old would wield more influence the second year, but I think that will pull more randomly from the members than having a separate experienced pool. Alia On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:09 AM, Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 03:46:12AM -0400, Marshall Eubanks wrote: I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. A 50% replacement rule would be, in my view, very much preferable to the two-tier version that's been proposed. The original proposal will, in my view, make the Nomcom effectively the domain of the experienced people -- i.e. the elect will just take over, and Nomcom decisions will be whatever those three want (regardless of the best intentions of all the participants). This new proposal will still create a differentiation in the Nomcom, but that differentiation is not based on being the product (either direct or indirect) of previous Nomcoms. This is a change I would support. A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On 7/30/10 9:46 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: On Jul 30, 2010, at 3:11 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Just to add my two cents to this discussion from a (past) noncom chair perpsective, having more experienced IETF participants on the Nomcom helps tremendously. It makes it far easier for the noncom chair and non-voting members (previous nomcom chair and liaisons) to stick to the roles as specified in RFC 3777 in terms of facilitatng and ensuring the integrity of the process and not influencing the decisions of the nomcom. In the end, each voting member gets one vote (using a methodology agreed by the voting members), so the positives of ensuring the nomcom has experienced members far outweigh any perceived negatives in my experience. I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. I don't think Mary is talking about members with previous nomcom experience but rather more IETF experience. I agree. In fact, why should we have nomcom members with little IETF experience picking our leadership? --aaron ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Correct - I was not specifically referring to folks that previously had been on Nomcom. However, there are certainly folks that had previously served on Nomcom that do volunteer again - last year's Nomcom had a voting member that had been on 3 or 4 other Nomcoms and several others that had been on prior nomcoms. I think the two pool approach might increase the probability of getting folks with past nomcom experience and one thought would be to include folks with past nomcom experience in the first tier pool to increase the chances of such. Mary. On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 6:15 AM, Aaron Falk f...@bbn.com wrote: On 7/30/10 9:46 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: On Jul 30, 2010, at 3:11 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Just to add my two cents to this discussion from a (past) noncom chair perpsective, having more experienced IETF participants on the Nomcom helps tremendously. It makes it far easier for the noncom chair and non-voting members (previous nomcom chair and liaisons) to stick to the roles as specified in RFC 3777 in terms of facilitatng and ensuring the integrity of the process and not influencing the decisions of the nomcom. In the end, each voting member gets one vote (using a methodology agreed by the voting members), so the positives of ensuring the nomcom has experienced members far outweigh any perceived negatives in my experience. I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. I don't think Mary is talking about members with previous nomcom experience but rather more IETF experience. I agree. In fact, why should we have nomcom members with little IETF experience picking our leadership? --aaron ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
At 06:15 AM 7/30/2010, Aaron Falk wrote: On 7/30/10 9:46 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote: On Jul 30, 2010, at 3:11 AM, Mary Barnes wrote: Just to add my two cents to this discussion from a (past) noncom chair perpsective, having more experienced IETF participants on the Nomcom helps tremendously. It makes it far easier for the noncom chair and non-voting members (previous nomcom chair and liaisons) to stick to the roles as specified in RFC 3777 in terms of facilitatng and ensuring the integrity of the process and not influencing the decisions of the nomcom. In the end, each voting member gets one vote (using a methodology agreed by the voting members), so the positives of ensuring the nomcom has experienced members far outweigh any perceived negatives in my experience. I was discussing this with various people yesterday - maybe it would be useful to have a moving average NOMCOM, with a two year term, and 50% replacement each year. Once that was set up, I think that the need for experienced hands would diminish - one year on the NOMCOM seems to be quite a bit of experience. I don't think Mary is talking about members with previous nomcom experience but rather more IETF experience. I agree. In fact, why should we have nomcom members with little IETF experience picking our leadership? I agree completely on this point, even if it means having a 2-tiered system of half the current 3-of-5 meetings, and have (something like) 10-of-15 (or more) meetings. it's a thought (that goes to what Aaron is talking about) James --aaron ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
I can see the desire to have some more experience on the nomcom. However, I am completely opposed to invidious schemes to divide the nomcom voting members into two (or more) classes. And I think the desired results can be obtained without doing so. The current qualification is attendance 3 out of the last 5 meetings but no one notices or cares whether any particular nomcom volunteer attended 3, 4, or 5 meeting. If you want more experienced members, just tighten the attendance criteria a bit but give points for other experience. As an example, set a threshold of 4 or 5 points where you get one for each meeting you attend out of the last six, one point for being on either of the two most recent nomcoms, and one point for having been a working group chair in the past two years. You could even make the probability of selection non-uniform based on points and I'd be willing to modify the code normally used to allow that, but I don't think it would be necessary. This way you will get more experience without the dominance effects of some nomcom members being labeled Senior and some Junior or whatever. Thanks, Donald = Donald E. Eastlake 3rd 155 Beaver Street Milford, MA 01757 USA d3e...@gmail.com ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Hi Donald- You present an interesting idea and I appreciate your desire to avoid a two-class nomcom. If you were to take that approach, I'd suggest allocating points as below: High points (e.g., 10) - served as a working group chair - served on the IESG or IAB Medium points (e.g., 5) - served as a liaison - authored an IETF Stream RFC - shepherded an IETF Stream RFC - served on a directorate or liaison (there are probably others) Low points (e.g., 1 per meeting) - meeting attendance Giving meeting attendance points 1 per meeting without bound seems like a good idea since someone who has attended 20 IETF meetings may be a lot more plugged in than someone who has attended 5 or some of the 'medium points' items. Just a thought, --aaron On 7/30/10 11:23 PM, Donald Eastlake wrote: I can see the desire to have some more experience on the nomcom. However, I am completely opposed to invidious schemes to divide the nomcom voting members into two (or more) classes. And I think the desired results can be obtained without doing so. The current qualification is attendance 3 out of the last 5 meetings but no one notices or cares whether any particular nomcom volunteer attended 3, 4, or 5 meeting. If you want more experienced members, just tighten the attendance criteria a bit but give points for other experience. As an example, set a threshold of 4 or 5 points where you get one for each meeting you attend out of the last six, one point for being on either of the two most recent nomcoms, and one point for having been a working group chair in the past two years. You could even make the probability of selection non-uniform based on points and I'd be willing to modify the code normally used to allow that, but I don't think it would be necessary. This way you will get more experience without the dominance effects of some nomcom members being labeled Senior and some Junior or whatever. Thanks, Donald = Donald E. Eastlake 3rd 155 Beaver Street Milford, MA 01757 USA d3e...@gmail.com mailto:d3e...@gmail.com ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Dave, I have read your proposal. Here's some initial feedback. But I might change my opinion upon further reflection :-) For background, I have never participated in nomcom work, so my experience on that aspect is limited. My comments are structured around your specific recommendations: RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Operations Guide Agree RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Discussion Management Agree. RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion I agree in principle that we need this -- for conflict of interest and for verified breach of rules, for instance. But I fear that implementation is very difficult and itself prone to generating new problems. Obviously verification of a breach of rules might be very difficult. Also, you have not stated the precise rules for conflicts of interest. More worryingly, you wrote later in the text "Reasons for exclusion include, ..., potential for violation of confidentiality, ...". Are you saying that we should exclude nomcom members not merely based on violation of confidentiality rules, but also based on predicted, potential future violations? I hope the text was just sloppily written and that you are not suggesting this, for obvious reasons. RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Tutorials Agree, though I don't see a big need for keeping them closed. RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Expertise Requirement I have very mixed feelings about this. On one hand I believe that such expertise is very useful, but I am also afraid of too much self-selection and conservatism as a result. The IETF has many problems, but one issue that I have been personally worried about is having a sufficient influx of new people. We have some, but in my opinion we should have more. More young people, more new things, more new ways to work. Without this we will all age, not reconsider enough if improvements are needed in our way of working, become stale and gradually lose relevance. Now, nomcom expertise requirements may not have a big impact on these general trends anyway. But I still believe it is important to think outside the box when selecting leaders, and sometimes change and a fresh viewpoint is a good thing (even at the expense of losing some experience). This applies to both nomcom members and, say, IESG members. Do we have evidence that more experienced nomcom works better than an inexperienced one? Are there any downsides to choosing experienced members (fixed opinions on way to do things that might possibly affect candidate selection, for instance)? Unlike almost all other recommendations in the draft, this one does not address a current problem. We are solving a problem that might occur in theory. Maybe that helps us make a decision on what to do here. * RECOMMENDATION -- Confidentiality Agreement Agree. * RECOMMENDATION -- Anonymous Input Agree. * RECOMMENDATION -- Liaison Disclosures Agree. RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring I would prefer to see a weaker rule, such as allowing liaisons to ask to be present in some interviews but not all. RECOMMENDATION -- Etiquette Guide Agree. RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking For the reasons already stated on the list by others, I think this recommendation is problematic. Some more detailed comments: Many participants still are deeply involved in the IETF, but many others are more narrowly focused, with limited IETF involvement. Often they track only one working group and contribute to none of its discussion, writing or leadership. I would like to ask for clarification. Did you mean participants who contribute none to *general IETF discussion* or participants who are in listen-only mode in their only working group? This results in volunteers with potentially less IETF experience, less understanding of IETF culture and less appreciation of the specific strengths (and weaknesses) of the IETF approach to standards development. Instead, they bring their own norms, often including a stronger sense of loyalty to other groups. This is written in a bit of an us-vs-them style. I think the reality is more complicated. We might want a particular outsider group to bring their work to the IETF, for instance. And experience on how well the IETF enables these people to do it would be very valuable in the nomcom. Jari ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
I will respond only to one part of Jari's email, specifically the part about the potential expertise requirement for part of the nomcom. In the past there have been cases where some specific IESG members have been perceived by some members of the community as being a problem. There have also been some cases of perceived friction between areas of the IETF (the issues which I have been aware of in the past have been fixed as of several years ago). There are also of course many cases where various problems (big ones and little ones) in the operation of the IETF have been fixed by various combinations of IETF participants. I would strongly prefer to avoid details. It seems to me that having some personal knowledge of at least some of these cases would be helpful in the task of picking future members of the IETF leadership. Of course experience in the IETF operation is not a guarantee of knowledge of (some of) these cases, and knowledge of past cases is not a guarantee of making perfect selections of candidates in the future (and none of us are perfect, which implies that there is no chance of selecting perfect candidates). However, some experience among some of the nomcom voting members does, in my opinion, significant improve the chances that such past experience will be taken into consideration in the difficult task of choosing between multiple good but imperfect choices for our leadership. I also think that having personal knowledge and experience with how the IETF works is very useful in making choices among the people who have volunteered for IETF leadership positions. I have never been a voting member of nomcom, but was a liaison to nomcom once. The particular nomcom to which I was liaison happened to have some very experienced members, as well as some less experienced members. This was very helpful IMHO. To me Jari's argument of wanting to bring new blood into the process is an argument for why some, and in fact the majority, of nomcom voting members should be chosen without the additional experience requirement proposed in the draft IETF leadership document. This if of course precisely what has been proposed (with only 3 of the 10 voting members requiring this additional experience). Thus I support the expertise requirement proposed in draft-crocker-ietf-nomcom-process. Ross From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Jari Arkko Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 4:25 AM To: dcroc...@bbiw.net Cc: IETF Discussion Subject: Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process Dave, I have read your proposal. Here's some initial feedback. But I might change my opinion upon further reflection :-) For background, I have never participated in nomcom work, so my experience on that aspect is limited. My comments are structured around your specific recommendations: RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Operations Guide Agree RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Discussion Management Agree. RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion I agree in principle that we need this -- for conflict of interest and for verified breach of rules, for instance. But I fear that implementation is very difficult and itself prone to generating new problems. Obviously verification of a breach of rules might be very difficult. Also, you have not stated the precise rules for conflicts of interest. More worryingly, you wrote later in the text Reasons for exclusion include, ..., potential for violation of confidentiality, Are you saying that we should exclude nomcom members not merely based on violation of confidentiality rules, but also based on predicted, potential future violations? I hope the text was just sloppily written and that you are not suggesting this, for obvious reasons. RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Tutorials Agree, though I don't see a big need for keeping them closed. RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Expertise Requirement I have very mixed feelings about this. On one hand I believe that such expertise is very useful, but I am also afraid of too much self-selection and conservatism as a result. The IETF has many problems, but one issue that I have been personally worried about is having a sufficient influx of new people. We have some, but in my opinion we should have more. More young people, more new things, more new ways to work. Without this we will all age, not reconsider enough if improvements are needed in our way of working, become stale and gradually lose relevance. Now, nomcom expertise requirements may not have a big impact on these general trends anyway. But I still believe it is important to think outside the box when selecting leaders, and sometimes change and a fresh viewpoint is a good thing (even at the expense of losing some experience). This applies to both nomcom members and, say, IESG members. Do we have evidence that more experienced nomcom works better than an inexperienced one? Are there any downsides to choosing
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Ross Callon rcal...@juniper.net wrote: In the past there have been cases where some specific IESG members have been perceived by some members of the community as being a problem. I would be amazed if it were otherwise; in fact I'd be surprised if you could name a NomCom where no such case arose... There have also been some cases of perceived friction between areas of the IETF (the issues which I have been aware of in the past have been fixed as of several years ago). IMHO, better tools have helped there... There are also of course many cases where various problems (big ones and little ones) in the operation of the IETF have been fixed by various combinations of IETF participants. I would strongly prefer to avoid details. A NomCom probably _can't_ avoid learning details. :^( It seems to me that having some personal knowledge of at least some of these cases would be helpful in the task of picking future members of the IETF leadership. I don't think that follows. Between any two individuals there _will_ be sources of friction. The NomCom will face an impossible task if they try to analyze all combinations for friction. They should instead seek to learn how candidates _deal_with_ friction. Of course experience in the IETF operation is not a guarantee of knowledge of (some of) these cases, and knowledge of past cases is not a guarantee of making perfect selections of candidates in the future (and none of us are perfect, which implies that there is no chance of selecting perfect candidates). All true... However, some experience among some of the nomcom voting members does, in my opinion, significantly improve the chances that such past experience will be taken into consideration in the difficult task of choosing between multiple good but imperfect choices for our leadership. But which _particular_ experience sets will help? I don't think we can know that. And I've seen many particular experience-sets which instead lead to entrenched beliefs as to how the IESG (e.g.) should operate. Having two such entrenched beliefs on the NomCom is unlikely to help... :^( I also think that having personal knowledge and experience with how the IETF works is very useful in making choices among the people who have volunteered for IETF leadership positions. Following that to its logical conclusion, only IESG members know enough to pick their successors. We have soundly rejected that idea. I have never been a voting member of nomcom, but was a liaison to nomcom once. The particular nomcom to which I was liaison happened to have some very experienced members, as well as some less experienced members. This was very helpful IMHO. You know better than I, but I certainly tend to agree... To me Jari's argument of wanting to bring new blood into the process is an argument for why some, and in fact the majority, of nomcom voting members should be chosen without the additional experience requirement proposed in the draft IETF leadership document. Which, of course, is exactly where we are today... The devil is in the details here. How can we impose additional experience requirements on some NomCom members without implying that we want their opinions to be considered better? -- John Leslie j...@jlc.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Jari, Thanks for the thoughtful comments. With luck, any revisions you make to them won't render the following responses invalid... On 7/24/2010 10:24 AM, Jari Arkko wrote: RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion I agree in principle that we need this -- for conflict of interest and for verified breach of rules, for instance. But I fear that implementation is very difficult As already noted on this thread, there's a continuing danger of having too many rules and attempting too much precision in the rules. (My own comment is that we are a community that shows far more preference for creating detailed rules than for following even simple ones...) The team of folks collaborating on this proposal approached the more interesting topics by riding a pendulum. We would swing back and forth for most issues, especially on the axis of specificity. For the Exclusion discussion, that predictably led to thoughts of all sorts of detailed criteria. (To be fair, most topics had that ride.) Luckily, most of the other folks are pretty reasonable and these debates came down on the side of more simplicity, rather than more and more detailed rules. In this case, simplicity is based on the core fact that exercise of the power to exclude is so daunting, its exercise must be extremely rare and extremely well-founded. Having the rest of Nomcom reverse the chair will be a very big and painful deal. Having it happen more than once on the same Nomcom is likely to be devastating. So the chair is likely to be careful about exercising this authority, exactly as they should be. In the face of those forces, we felt that we could leave the rules simple and basic, and leave the details to the folk on the Nomcom at the time. More worryingly, you wrote later in the text Reasons for exclusion include, ..., potential for violation of confidentiality, Are you saying that we should exclude nomcom members not merely based on violation of confidentiality rules, but also based on predicted, potential future violations? I hope the text was just sloppily written and that you are not suggesting this, for obvious reasons. Exclusion is not meant as punishment. It is only useful for prevention. Waiting until there is a violation -- assuming that the violation can be detected -- doesn't accomplish that. Again, the balancing forces, here, are the need to get a job done and to avoid nasty conflict. Exclusion is an act that tends to work against both of these. (Or rather the second invites failing at the former...) RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Tutorials Agree, though I don't see a big need for keeping them closed. The dominant view on the team was that closed sessions will make frank discussion more likely. There's a difference between getting information in order to make critical decisions, versus having more casual interest in the topic. Having folks sitting in with only a casual interest affects the tone of the discussion. Perhaps a simpler way to think of it is that these sessions are likely to include some interview content with the instructors. Nomcom interviews are private. RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Expertise Requirement I have very mixed feelings about this. On one hand I believe that such expertise is very useful, but I am also afraid of too much self-selection and conservatism as a result. I don't understand what you mean. Making a guess, I'll note that selection of 3 from the second pool was largely based on wanting to avoid having a Nomcom be dominated by the old guard. The IETF has many problems, but one issue that I have been personally worried about is having a sufficient influx of new people. That was specifically the reason the team chose 3 as the number to recommend from the second pool, rather than more. Do we have evidence that more experienced nomcom works better than an inexperienced one? Are there any downsides to choosing experienced members works better would not be language I would choose. The concern is the basis for knowledge, not the style of participation. Without any experience in IETF management processes, one must resort to abstract theory, which might or might not relate well to reality. As the proposal notes, having too little experience among the voting members essentially requires relying too much on the advisers for basic information about how things work. As for downsides, the team certainly worried about requiring too many experienced folk. I'd class the worry as matching yours... Unlike almost all other recommendations in the draft, this one does not address a current problem. Unfortunately, yes it does. Some Nomcoms have suffered from too little experience among voting members. RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring I would prefer to see a weaker rule, such as allowing liaisons to ask to be present in some interviews but not all. You won't be surprised to hear that this was considered among the
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Hi, I'm only going to comment on the suggested changes to the BCP. The other recommendations all seem to be reasonable additions to the general guidance for future Nomcoms. RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion * The Nomcom Chair may selectively exclude any participant from a single Nomcom activity. This action may be overridden by a majority of Nomcom Voting Members. In my own (limited) Nomcom experience I didn't see a case where this would be relevant. In fact, it seems more likely that an individual would tend to dominate *all* discussions, and this rule doesn't allow for exclusion of a member from all activity. However, I guess it does allow for handling a case of clear prejudice for or against a particular candidate. I would suggest building in a bit more check-and-balance by making it * The Nomcom Chair may, after consulting with the previous Nomcom Chair, selectively exclude... RECOMMENDATION -- Selection Pool * There needs to be assurance of a minimum presence of Nomcom voting members who have meaningful knowledge of IETF decision and leadership processes. * Therefore, create a second pool of volunteers who satisfy more stringent Nomcom participation rules. * Volunteers in this 'expertise' pool must have been on the IESG, IAB or IAOC/Trust, or have been a working group chair. These positions require a degree of direct involvement in the process of IETF leadership. * Three (3) volunteers from the 'expertise' pool are selected first. Those who are not selected from that pool are then added to the general pool of volunteers, for the second round of selection. Nomcom is not limited to having only three of its members be experienced. * (Implementation) This is a formal change to Nomcom selection rules, which will require a modification to RFC 3777. I wouldn't seriously object to this proposal, but it doesn't help with a related fundamental problem that we have: asking engineers to select other engineers for managerial (IESG), strategic (IAB) and business/legal (IAOC/Trust) jobs. The problem with putting engineers in such positions is that they tend to do engineering, sometimes known as micro-management. Quite what we can do about this I don't know, but including three engineers in Nomcom who have personal experience of micro-managing isn't going to fix it ;-). RECOMMENDATION -- Confidentiality Agreement * Everyone participating in Nomcom needs to sign a formal Confidentiality Agreement. Good idea. RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring * Liaisons must not sit in on interviews without a specific invitation I do agree that the liaisons have no place in the interview process, but I found this section confusing as to exactly what is proposed as a change to the BCP. Regards Brian Carpenter ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
I suspect I am not the only member of the Oxford Union Society here. However for at least the last hundred years the society has had strict rules against campaigning for office 'Rule 33' and a fairly elaborate system of enforcement (the returning officer has ten deputies to assist in observing and reporting breaches, there are tribunals etc.). None of which has had the slightest impact. In fact the society is generally considered a training ground for politicians precisely because election to any office requires the use of a fairly sophisticated political machine. On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Yoav Nir y...@checkpoint.com wrote: Hi Adrian It depends on the definition of politicking. In this, umm, draft, there's this definition: An organized campaign that seeks selection of a particular nominee So you can't promote Dave all by yourself. You'll have to get a bunch of people sending over-the-top opinions (Dave will save the world as AD. Electing him ensures a cure for cancer and world peace over IPv6). It's this organized effort that gets reported. It is then up to the NomCom to consider this, just like any other piece of information. If they conclude that this is an attempt to sabotage Dave's candidacy, they can choose to ignore it. OTOH they can choose to wonder why Dave generates such animosity, that people go to all this trouble. Of course, if they notice that a dozen people working for the same company send in such opinions about Dave, they may choose to ignore all opinions from that group. You may be right. This is looking more investigative than the NomCom can be expected to do. Yoav On Jul 18, 2010, at 1:58 PM, Adrian Farrel wrote: Hi Dave, I read the Summary (http://www.bbiw.net/specifications/IETF-Nomcom-Process-Summary.html) - timing being short at the moment. Looks mainly very good. In Section 5.2 I find... RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking - Any evidence of politicking should be reported to Nomcom and should be treated as a significant, negative factor when considering the nominee who is intended to benefit from the politicking. It may be that my mind is unnecessarily devious, but it seems to me that this assumes that either no-one will execute a bluff, or that Nomcom will detect it. That is, if I wish to ensure that Dave Crocker does not become the next Foo Area Director, I could engineer a campaign of lobbying in his support. According to your recommendation, this would have a significant negative impact. IMHO, the actions of others have absolutely zero relevance to the competence of an individual performing their IETF management tasks. NomCom should consider only material facts (positive or negative) and should not be distracted by any politicking or lobbying. I note that this is probably a simplistic statement since the line between sending your fair and honest opinion that Dave would be good or bad as the Foo AD can only truly be construed as not lobbying if you are entirely unconcerned as to whether the final selection matches your own preferences and opinions. It may also make a difference if it is the candidate who is organising or instigating the lobbying on his own behalf. But determining this is likely to require some form of court! So perhaps it is best to simply stick to the candidates' competences, and to interviews advised by feedback from the community. Cheers, Adrian - Original Message - From: Dave CROCKER d...@dcrocker.net To: IETF Discussion ietf@ietf.org Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:48 PM Subject: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process Folks, Nomcom has been an integral part of the IETF for nearly 20 years. A number of us have been developing a set of recommendations designed to adapt the Nomcom process to better match current realities of the IETF community. The draft has progressed far enough to call for public consideration. Some of the proposal's recommendations require no changes in formal rules. They can be adopted immediately, possibly by the current Nomcom, should it so choose. Others require a formal development and approval cycle. At: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 there is a copy of the Full Proposal, and a Summary which primarily contains just the recommendations. The proposal's Abstract is: Every year the IETF's Nominating Committee (Nomcom) reviews and selects half of the IETF's leadership on the IESG, IAB and IAOC/Trust. In the 18 years since the inception of the Nomcom process, the Internet industry and the IETF have gone through many changes in funding, participation and focus, but not in the basic formation, structure or operation of Nomcom. This paper explores challenges that have emerged in the conduct of Nomcom activities, particularly due to changing IETF demographics. The paper reviews the nature, causes and consequences of these challenges, and proposes a number
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Looking at the numbers, and trying to estimate (because there are not clear records to make it easy to verify whether person X has ever been a WG chair, what I found was that typically, about 40% of the pool was experienced by the conditions we were using. Assuming 100 volunteers (which has been about the rate recently), while this gives an expected value of 4 experienced members, it gave a significant probability of 1 or 2 experienced members. Conversely, with that same base, if one had a minimum of 4 experience members, since that removed only 4 people from the pool, it meant that the expected value would become about 6.4 experienced members, with a very high probability of getting 7 experienced members. I at least, and I believe others, felt this was too close to packing the committee. The goal is not to give experienced people control, but to make sure that there are enough experienced participants to inform the process. Hence, after debating, we settled on 3 for the first draw. This gives obviously a minimum of 3, and an expected value of almost 5.8, with a corresponding reduction in the odds of getting 7 or more experienced members. In some ways this still seemed to me to be uncomfortably high. But the other concern was that if we ever actually got a good turnout for the pool, such that experienced volunteers made up only 15 or 20 percent of the pool, the three minimum would still ensure that there were 3 experienced people on the committee. (The most inexperienced committee on record, as far as we could tell, occurred when we had a very good turnout for the nomcom volunteer pool, something I at least really appreciate, and not an especially high turnout of experienced people.) Yours, Joel M. Halpern PS: When we updated the nomcom eligibility for 2 out of 3 to 34 out of 5, there was much discussion of what the right balance was. The concern at the time, which I share, is that if we increase the window too much, folks who are not currently involved, but are coming back, would be eligible. And it seemed to the working group that it was important that folks experience be relatively recent. If the attendance condition has any meaning, someone who has skipped the last 5 meetings would seem to be lacking in currency. (It can be argued that the attendance condition doesn't work, but that is a very different debate.) Lixia Zhang wrote: On Jul 18, 2010, at 2:06 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote: Lixia, On 7/18/2010 1:14 PM, Lixia Zhang wrote: The comment: I support the idea of having a second 'expertise' pool of volunteers, but I wonder where comes this suggestion of selecting *3* members from this pool. A few random questions: - Do we know what is this number for the last several NOMCOMs? The last two Nomcom Chairs were part of the design team for the proposal. As I recall, Joel actually ran some of these kinds of numbers. I don't remember the details he produced, but they were part of our consideration and we definitely all haggled quite a bit about the number to recommend. If Joel already got the numbers, it seems useful to know. What about my other question, what percentage of volunteers over the last few years that would fall into this second pool? This would help understand the feasibility of the idea (i.e. the 2nd pool still needs to be large enough) There was a remarkable amount of support for 3, bordering on unanimity. (Exercise to the reader: take a guess who was the odd one out...) The reason for preferring 3 was balancing a desire to ensure a /minimum/ level of knowledge but also to limit the amouont of /dominance/ of old-timers. So the feeling was that two was not enough to meet the minimum, but requiring four would start feeling like dominance among the voting members. four is still less than half of voting members, not dominance? Take into account the fact that many people probably do not attend all IETF meetings, as a strawman for a longer IETF experience, what about attending 5 of the last 8 or 10 meetings? Speaking only for myself, I'll say that it's quite easy to go to many IETF meetings, but never learn anything about IETF process. the above statement applies in general, independent from the NOMCOM eligibility criteria. When someone has the responsibility for choosing the people who manage the process, we ought to focus on ensuring that level of knowledge. Hence the second pool. and I support the second pool idea I've been on 3 Nomcoms. Some of the folk who did not know much IETF process were nonetheless very strong contributors. Some weren't. The key argument for retaining this less experienced criterion is that it tends to add some fresh perspective (along with the naivete... so it's a mixed benefit.) - definitely people can all be strong contributors, with or without much IETF knowledge. - I think an effective NOMCOM does require some minimal IETF knowledge from its members. - fresh blood is
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 02:06:33PM -0700, Dave CROCKER wrote: Speaking only for myself, I'll say that it's quite easy to go to many IETF meetings, but never learn anything about IETF process. When someone has the responsibility for choosing the people who manage the process, we ought to focus on ensuring that level of knowledge. Hence the second pool. I read the draft very quickly, and haven't absorbed it, but I have grave doubts about the premise above, which seems to be very important in justifying much of the additional process being proposed. To begin with, I have doubts that people who really haven't learned _anything_ about IETF process are going to be the ones who volunteer for Nomcom. They might not have the background that someone who has been involved since IETF 1 does. On the other hand, they're not likely to hanker for the old days of a teeny club where everyone knew every area, either. Second, let us suppose that we do eventually get a Nomcom that is in fact completely ignorant in the way the document suggests is possible (noting, of course, that it has actually never happened, and so we're fixing a theoretical problem). Why is that a disaster? It's not like the entire leadership of the IETF is replaced by a given Nomcom. In the worst case, what will happen is that we have a bad year. But there is nothing about the involvement of long-term participants that guarantees a non-bad year. They've in fact happened when we did not have a naive Nomcom. Moreover, perhaps such a Nomcom will cause more feedback to the Nomcom, as nervous experienced IETF participants realise that things they consider important are just not even things to think about for the Nomcom members. I think there are two things at work that undergird this proposal, and many of the other IETF process discussions I've observed. First of all, as protocol geeks we are prone to see any sub-optimal outcome as something that just needs better protocol design, so we are tempted to try to come up with a better specification. Moreover, a large number of IETF participants come from a culture founded around a written constitution, and so the assumption that more specific written rules is a natural one. I believe, however, that these process discussions are mostly harmful to the IETF. They lead to larger numbers of increasingly specific rules that later turn out to need exceptions, which exceptions cause another convulsion of the IETF consensus-forging machinery. Moreover, I think endless talk about how one operates is bad for any organization. (I grew up in Canada, and starting in the 1960s and extending well into the 1990s, we spent almost all our political energy talking about the Constitution.) Despite the claim in the draft that there are serious problems affecting the operation of Nomcoms, I'm not seeing what they are. The report from the 2009 chair suggested that there were some things that happened that made some people uncomfortable (and that's the only citation for the serious problems claim), but every one of them seemed to be addressable by action by the chair. We don't need more rules for this: we need the chair to do that work, as he or she apparently does year after year. In short, I don't think it is true that there is anything wrong with the current (admittedly low) experience requirements for the Nomcom, I don't see any evidence that someone more schooled in the ways of the IETF will necessarily benefit the Nomcom, and I don't see the evidence that the Nomcom needs more rules anyway. I also think that more process discussion is harmful to the IETF, and therefore I don't think this draft should be pursued. This is not to denigrate the contributions of the people who undertook it in the first place; but having uncovered that the arguments for more rules are weak, we should conclude that more work is not needed and stop doing the work, in exactly the way we would if we discovered that more protocol work would not help. Best regards, Andrew -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Andrew Sullivan wrote: To begin with, I have doubts that people who really haven't learned _anything_ about IETF process are going to be the ones who volunteer for Nomcom. I have no doubts about that. A NomCom position is often considered a leadership position by one's sponsor or manager -- it is, after all, an HR job. To get into other leadership positions in the IETF, one has to build up reputation over time, and then be selected for it. To get a NomCom position, one need only volunteer, and -- these days, with 100 volunteers -- one has a 10% chance, more or less, of getting it. If one is in an organization that considers it a feather in one's cap to be on the NomCom, you'd better believe that one will volunteer, whether or not you think that's a bad thing. And to be clear, here, again: none of us think it's a bad thing to have some inexperienced people on the NomCom. We just think it's a good thing to ensure some critical mass of experienced ones, and we had a desire to be restrained about pushing the level of that critical mass. Second, let us suppose that we do eventually get a Nomcom that is in fact completely ignorant [...] Why is that a disaster? It's not like the entire leadership of the IETF is replaced by a given Nomcom. Without trying to define disaster, I'll remind you that, while the NomCom is not replacing the *entire* leadership, it is selecting *half* the leadership (and the overall char, in alternate years). That's a lot. And each of those appointees is in for two years, barring such severe problems as to cause a recall -- a very expensive and disruptive process that we'd like to avoid. It would certainly be, if not a disaster, decidedly difficult and disruptive to have one of the two ADs from each of, say, three or four area... be poorly suited to the job. The same goes for the IETF general chair. There's no guarantee that a NomCom with enough experienced people will not choose some poorly suited persons for leadership roles, but we think it's unlikely for such a NomCom to go *too* far wrong with too many of their selections. Despite the claim in the draft that there are serious problems affecting the operation of Nomcoms, I'm not seeing what they are. The report from the 2009 chair suggested that there were some things that happened that made some people uncomfortable (and that's the only citation for the serious problems claim), but every one of them seemed to be addressable by action by the chair. The selection process is, of course, not controlled by the NomCom chair, so the part above is not addressable by the chair. Some of the uncomfortable bits apparently involved people being unwilling to be candid because one particular liaison or other was in the room. That's addressed by another of our recommendations, which gives the chair a way to address that, which s/he doesn't have now. In general, the document suggests a combination of minor process changes and suggestions that can be implemented at the will of the NomCom. Remember that the chair can't decide what the NomCom as a whole will do. The chair runs the *process*, and facilitates the meetings. The voting members are who make the decisions. Lots of people have lots of ideas about how we ought to change the NomCom process, putting more rules in or fewer. This document represents the consensus of a relatively small but significant and experienced group of people... about a minimal set of changes that we think are important. We're not proposing vast changes and cumbersome new processes. We're going for simplicity, in order to address some of the points of most concern. Barry Leiba ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:42:00AM -0400, Barry Leiba wrote: I have no doubts about that. A NomCom position is often considered a leadership position by one's sponsor or manager -- it is, after all, an HR job. To get into other leadership positions in the IETF, one has to build up reputation over time, and then be selected for it. To get a NomCom position, one need only volunteer, and -- these days, with 100 volunteers -- one has a 10% chance, more or less, of getting it. This sounds to me like a claim that there are organizations out there that are measuring one's career progress in terms of getting leadership positions in the IETF. Is the real worry here that the IETF is gradually being taken over by professional standards people as opposed to those who happen to be working on standards as a side effect of the real work they're doing? If so, I confess that I think this is so much windmill-tilting. The Internet is a much more mature technology than it once was, and therefore much greater conservatism creeps in. With such conservatism naturally comes additional specialization, which means that there will be increased involvement from a kind of specialist standardizer that was historically in the minority. I doubt we can really prevent this happening if, as you say, there are workplaces out there where getting a position on the Nomcom is an important career milestone. As an aside, I'll note that IETF activities were always regarded in any job I had (including the present) as a kind of side project, tangential to the main tasks (i.e. the ones that actually make the employer money). From experience in attempting to wring reviews and updated I-D text out of working group participants, I'd say that the same is mostly true of other IETF participants in the DNSEXT WG. Whether DNS is unusual in this regard, I don't know. general chair. There's no guarantee that a NomCom with enough experienced people will not choose some poorly suited persons for leadership roles, but we think it's unlikely for such a NomCom to go *too* far wrong with too many of their selections. I've heard this off-list, too. I want evidence. In my opinion, some past Nomcoms made some clanger bad decisions. (I'm sure we all have our favourite examples.) On what basis would we say that it would have turned out worse or better had the Nomcom been constituted differently? Even supposing that the semantics of counterfactuals were the sort of thing about which everyone agreed, there are so many variables that I'm not even sure where to start telling the alternate-universe story. It is entirely natural, I think, that people who have experience with the IETF think that their insights into how the IETF works will necessarily lead to better leadership selection. I also believe that my observations of the past would be helpful in making the right decisions in the future. In point of fact, however, I make bad decisions all the time. Maybe I'm just especially bad a this sort of thing, and others are more likely to apply correctly the lessons they've learned. In addition, there are surely going to be second-order effects of dividing the Nomcom into two classes. Once someone is designated as one of the experienced seats, won't it be natural for that person to start dismissing objections from the less experienced as simply the foolish objections of the naive? (Anyone even casually acquainted with the operation of any university department will be familiar with this effect.) Moreover, if the goal is to dilute the influence of the professional IETF wonk (see above), this policy will have the opposite effect: it will encourage people to do more of the things to meet the checklist for being experienced, thereby pervesely actually undermining the absorbtion of IETF culture (whatever that is). Indeed, it will make marks of experience more valuable, which means that it will have the effect of _encouraging_ people to run for office. The latter seems to be another thing the draft is aiming at preventing, and this plan will make the aim even harder to achieve. More rules -- even simple ones -- are always a greater favour to bureaucrats and professional wonks than to everyone else. Sometimes (even often), that cost is worth paying. But I am not convinced even a little that it is worth it in this case. A -- Andrew Sullivan a...@shinkuro.com Shinkuro, Inc. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Hi Dave, I read the Summary (http://www.bbiw.net/specifications/IETF-Nomcom-Process-Summary.html) - timing being short at the moment. Looks mainly very good. In Section 5.2 I find... RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking - Any evidence of politicking should be reported to Nomcom and should be treated as a significant, negative factor when considering the nominee who is intended to benefit from the politicking. It may be that my mind is unnecessarily devious, but it seems to me that this assumes that either no-one will execute a bluff, or that Nomcom will detect it. That is, if I wish to ensure that Dave Crocker does not become the next Foo Area Director, I could engineer a campaign of lobbying in his support. According to your recommendation, this would have a significant negative impact. IMHO, the actions of others have absolutely zero relevance to the competence of an individual performing their IETF management tasks. NomCom should consider only material facts (positive or negative) and should not be distracted by any politicking or lobbying. I note that this is probably a simplistic statement since the line between sending your fair and honest opinion that Dave would be good or bad as the Foo AD can only truly be construed as not lobbying if you are entirely unconcerned as to whether the final selection matches your own preferences and opinions. It may also make a difference if it is the candidate who is organising or instigating the lobbying on his own behalf. But determining this is likely to require some form of court! So perhaps it is best to simply stick to the candidates' competences, and to interviews advised by feedback from the community. Cheers, Adrian - Original Message - From: Dave CROCKER d...@dcrocker.net To: IETF Discussion ietf@ietf.org Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:48 PM Subject: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process Folks, Nomcom has been an integral part of the IETF for nearly 20 years. A number of us have been developing a set of recommendations designed to adapt the Nomcom process to better match current realities of the IETF community. The draft has progressed far enough to call for public consideration. Some of the proposal's recommendations require no changes in formal rules. They can be adopted immediately, possibly by the current Nomcom, should it so choose. Others require a formal development and approval cycle. At: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 there is a copy of the Full Proposal, and a Summary which primarily contains just the recommendations. The proposal's Abstract is: Every year the IETF's Nominating Committee (Nomcom) reviews and selects half of the IETF's leadership on the IESG, IAB and IAOC/Trust. In the 18 years since the inception of the Nomcom process, the Internet industry and the IETF have gone through many changes in funding, participation and focus, but not in the basic formation, structure or operation of Nomcom. This paper explores challenges that have emerged in the conduct of Nomcom activities, particularly due to changing IETF demographics. The paper reviews the nature, causes and consequences of these challenges, and proposes a number of specific changes. The changes provide better communication of Nomcom institutional memory, enhance Nomcom membership expertise, and produce stronger confidentiality and etiquette practices among Nomcom participants. Some changes require formal modification to Nomcom rules; others can be adopted immediately. Please feel free to discuss the proposal with any of the authors or folks listed in the Acknowledgments section, or on this list. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Hi Adrian It depends on the definition of politicking. In this, umm, draft, there's this definition: An organized campaign that seeks selection of a particular nominee So you can't promote Dave all by yourself. You'll have to get a bunch of people sending over-the-top opinions (Dave will save the world as AD. Electing him ensures a cure for cancer and world peace over IPv6). It's this organized effort that gets reported. It is then up to the NomCom to consider this, just like any other piece of information. If they conclude that this is an attempt to sabotage Dave's candidacy, they can choose to ignore it. OTOH they can choose to wonder why Dave generates such animosity, that people go to all this trouble. Of course, if they notice that a dozen people working for the same company send in such opinions about Dave, they may choose to ignore all opinions from that group. You may be right. This is looking more investigative than the NomCom can be expected to do. Yoav On Jul 18, 2010, at 1:58 PM, Adrian Farrel wrote: Hi Dave, I read the Summary (http://www.bbiw.net/specifications/IETF-Nomcom-Process-Summary.html) - timing being short at the moment. Looks mainly very good. In Section 5.2 I find... RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking - Any evidence of politicking should be reported to Nomcom and should be treated as a significant, negative factor when considering the nominee who is intended to benefit from the politicking. It may be that my mind is unnecessarily devious, but it seems to me that this assumes that either no-one will execute a bluff, or that Nomcom will detect it. That is, if I wish to ensure that Dave Crocker does not become the next Foo Area Director, I could engineer a campaign of lobbying in his support. According to your recommendation, this would have a significant negative impact. IMHO, the actions of others have absolutely zero relevance to the competence of an individual performing their IETF management tasks. NomCom should consider only material facts (positive or negative) and should not be distracted by any politicking or lobbying. I note that this is probably a simplistic statement since the line between sending your fair and honest opinion that Dave would be good or bad as the Foo AD can only truly be construed as not lobbying if you are entirely unconcerned as to whether the final selection matches your own preferences and opinions. It may also make a difference if it is the candidate who is organising or instigating the lobbying on his own behalf. But determining this is likely to require some form of court! So perhaps it is best to simply stick to the candidates' competences, and to interviews advised by feedback from the community. Cheers, Adrian - Original Message - From: Dave CROCKER d...@dcrocker.net To: IETF Discussion ietf@ietf.org Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:48 PM Subject: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process Folks, Nomcom has been an integral part of the IETF for nearly 20 years. A number of us have been developing a set of recommendations designed to adapt the Nomcom process to better match current realities of the IETF community. The draft has progressed far enough to call for public consideration. Some of the proposal's recommendations require no changes in formal rules. They can be adopted immediately, possibly by the current Nomcom, should it so choose. Others require a formal development and approval cycle. At: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 there is a copy of the Full Proposal, and a Summary which primarily contains just the recommendations. The proposal's Abstract is: Every year the IETF's Nominating Committee (Nomcom) reviews and selects half of the IETF's leadership on the IESG, IAB and IAOC/Trust. In the 18 years since the inception of the Nomcom process, the Internet industry and the IETF have gone through many changes in funding, participation and focus, but not in the basic formation, structure or operation of Nomcom. This paper explores challenges that have emerged in the conduct of Nomcom activities, particularly due to changing IETF demographics. The paper reviews the nature, causes and consequences of these challenges, and proposes a number of specific changes. The changes provide better communication of Nomcom institutional memory, enhance Nomcom membership expertise, and produce stronger confidentiality and etiquette practices among Nomcom participants. Some changes require formal modification to Nomcom rules; others can be adopted immediately. Please feel free to discuss the proposal with any of the authors or folks listed in the Acknowledgments section, or on this list. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On 7/18/2010 8:27 AM, Yoav Nir wrote: Of course, if they notice that a dozen people working for the same company send in such opinions about Dave, they may choose to ignore all opinions from that group. You may be right. This is looking more investigative than the NomCom can be expected to do. In two notes, I think you guys have replicated some weeks of our discussion. We wandered pretty widely, looking for ways to discover and control all sorts of politicking, very precisely. In the end, we reached the same conclusion about effort and difficulties that you did. (We even got to the point of distinguishing competent politicking from incompetent, essentially distinguishing between cumbersome and blatant politicking from possibly subtle and clever forms.) In particular, I think the deciding factor in our discussions was refraining from adding a burden of more effort to Nomcom. That's why this recommendation is quite basic, rather than trying to be precise and definitive. As engineers, we like to prescribe behaviors. For this realm, the best we can reasonably do is simply to make the concerns and expectations crystal clear, with guidance about the repercussions. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Jul 17, 2010, at 8:48 AM, Dave CROCKER wrote: Folks, Nomcom has been an integral part of the IETF for nearly 20 years. A number of us have been developing a set of recommendations designed to adapt the Nomcom process to better match current realities of the IETF community. The draft has progressed far enough to call for public consideration. Some of the proposal's recommendations require no changes in formal rules. They can be adopted immediately, possibly by the current Nomcom, should it so choose. Others require a formal development and approval cycle. At: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 there is a copy of the Full Proposal, and a Summary which primarily contains just the recommendations. .. Please feel free to discuss the proposal with any of the authors or folks listed in the Acknowledgments section, or on this list. I read the summary version of it: seems to me a timely effort in improving our process. it'd be great if we could do this for next nomcom:) One comment, then one new suggestion for you to consider. The comment: I support the idea of having a second 'expertise' pool of volunteers, but I wonder where comes this suggestion of selecting *3* members from this pool. A few random questions: - Do we know what is this number for the last several NOMCOMs? - Assuming ISOC keeps the records of NOMCOM volunteers over time: what percentage of volunteers that would fall into this second pool? - Did this number 3 come from a rough expectation on how many NOMCOM members should have this direct involvement in the process of IETF leadership (IAB/IESG/WG chair)? e.g. say you expect total 5 people with experience, you pick 3 from 2nd pool first, then expect 2 more from the bigger pool ... Personally I feel (1) there should be a expected low threshold of NOMCOM member with this direct IETF leadership experience, and (2)this threshold should be higher than 3. Now the suggestion: Since some of the suggested enhancements would require modifications to 3777, I'd like to bring up another thought I've had for a long time: the current NOMCOM eligibility requirement (3 of the last 5 IETF meetings) seems a bit low, I feel that a longer experience with IETF process than 2 years (as minimum) requirement could help NOMCOM's decision process, as IETF is already over 24 years old now with a pretty long and rich history. Take into account the fact that many people probably do not attend all IETF meetings, as a strawman for a longer IETF experience, what about attending 5 of the last 8 or 10 meetings? that's all for now, and thanks to all for doing this important work! Lixia ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Lixia, On 7/18/2010 1:14 PM, Lixia Zhang wrote: The comment: I support the idea of having a second 'expertise' pool of volunteers, but I wonder where comes this suggestion of selecting *3* members from this pool. A few random questions: - Do we know what is this number for the last several NOMCOMs? The last two Nomcom Chairs were part of the design team for the proposal. As I recall, Joel actually ran some of these kinds of numbers. I don't remember the details he produced, but they were part of our consideration and we definitely all haggled quite a bit about the number to recommend. There was a remarkable amount of support for 3, bordering on unanimity. (Exercise to the reader: take a guess who was the odd one out...) The reason for preferring 3 was balancing a desire to ensure a /minimum/ level of knowledge but also to limit the amouont of /dominance/ of old-timers. So the feeling was that two was not enough to meet the minimum, but requiring four would start feeling like dominance among the voting members. (Note that the current proposal still allows four or more, but only through the statistical selection process, not as a mandate.) Take into account the fact that many people probably do not attend all IETF meetings, as a strawman for a longer IETF experience, what about attending 5 of the last 8 or 10 meetings? Speaking only for myself, I'll say that it's quite easy to go to many IETF meetings, but never learn anything about IETF process. When someone has the responsibility for choosing the people who manage the process, we ought to focus on ensuring that level of knowledge. Hence the second pool. I've been on 3 Nomcoms. Some of the folk who did not know much IETF process were nonetheless very strong contributors. Some weren't. The key argument for retaining this less experienced criterion is that it tends to add some fresh perspective (along with the naivete... so it's a mixed benefit.) d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Jul 18, 2010, at 2:06 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote: Speaking only for myself, I'll say that it's quite easy to go to many IETF meetings, but never learn anything about IETF process. When someone has the responsibility for choosing the people who manage the process, we ought to focus on ensuring that level of knowledge. Hence the second pool. A general thought: Generally speaking, I think people fall into broad classes - those who have followed a mailing list, those who have followed a mailing list and shown up for meetings, those who have written an internet draft, those who have pushed one through to RFC, those who have chaired a working group, and those who have served in some capacity on the I*. There might be another class. But those general groups, in sequence, will have a monotonically increasing experience with the processes and with the performance of people that are in those groups - someone who has pushed an ID through a working group probably has a better educated view of the chair than someone who has simply sat in the audience, and so on. Not sure I want to be prescriptive about this, but the people I would expect to be targeting to get into a given role in leadership would be a person at the next lower rung - obvious working group chair candidates are people who are writing drafts and have some other characteristics, and obvious AD candidates might be working group chairs. People selecting them would be people of a comparable level of experience. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On 7/18/2010 5:00 PM, Fred Baker wrote: But those general groups, in sequence, will have a monotonically increasing experience with the processes and with the performance of people that are in those groups - someone who has pushed an ID through a working group probably has a better educated view of the chair than someone who has simply sat in the audience, and so on. Nomcom chooses ADs, IETF Chair, IAB members and IAOC/Trust members, not working group chairs. So perhaps I've missed your point. Also, a typical author actually gets a very restricted view of the larger IETF management processes. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On Jul 18, 2010, at 2:06 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote: Lixia, On 7/18/2010 1:14 PM, Lixia Zhang wrote: The comment: I support the idea of having a second 'expertise' pool of volunteers, but I wonder where comes this suggestion of selecting *3* members from this pool. A few random questions: - Do we know what is this number for the last several NOMCOMs? The last two Nomcom Chairs were part of the design team for the proposal. As I recall, Joel actually ran some of these kinds of numbers. I don't remember the details he produced, but they were part of our consideration and we definitely all haggled quite a bit about the number to recommend. If Joel already got the numbers, it seems useful to know. What about my other question, what percentage of volunteers over the last few years that would fall into this second pool? This would help understand the feasibility of the idea (i.e. the 2nd pool still needs to be large enough) There was a remarkable amount of support for 3, bordering on unanimity. (Exercise to the reader: take a guess who was the odd one out...) The reason for preferring 3 was balancing a desire to ensure a /minimum/ level of knowledge but also to limit the amouont of /dominance/ of old-timers. So the feeling was that two was not enough to meet the minimum, but requiring four would start feeling like dominance among the voting members. four is still less than half of voting members, not dominance? Take into account the fact that many people probably do not attend all IETF meetings, as a strawman for a longer IETF experience, what about attending 5 of the last 8 or 10 meetings? Speaking only for myself, I'll say that it's quite easy to go to many IETF meetings, but never learn anything about IETF process. the above statement applies in general, independent from the NOMCOM eligibility criteria. When someone has the responsibility for choosing the people who manage the process, we ought to focus on ensuring that level of knowledge. Hence the second pool. and I support the second pool idea I've been on 3 Nomcoms. Some of the folk who did not know much IETF process were nonetheless very strong contributors. Some weren't. The key argument for retaining this less experienced criterion is that it tends to add some fresh perspective (along with the naivete... so it's a mixed benefit.) - definitely people can all be strong contributors, with or without much IETF knowledge. - I think an effective NOMCOM does require some minimal IETF knowledge from its members. - fresh blood is always important. Even 5 out of last 8 meetings allows one with just 2-year IETF experience. Lixia ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Folks, Nomcom has been an integral part of the IETF for nearly 20 years. A number of us have been developing a set of recommendations designed to adapt the Nomcom process to better match current realities of the IETF community. The draft has progressed far enough to call for public consideration. Some of the proposal's recommendations require no changes in formal rules. They can be adopted immediately, possibly by the current Nomcom, should it so choose. Others require a formal development and approval cycle. At: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 there is a copy of the Full Proposal, and a Summary which primarily contains just the recommendations. The proposal's Abstract is: Every year the IETF's Nominating Committee (Nomcom) reviews and selects half of the IETF's leadership on the IESG, IAB and IAOC/Trust. In the 18 years since the inception of the Nomcom process, the Internet industry and the IETF have gone through many changes in funding, participation and focus, but not in the basic formation, structure or operation of Nomcom. This paper explores challenges that have emerged in the conduct of Nomcom activities, particularly due to changing IETF demographics. The paper reviews the nature, causes and consequences of these challenges, and proposes a number of specific changes. The changes provide better communication of Nomcom institutional memory, enhance Nomcom membership expertise, and produce stronger confidentiality and etiquette practices among Nomcom participants. Some changes require formal modification to Nomcom rules; others can be adopted immediately. Please feel free to discuss the proposal with any of the authors or folks listed in the Acknowledgments section, or on this list. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On 2010-07-18 03:48, Dave CROCKER wrote: ... At: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 there is a copy of the Full Proposal, and a Summary which primarily contains just the recommendations. Um, we have this new system called Internet-Drafts, whereby proposals are issued by a certain cutoff date so that people have a chance to read them before a meeting. Did you consider using that system? Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
Brian, it wasn't ready. Are you trying to say something beyond asking why it wasn't submitted as a draft? I don't understand the subtext. Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
On 7/17/2010 1:49 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote: http://www.bbiw.net/recent.html#nomcom2010 ... Um, we have this new system called Internet-Drafts, ... Brian, There is? Good to know. I'll try to use it for the next version.[*] And now that we've traded the requisite sarcasm... As Scott noted, I circulated it as soon as it was stable. For example, last night I got a review comment that greatly improved the clarity of the text for a recommendation. This proposal covers a difficult topic, with a problematic history. Deciding when to offer it for public discussion was its own challenge. Although the substantial list of contributors to the proposal embody deep IETF history, it is currently only an unofficial activity. It's not on any agendas, except some of our personal ones. The goal is hallway discussion. If you are pressed for time, please scan the Summary version. That's what it's there for. d/ [*] FYI, the I-D submission tool happens to currently enforce a hard limit at the number of authors, contrary to the RFC Editor's suggested limit. I'm told that the tool will get fixed eventually, but I thought it worth mentioning the added hassle of using the tool that you might not have known about. I discovered the limit in the usual fashion, for this document. -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
