Re: [Eligibility-discuss] Virtual BoF for draft-moonesamy-recall-rev

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Suresh (and Alexey and Warren),

It seems to me that there are two, quite different, possible BOF
proposals and that the community could use a little guidance
from the three of you about what the IESG is looking for.

One is the result of the direction in which Subramanian seems to
be heading and that reflects the actual content of
draft-moonesamy-recall-rev.  That is a very narrow set of
changes to fine-tune the existing recall procedure to allow a
set of people who do not meet the "Nomcom eligibility"
requirement because they do not attend sufficient f2f meeting no
matter how active they are in the IETF, to reduce the number of
signatures required to initiate a recall because the current
number is seen as burdensome (especially for people who can't
collect them by, e.g., passing a sheet of paper around at a
plenary), and by allowing people in the leadership to initiate
recall efforts (not only for the bodies on which they sit but
for other bodies).  The latter, which has almost nothing to do
with remote participants, could easily be dropped if there was
no support for it but I note that, draft-rescorla-istar-recall
is largely orthogonal to the change proposed in the present
draft: even if it were adopted, the proposed change would still
be worth careful consideration for cases in which, e.g., the
IESG felt there was a serious problem in the LLC Board.  The
proposal doesn't "fix" the recall procedure, it merely tunes its
first step a bit.

My personal opinion is that, if the scope is as narrow as the
"fine-tune the recall procedure in that way" implied above, a
BOF, virtual or otherwise, would be a waste of time -- there has
already been enough discussion to indicate community interest
and we should move forward to discussing the draft (and not
procedures for doing so).  If you are convinced that needs a
short-lived WG to, e.g., avoid getting sidetracked, we should be
working on a charter for that WG with the expectation that its
approval will be expedited, not going through an elaborate set
of rituals that are not required by IETF procedures.  On the
other hand, if you are convinced that a quick virtual BOF would
be helpful, let's get on with it.

At the other extreme, perhaps the posting of this draft has
convinced the IESG that it is time to open up the entire
candidate selection and removal process and review it.  That
would (or at least might) include the nomcom eligibility
criteria; questions about whether the nomcom model itself is
appropriate in a contemporary IETF for which the implied
assumption that most of the nomcom members would have personal
knowledge of most of the candidates is no longer valid;
questions of term lengths, limits (or preferences), and
incumbent preferences; questions of whether, as the number of
bodies and slots for which the nomcom is expected to make
appointments has risen, having a single body do all of that work
in a single cycle is still appropriate; examination of whether,
in the environment of the IETF LLC having the ISOC President and
CEO appoint the Nomcom (and Recall Committee) chairs is still
appropriate both practically and from the standpoint of optics;
whether we can devise a mechanism for mid-term removal of people
who have misbehaved that is faster and more plausible than the
present petition, chair appointment, and two consecutive
committee model (or whether no such procedure is needed); and
perhaps even some issues that overlap into the old NEWTRK
effort.   That is obviously not a complete list: I'm confident
that you could add some things to it and that, given a few
hours, I probably could too.   

If that is the BOF proposal/charter you and the rest of the IESG
want, then it probably would benefit from a f2f discussion and
some of us should see if we can get a proposal for a BOF in
Montreal together within the next 48 hours.  However, any of us
who have either tried writing I-Ds that propose adjustments in
those areas or who have been through opening up some of the
issues in WGs know that it will be a long, time and resource
intensive, trek with many passionately-expressed opinions.
Based on experience with POISSON, I think it would be
unrealistic to expect a WG with that task list to converge and
complete its work in less than two or three years. Even were
that much time to be available, it would be nearly impossible to
get to significant conclusions without enthusiastic IESG support
for reviewing things and making changes as needed, support that
would need to be independent of whatever changes the WG and
community select.   Unless you can assure us that the conviction
and enthusiasm exist, even holding a BOF, much less chartering a
WG, would, IMO, be a waste of time that the IETF could better
spend on technical work.

Even if a BOF proposal for this larger effort were wanted and if
only because how long that effort would take, I think there is a
very strong case for addressing the fine-tuning proposal now and
getting it done with.  They really are separate efforts even
though we might reasonably expect the larger one to make changes
that would obsolete some or all of the smaller and faster one.

So, what would you like to see and how are you and the IESG
thinking about this?

Just my opinion but, perhaps unfortunately, one that is informed
by experience.

   john



--On Tuesday, June 4, 2019 12:49 -0700 S Moonesamy
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi Suresh,
> At 08:22 PM 03-06-2019, Suresh Krishnan wrote:
>> Also, mention whether you would like this to be a working
>> group  forming BoF or not. One other suggestion I would make
>> is to put the  virtual BoF request into
> 
> Thank you for responding.
> 
> The advice from the IETF Chair was to have a BOF to process
> the draft.  I approached the Area Directors, as suggested by
> the IETF Chair, about the BOF.  Could Warren, Alexey or you
> provide some expert advice on whether a working group forming
> BoF should be requested?
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy