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

[Suresh Krishnan <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,

> On Jun 5, 2019, at 10:10 AM, John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 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.

Just speaking for myself here. I do have my preference (see below), but I will leave it up to the proponents to decide which way they want to go.

> 
> 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.

This would be my preference. As I said in my earlier mail, if we can separate the three pieces of the draft and see how the community feels about each of them, I think we will be in a good spot to looking at writing a narrowly scoped charter for a WG.
 
> 
> 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.   

Just my personal opinion with no hats at all. I think this will be a “boil the ocean” effort and I am not at all confident about its odds of success.

> 
> 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.

I whole-heartedly agree with you that this would probably be a waste of time.

> 
> 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.

Much appreciated. I agree with you that a tightly scoped effort is more likely to succeed. 

Thanks
Suresh