Re: [Gendispatch] Exhausted pool [draft-knodel-nomcom-gender-representation-00]

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 27-Nov-23 10:06, John Levine wrote:
> According to Benson Muite  <[e-mail]>:
>> Nomcom does also get liaisons and can request external advisors.
>> Liaisons are not voting members (in an organization that does not
>> believe in voting). ISOC currently provides one liaison has a much
>> broader pool of participants than the IETF. ...
> 
> Not really.  ISOC sends an observer to the nomcom to see that the
> nomcom follows the process as it is supposed to.  The observer does
> not participate in any of the substantive discussions.
> 
> When I was on the ISOC board, the observer was always one of the
> board members slected by the IAB, so it would be someone who was
> familiar with the nomcom.  I was the observer one time.

So was I, and I did not consider it appropriate in that role to
do anything within the committee beyond *observing* the process,
in order to report back to the ISOC Board whether the rules were
followed and the process was fair.

I did send my personal comments on the candidates to the committee,
like any member of the community may do. (Anonymous comments were
not an option then, if I recall correctly.)

(In that particular year, the chair decided to use Condorcet
voting to select the nominees, and I thought that was an excellent
approach.)

More fundamentally, since liaisons and advisors (including the
past Chair) do not vote on candidates, IMHO their presence has very
limited relevance to diversity.

       Brian