Re: [Iasa20] strawman proposal for potential IASA 2.0 structure (draft-hall-iasa2-struct-00.txt)

[Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[e-mail]>]

Thank you, Bob, for extensive feedback! One comment below:

On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 8:55 PM, Bob Hinden <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I reviewed <draft-hall-iasa2-struct-01>.
>
> Thanks to the design team for this work.
>
> I agree with most of the other comments on this document.  Also, as other have said, many of the basic decisions will effect what is written here significantly.
>
> Board:
>
> A better way to talk about the role of the Board is to say it should make the policy and the Exec Director and staff/contractors implement the policy.
>
> The part about how Board members are selected doesn't address the issue of finding qualified people.  As noted elsewhere it’s hard to find qualified people to serve on the IAOC, this is going to be harder than the IAOC.
>
> Saying that the “board should be purely an oversight body” isn’t completely correct.  For example, the Board is going to hire/fire/review/etc. the Executive Director, that isn’t an oversight function, it’s operational.   This needs to be clarified.
>
> The document doesn’t say if the Board is a volunteer board or a paid board.  Are expenses paid?  Are we expecting Board appointed Board members to work as volunteers?
>
> I think the Board is too small.  In addition to what was said in other comments, only having five people, means that only three are required for a quorum and for decision.  That’s pretty small.  Also, if a few board members are incapacitated for some reason, it could put the board into a position that it can’t make any decision until one of the appointing bodies select someone else.  I note we ran into a problem where an IAOC member dropped out, it was a challenge to get them off so someone else could be selected.
>
> Limiting the ISOC board appointment to ISOC Trustees appointed by the IAB will make it harder for the IAB to find people to serve on the ISOC board.  Now some of of them will have to serve on two boards significantly increasing the time commitment.
>
> Having the Board select some of it’s own board members seems like a potential problem to me, especially given the current size of the board.  The document says these two self appointed board members are for “specific experience or skills in non-profit management and finance”, but why is this necessary if the board is “purely an oversight body”.  I won’t list them, but are nasty scenarios given that two is close to a majority.  Making the board larger fixes this, but I am leery of a Board appointing it’s own members.
>
> Does the board appoint functions like a Treasurer or Secretary?  In the transition section in mentions a Board chair, but not in Section 3.2.
>
> Will the Board have any liaisons?
>
> As I think Ted said, the connection to ISOC seems very thin give the only connection is from the board member the ISOC board appoints.  In my experience having the ISOC CEO on the IAOC worked very well to keep the organizations aligned.  I think this or something similar will be needed as long as ISOC is providing the majority of the funding for the IETF.  There needs to be a link to the operational side of ISOC.
>
> Advisory Council:
>
> I don’t think there should be an Advisory Council (AC).  It’s role isn’t well defined, it doesn’t have any authority, and can’t really speak for the community, it will add another layer of complexity (another group to staff, write procedures for, chair to appoint), and will add delay to important decisions it is asked to look at like venue selection.  It seems a lot simpler to me to not have it.  If the board and/or staff needs input from the community they should just ask.  Having to ask the AC and then ask the community seems broken to me.  I assume it is there to attempt to simplify the Board, but I don’t think it will be helpful or will work.

Back before IETF 100, the Design Team felt the need to have an AC,
which we wrote in draft-haberman like this:

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-haberman-iasa20dt-recs-01#section-5.3.2

5.3.2.  Advisory Council

   The board and staff are also supported by an Advisory Council (AC).
   The AC provides an interface to the community on matters that require
   assessing community opinion.  For instance, the current polling of
   community feedback relating to potential future meeting locations
   could be one such matter.  An advisory council canvassing and pulling
   for this information is expected to be a better approach than either
   free-form mailing list discussion, or the relatively opaque process
   that is currently used.

Sounds like you feel that discussion on [e-mail] (or something
like that) would be superior to having an AC? I think there is
something to be said for having a body that can give more coherent
input to the potential Board and Staff than a massive discussion. Of
course, there would be steps that seek input from the larger community
but this at least allows Board and Staff to get a rough notion of
community sentiment before they've spent time and effort doing more on
a given subject.

Let me know if it's just redundancy or more than that which concerns
you here. best, Joe

> Transition:
>
> I think the “Transition Considerations” in this document should be removed.  Talking about transition when so much of the structure is in flux seems premature.  Or at least just say, it’s going to be complicated.
>
> Hope this is helpful.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Mar 5, 2018, at 8:27 AM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> Dear IASA 2.0 list,
>>
>> In preparation for IETF 101, in addition to the memo (and follow-up)
>> with ISOC's tax attorneys, a few of us from the IASA 2.0 design team
>> have hammered out a discussion draft that considers a strawman
>> proposed structure for IASA 2.0. This is to spur discussion, root out
>> any ongoing issues, and at least take a stab at one of the
>> intermediate independence models (this would apply to the Type 1
>> Supporting Org or the Disregarded LLC option).
>>
>> Your feedback is essential and very welcome!
>>
>> best wishes, Joe
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From:  <[e-mail]>
>> Date: Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 11:26 AM
>> Subject: New Version Notification for draft-hall-iasa2-struct-00.txt
>> To: Jason Livingood <[e-mail]>, Joseph Lorenzo Hall
>> <[e-mail]>
>>
>>
>>
>> A new version of I-D, draft-hall-iasa2-struct-00.txt
>> has been successfully submitted by Joseph Lorenzo Hall and posted to the
>> IETF repository.
>>
>> Name:           draft-hall-iasa2-struct
>> Revision:       00
>> Title:          Proposed Structure of the IETF Administrative Support
>> Activity (IASA), Version 2.0 (for Discussion)
>> Document date:  2018-03-05
>> Group:          Individual Submission
>> Pages:          11
>> URL:
>> https://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hall-iasa2-struct-00.txt
>> Status:         https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/
>> Htmlized:       https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hall-iasa2-struct-00
>> Htmlized:       https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-hall-iasa2-struct-00
>>
>>
>> Abstract:
>>   The IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) was originally
>>   established in 2005.  In the intervening years, the needs of the IETF
>>   have evolved in ways that require changes to its administrative
>>   structure.  The purpose of this document is to spur discussion by
>>   outlining some details of what an "IASA 2.0" arrangement could look
>>   like.  The proposal is for the execution of the IETF's administrative
>>   and fundraising tasks to be conducted by a new administrative
>>   organization ("IETFAdminOrg").  The IAOC would be eliminated, and its
>>   oversight and advising functions transferred to the IETFAdminOrg
>>   board and a new IETF Administrative Advisory Council, respectively.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Please note that it may take a couple of minutes from the time of submission
>> until the htmlized version and diff are available at tools.ietf.org.
>>
>> The IETF Secretariat
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Joseph Lorenzo Hall
>> Chief Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology [https://www.cdt.org]
>> 1401 K ST NW STE 200, Washington DC 20005-3497
>> e: [e-mail], p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key
>> Fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10  1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871
>>
>> CDT's Annual Dinner, Tech Prom, is March 29, 2018. Don't miss the tech
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>



-- 
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Chief Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology [https://www.cdt.org]
1401 K ST NW STE 200, Washington DC 20005-3497
e: [e-mail], p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key
Fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10  1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871

CDT's Annual Dinner, Tech Prom, is March 29, 2018. Don't miss the tech
event of the year!
Reserve a table today.: https://cdt.org/annual-dinner/