Re: [ietf-nomcom] BCP 10 Update, adding an IAOC Advisor to the Nominating Committee

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

--On Tuesday, August 22, 2017 22:11 -0500 Spencer Dawkins at
IETF <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On your other points, I think I know what to do with your
> feedback, but this one is worth talking about some more.
> 
> There are different levels of "Nomcoms needing someone who
> speaks IAOC-ese fairly fluently".
> 
> I'm shooting for "don't forget to think about how you'll know
> whether you've got a viable IAOC candidate to forward to the
> confirming body, and if you don't know who can help, the IAOC
> should be well-placed to make suggestions about people
> who can help".
> 
> I could be shooting for "the Nomcom has to ask for help", or
> even "has to ask the IAOC for help".
> 
> At the extreme, I could be shooting for "change the definition
> of committee membership so that if you don't have
> representation from the IAOC, you've got a really big
> problem", to match not having a liaison from the IAB or IESG.
> 
> Are people comfortable with this being more permissive than
> prescriptive?

Spencer,

I'm almost always comfortable with more permissive or, more
specifically, with guidelines and principles rather than rules.
That is in part because I think the IETF has a terrible track
record when we try to make specific rules, almost always
discovering either that they are not quite right and require
either workarounds or more effort to try to fix or because they
lead to quibbling about the rules rather than getting useful
work done.

However, as I've tried to say before, I'm worried about a
different problem in this case, which is whether, as the
individual knowledge of Nomcom members goes down, the presence
of all of those liaisons could have undue influence by any of:

(i) influencing the Nomcom for or against particular candidates.

(ii) influencing the Nomcom too much about the role of the
relevant bodies or job descriptions.  That is especially
hazardous because part of the original intent of the Nomcom was
that it be able to make decisions that particular bodies were
going in the wrong direction and then make appointments with the
express intention of changing that.

(iii)  Having a chilling effect on community members who wanted
to make comments (favorable or unfavorable) about particular
candidates that they wouldn't want generally known, or known to
the candidates or their supporters or opponents... especially
when the liaison was believed to have a strong (again, whether
positive or negative) relationship with that candidate.

These are obviously far more general issues than how to add an
IAOC liaison or how, but I believe that specifying an additional
liaison, especially from a body with the composition and role of
the IAOC, could considerable amplify any issues or concerns of
that type.

best,
     john