Re: [ietf-nomcom] Experiment in "full transparency"

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

Hi Rich,

On 28/10/17 15:06, Salz, Rich wrote:
> I think it will be worthwhile, after the process is done, to have
> some kind of report about what it was like with all the non-voting
> liaisons, and I hope you’ll do that.  Six out of 16 are in that
> group, and it seems very high to this outsider.

I was IESG liaison to a nomcom a couple of years ago.

AIUI, the non-voting folks other than the chair were there to
offer information to the voting members when asked, but not to
steer. We were also there to provide re-assurance to the
relevant bodies (the IESG in my case) that the process inside
nomcom was well run and to help handle confirmation of selected
folks. (I don't recall any IESG liaison coming back to the IESG
saying anything other than that year's process had been well-run
for the 6 years I was on the IESG.)

I forget if that's written down in the BCPs or not, but it seems
useful for nomcom to have folks in those roles, and maybe more
than useful for bodies (IESG,IAB,ISOC board) that confirm selected
folks. Without a liaison, it might be just too easy for a
confirming body and a nomcom to hit near deadlock, due to the
mechanics of handling the confidentiality involved.

The reason for this mail though is that I figure the utility of
the liaisons increases as the voting members are less experienced
IETFers. Highly experienced voting members could likely get by
with fewer liaisons, but if we're more likely to have less
experienced voting members the non-voting folks seem to me to be
a thing to be very careful about ditching, even if 6/16 seems
like a lot.

As a minor point the non-voting folks I think have also sometimes
been logistically useful when it comes to the November IETF meeting,
when there's a lot of running about and interviewing going on. If
fewer people had to do all that, it might not work as well.

S.



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