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

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

Spencer,

--On Thursday, August 24, 2017 16:54 -0500 Spencer Dawkins at
IETF <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi, John, and CC Alexey, who is shepherding this draft,
>...
 
>> 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 have seen your e-mail about that, and I think I understand
> this issue pretty well.
> 
> I agree that how the Nomcom reviews positions and nominees has
> changed pretty massively since 1992.
> 
> The problem with problems with Nomcom is, it's really hard to
> know what problems have been encountered over the years,
> unless one or more Nomcom chairs reveals a problem that they
> encountered.
> 
> Some do that, pretty publicly, but even in those cases, people
> outside the Nomcom don't have the details that would be
> helpful in solving problems.
> 
> I might reasonably point out that there's been an "IAOC
> liaison" on every Nomcom from 2009-2010 to 2014-2015, but
> maybe we've just been lucky - I just don't know.
> 
> So, here's what I'm thinking.
> 
> Tl;dr
> 
> Alissa (as Gen-AD) is out on leave until October (although she
> did surface for an informal telechat earlier today).
> 
> I'm not comfortable proposing more than minor changes, until
> she can participate in that discussion.
> 
> When she returns, I'll tell her what I'm hearing (and that I
> can't dismiss that concern out of hand). That's on my calendar
> as a reminder.

Seems completely sensible.
 
> The long part ...
> 
> The last time we made a Nomcom process change that was more
> than a paragraph long, what Russ did, was convene about ten
> years worth of Nomcom past chairs to exchange, maintaining as
> much confidentiality as they could (so, no names),
> descriptions of problems they'd encountered. Common problems
> went into
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dawkins-nomcom-3777-issues-0
> 0, and that formed the basis of most of the BCP changes I
> authored (most notoriously,
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5680/). That's why we had
> some confidence that we were talking about real problems.
>...
> Maybe all the problems that were identified then have gone
> away without BCP changes, or maybe more recent Nomcom chairs
> have encountered different problems that are worth thinking
> about, but (inserting by reference every conversation you and
> I have ever had about how hard it is to get BCPs right the
> first time), if we've already had problems that recur often
> enough to justify BCP updates, I'd like to understand them.

Yes.  But I think there is a source of data that might be hard
to capture and invisible to Nomcom chairs.  That doesn't mean it
isn't there or isn't valid.

I've heard, several times, from IETF participants (just
participants with no leadership responsibilities, although my
list includes a few WG chairs), in conversations that typically
occur after Nomcom appointments are announced.  The
conversations went something like the following:

> How could they possibly reappoint X, he is terrible,
mistreated the WG, and systematically ignored everyone who
disagreed with him.

< Did you discuss those issues and examples with the Nomcom.

> No, I hoped someone else would do so.

< Why not?  If you don't raise the issues, how can you expect
others to do so?

> Y was the liaison (or even X's co-AD), I think they are
buddies, and ADs protect each other anyway, so I'm afraid of
retaliation... from X if X is reappointed and from Y and maybe
the rest of the IESG is X is not.   I have no confidence in Y's
ability to keep my comments, or the fact that I made them, away
from X or other IESG members.

< <selection of bad words>

I've heard similar things four or five times.  Not a huge
number, but enough to cause me to believe that there is a
problem and that others may be hearing the same things.  I've
heard similar things before Nomcoms have made their selections
but then I just suggest private conversations with Nomcom
chairs... something that would be visible to those chairs if
they occurred (and I have no way to know whether they did or
not).

    john