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

[Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[e-mail]>]

Hi, Stephen,

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 11:17 AM, Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]
> wrote:

>
> Hiya,
>
> On 23/08/17 04:11, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
> > Hi, Stephen,
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Farrell <
> [e-mail]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Hiya,
> >>
> >> FWIW, my take:
> >>
> >> - I don't care if we use the term liaison or advisor
> >> - I do think the IAOC has to pick the person
> >> - I do think every nomcom needs such a person helping
> >>   out
> >>
> >
> > Sorry for my delay in responding.
>
> Ditto:-)
>
> >
> > 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.
>
> It's not a hill on which I'd die, but I don't think it extreme
> to expect every nomcom to have an IAOC-helper, even for years
> when there is no IAOC appointment for nomcom to make. So I think
> your last target above is the better one.
>

I agree with your starting point, for a couple of reasons.

First, in private conversations, I am told that some Nomcoms get feedback
about AD nominees that is actually more appropriate for IAOC nominees,
because the community isn't quite sure where the dividing line between the
two bodies is. I don't know more details, because that feedback is
Nomcom-confidential, and I wasn't on the Nomcom(s) where that happened,
but, yes, having someone who can say "but that's our job" in the room seems
helpful, whether that particular Nomcom is reviewing an IAOC position or
not.

(I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Nomcoms have also gotten feedback
about IAOC nominees that should have been pointed at IESG nominees, but no
one has told me that, so forget I said it)

Second, and more important than it should be, the reason the past Nomcom
didn't ask for a liaison from IAOC was because it's not part of
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7437, and the past chair/advisor didn't
think of it, because he had not reviewed an IAOC position and hadn't asked
for a liaison when he was chair. So, if a Nomcom doesn't have an IAOC
advisor because they're not reviewing an IAOC position, our running code is
that it's easy to forget to ask for one when a Nomcom does review an IAOC
position ;-)

Let me chew on how I can say that Nomcoms really need that input, but what
I'm concerned about is that a Nominating Committee is defined as

   The nominating committee comprises at least a Chair, 10 voting
   volunteers, two liaisons, and an advisor.

and if I state having an IAOC advisor is a (new) requirement, a Nominating
Committee that doesn't have one would be vulnerable to an appeal to the
ISOC board, because the structure doesn't match what's in the BCP - and
because we're talking about IASA 2.0, sending a representative for IAOC may
not even make sense, but the BCP text wouldn't go away by itself (BCP text
that could go away by itself was the point of
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3933, but whatever).

I may be excessively sensitive about making this prescriptive, because we
had to write a new BCP to make a one-word change in a couple of BCPs, so
I'm happy to listen to reason.

Spencer, (in this case) as author of https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7475,
which was less simple than you might hope ...



I am fine with the description of "helper" being vague-ish to
> allow for iasa2 etc.
>
> Cheers,
> S.
>
> >
> > Are people comfortable with this being more permissive than prescriptive?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Spencer
> >
> >
> >> - I'm fine if a recent but not current IAOC member is
> >>   the stuckee, where recent is say <= 2 years since
> >>   being an IAOC appointee. Weasel wording around that
> >>   goal is fine so long as the intent is clear.
> >> - If the stuckee is not a current IAOC member, then I
> >>   think there needs to be some form of appeal of the
> >>   appointment possible, even if that's via some hard
> >>   to exercise mechanism.
> >>
> >> S.
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>