Re: [ietf-nomcom] The Nominating Committee Process: Eligibility

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

--On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:07 -0700 S Moonesamy
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> I find it interesting that the competing tensions of "make
>> sure there is a set of more experienced people on NomCom" and
>> "widen NomCom to allow broader participation" might be solved
>> by the same measure.
> 
> My quick reaction would be that the goals oppose each other.
> Thinking of it more, I would say that the set of more
> experienced people would increase over the long term while
> bringing in more participation.

In principle, yes.  In practice, I think it is unlikely unless
we also figured out how to reduce somewhat the size and length
of the time commitment (f2f or otherwise) required of Nomcom
members.  Note that those "more experienced people" include
three groups:

	* those whose time is already heavily committed to
	leadership roles such as the ones Dave cited.
	
	* those who have some desire or expectation of being
	tapped for leadership roles for which Nomcom membership
	would make them ineligible.
	
	* those who have withdrawn from active IETF
	participation (including physical presence) due to lack
	of time, commitments elsewhere, or general disgust.

There are other groups too, but I don't know how large they are.
I am pretty confident that few, if any, of the people from the
above groups are likely to volunteer for the Nomcom unless we
figure out how to lower the time commitment (or at least the f2f
commitment) required.  As with the more traditional leadership
positions, reversing the trends of recent years and reducing the
time and other commitments would be likely to broaden the
candidate pool.  By contrast, and by analogy to the "don't
expect people from one group to be able to fully understand and
represent the perspective of another" part of the diversity
discussion, a very large Nomcom time commitment is likely to
reduce the people on the Nomcom who understand the value of
considering people for the IESG, IAB, and IAOC who are be
committed to limiting the time commitment of those roles.

    john