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Re: Comments on Composition and Comportment of the IETF Nominating Committee draft

Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com> Tue, 07 July 2026 13:39 UTC

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From: Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com>
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Subject: Re: Comments on Composition and Comportment of the IETF Nominating Committee draft
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2026 09:39:28 -0400
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To: Mallory Knodel <mallory.knodel@nyu.edu>
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Mallory:
> 
> It would be worth interrogating the role of community feedback. Obviously this is a unique element and guidance for most hiring processes won’t have much to say about it. If we worry about discrimination in nomcom decision making we should probably worry about it in candidate feedback too. So what would be the fair mitigation? Giving a candidate the chance to rebut a potentially discriminatory feedback comment? Or not mentioning the comment during the interview at all, and giving the nomcom discretion to consider feedback in its own right to supplement its decision?

Confidential community feedback to the NomCom is a vital part of the process.  The interview must be conducted in a manner that preserves the confidentiality of the feedback.  It is pretty easy for NomCom voting members to separate community comments that impact the "hiring" decisions from comments that are related to individual disagreement, whether they are technical disputes or personality conflicts.

In may experience, NomCom have a set of questions that are identical for all candidates, and where appropriate there are candidate-specific questions are added at the end.

Russ

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