Re: Eliot Lear to Serve as RFC Editor Future Development Program Chair

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

See below.

On 3/25/2020 6:30 PM, Ted Hardie wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 1:47 PM Michael StJohns <[e-mail] 
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
>     On 3/25/2020 1:50 PM, IAB Executive Administrative Manager wrote:
>     > The IAB has selected Eliot Lear to serve as chair of the RFC Editor
>     > Future Development Program [1].
>     >
>
>     To satisfy my curiosity - could the IAB give us some idea of its
>     thinking in selecting Eliot?
>
>
> The IAB followed the same process it uses for many appointments:  it 
> solicited volunteers (and then extended the deadline for volunteers), 
> asked them for statements of interests, in some cases held 
> conversations with them, and solicited comments from the community.  
> The details of that community feedback and those discussions with the 
> candidates are confidential, as are most personnel discussions.

Let's stay away from "personnel" discussions (and I'm not really sure 
this qualifies as such - but we'll go with that for now), and instead go 
to what should be public information:

1) What experience in Publishing and Editing does Eliot bring to the table?

2) Why didn't you appoint co-chairs as appeared to be the community 
desire?    I can see at least two reasons to do so: a) To spread the 
load and ensure the program is successful, and b) to provide for more 
than one point of view in the chair position. This is a question 
irrespective of the "personnel" discussion of who you might appoint.  
E.g. tell me the things that argued against appointing multiple people?

Later, Mike



>     While I appreciate Eliot's attributes, I would have thought Neville -
>     who has substantial experience as the ISE, or John - who was a
>     substantial contributor to the original process that led to us hiring
>     Heather or some combination of the two* would have been a slam dunk
>     choice.   I may not have all the details on Eliot's experience
>     related
>     to editing and publication.
>
>     *AIRC, there was substantial desire expressed by the community for
>     this
>     program to be led by co-chairs rather than a single person
>
>
> This selection was made by the outgoing IAB 
> (https://www.iab.org/documents/minutes/minutes-2020/iab-minutes-2020-03-04/). 
> The next IAB may decide that a second chair selection round would be 
> useful, and there has some discussion among the large group (outgoing, 
> ongoing, and incoming) on that point.
>
>     Feel free to take this as a question (perhaps the first question) for
>     the Plenary.
>
>
> regards,
>
> Ted Hardie
>
>     Mike
>
>