Re: Want to be on the IESG?

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

Hi, John,

Just a couple of comments on your comments, which I largely agree with. I
copied the one that seemed most important here, just so it doesn't get
overlooked.

[2] There is arguably a fundamental conflict when the IESG
> proposes or decides about suggested procedural changes that
> would affect how the IESG works or how its members are selected.
> On the one hand, ADs presumably have more intimate familiarity
> with the issues than anyone else.  On the other, they
> volunteered and were selected with assumptions about how things
> work, how (or if) they are held accountable, whether it is easy
> or hard for them to get additional terms if they want them, and
> so on.  And the decisions to which that leads may or may not be
> in the best interests of the community and the Internet even if
> they are in the best interests of the sitting IESG and people
> who are very much like them.
>

I don't disagree, but one other point has come up repeatedly in my
conversations with IESG members (both while serving as an AD, and while
doing something else) - the sitting members of the IESG have been able to
arrange their lives in a way that allows them to accept a confirmed
appointment. If we keep asking people who don't have a problem with the way
things are now to change the way things are now, that seems
counterintuitive.


Best,

Spencer

On Thu, Oct 7, 2021 at 3:22 PM John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> --On Thursday, October 7, 2021 18:17 +0200 Carsten Bormann
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> > On 2021-10-07, at 16:51, Salz, Rich
> > <rsalz=[e-mail]> wrote:
> >>
> >> I would say no person can serve in a nomcom-chosen position
> >> for more than four years in a row; there must be at least a
> >> one-year gap.  No exemptions.
> >
> > I don't think we can afford discarding all these potential
> > Human Resources, if only for a year.
>
> Hmm.  Carsten, let me try suggesting almost the same thing Rich
> did, but from a different perspective.  It is a real advantage,
> both to the people who serve and to the IETF community and the
> Internet, if people in leadership roles remain actively familiar
> with what it takes to get substantive work done in the IETF
> rather than developing a "management" perspective and losing
> both the recent memory of that experience and a bottom-up
> understanding of the impact of whatever changes have occurred.


I think the percentage of IETF participants who actually want the IESG to
be heavily weighted toward full-time managers is vanishingly small, but
it's worth noting that a manager can do a better or worse job of managing,
depending on what they are paying attention to, and who they talk to and
listen to. If it is possible for the IESG to lock themselves in a room and
only talk to each other, adopting a strategy that limits how long they can
stay in a locked room makes a lot of sense.

If they get out more, talk to their chairs, and assemble directorates like
the one Harald put together when he was GEN AD to extend his ability to
remember and to listen, we would likely have more flexibility, if we wanted
it.


> I think it would be better for the community (and, actually, for
> the sanity of the individuals) if someone who had served in an
> IESG or IAB position [1] for a couple of terms take a year or
> two as a participant (ideally, not even as a WG Chair), even if
> they were returned to that, or some other position later.
>
> > Instead, the spirit of this could be developed as IETF
> > consensus and communicated to the noncom.  They would still
> > know when to stick with that simplistic rule and when it
> > doesn't work.  Do the right thing.
>
> You (and others) may disagree, but I think the general principle
> that multiple terms (N > 2) are generally a bad idea has gotten
> at least rough consensus and been communicated to Nomcoms
> multiples times.  The fact that we are having this discussion
> (again) suggests that has not been very effective.
>

I know you and I often communicate with Nomcoms about general topics, and
recent versions of the datatracker feedback tools make that easier (at one
point, if we had comments on the RTG area, for instance, we were copying
that input into the input for each RTG AD nominee), but I'm not sure how we
make sure that what has been successfully communicated to a Nomcom in year
NNNN stays communicated in year NNNN+1, or NNNN+3, without writing and
publishing an RFC as part of https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp10.

Even getting a new Nomcom to notice Informational RFCs (that aren't part of
BCP 10, because they don't have BCP status) is a crapshoot. At one point,
we had published https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5078, which was
informational because it updated the informative timeline in
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3777#appendix-B. At least one Nomcom
chair I talked to didn't see that, because they just looked at BCP 10.


> And, that said, I still believe that some variation of what was
> proposed years ago (and which the IESG refused to consider [2])
> would be a good idea.  The general idea was that incumbents who
> were willing to serve another term would be considered by the
> Nomcom even before the general call for candidates.  The Nomcom
> would be advised that a second term is usually A Good Thing
> unless there were problems and that further terms often became
> problems.  The Nomcom would solicit feedback from the community
> about, e.g., performance and could then decide "return" (in
> which case there would never be a general call for that
> position).  Or they could decide "enough; no more now" or
> perhaps "maybe".  They would run the usual process for all
> remaining open positions.


Am I remembering that
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-klensin-nomcom-incumbents-first-01
is the most recent draft suggesting how Nomcoms could evaluate the needs of
areas first, and then discuss the willingness and ability of incumbents to
meet those needs, before asking for non-incumbent nominations?


> There would obviously be some side effects, starting with making
> it difficult for an incumbent to both "run" for their existing
> position and to seek another one.  The community would have to
> decide whether that was bad and, if so, do something about it.
>

If you're willing to serve a second term in your current position (to pick
one example), and you're also willing to serve a first term in a different
position, ISTM that's a fine conversation for Nomcoms to have with
incumbents, because that would give the Nomcom a chance to look at the
needs of your current position and the position you're also willing to
serve in, and that's kind of their responsibility.

I know when we've talked about this (like, a decade or 15 years ago),
people asked, "but what if the incumbent says they're not willing to serve
again, or the Nomcom says the incumbent isn't able to meet the needs of the
position, but the Nomcom can't find anyone better?"

I don't know why the Nomcom couldn't ask the incumbent to reconsider their
willingness, for instance. Nomcoms solve problems like this now.


> And, if there are advantages to "running" against a first-term
> incumbent who has done a good job "for practice", they would
> largely disappear.  On the other hand, it would allow the Nomcom
> to spend more of its time on the hard cases rather than deciding
> whether an alternate candidate might be slightly better than a
> one-term incumbent who has done a good job.
>
>  best,
>    john
>
>
>
> [1] I am undecided about Nomcom-selected positions other than
> the IAB and IESG.  It is possible that different considerations
> might apply.
>
> [2] There is arguably a fundamental conflict when the IESG
> proposes or decides about suggested procedural changes that
> would affect how the IESG works or how its members are selected.
> On the one hand, ADs presumably have more intimate familiarity
> with the issues than anyone else.  On the other, they
> volunteered and were selected with assumptions about how things
> work, how (or if) they are held accountable, whether it is easy
> or hard for them to get additional terms if they want them, and
> so on.  And the decisions to which that leads may or may not be
> in the best interests of the community and the Internet even if
> they are in the best interests of the sitting IESG and people
> who are very much like them.
>

I don't disagree, but one other point has come up repeatedly in my
conversations with IESG members (both while serving as an AD, and while
doing something else) - the sitting members of the IESG have been able to
arrange their lives in a way that allows them to accept a confirmed
appointment. If we keep asking people who don't have a problem with the way
things are now to change the way things are now, that seems
counterintuitive.

Best,

Spencer