Re: Consolidating BCP 10 (Operation of the NomCom)

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

At 07:20 PM 9/13/2014, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
>It may (or may not) make sense to examine all of the issues you list.
>It seems to me the next thing to certain that the work will not even be completed by the time the next nomcom is seated.
>
>Might it make sense to follow the original proposal first, and just ge the current procedures as understood documented in one place.  And make sure that is correct, before embarking on changes?

As far as I understand, Murray is proposing "no change in effective behavior" in the first pass, so whether or not we manage to get an RFC through before the next nomcom or not, the publication of a simply updated 3777 is really nothing more than clean up without any change in effect to the current Nomcom, nor in the behavior of any follow-on Nomcom.  

Given that there's a real cost (can you say Last Call?) to the community as a whole for each and every RFC action, I'm underwhelmed at the idea of opening up 3777 without making a commitment to actually address its warts.

That's a long winded way of saying no.  If there were a pressing need for the current Nomcom, I'd suggest they use the "operational discretion" portion of the document.  If there were a well understood set of changes that have been incorporated in practice, but not in documentation, I *might* say yes.  Neither of these appear to apply - hence, "No".

To be blunt, we're already... *sigh* splitting nits about the meaning of certain sections, words, word combinations, etc.  I'd really rather not go through that more than once every 5 years or so.

Mike





>Yours,
>Joel
>
>On 9/13/14, 2:46 PM, Michael StJohns wrote:
>>At 02:09 AM 9/4/2014, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
>>>Colleagues,
>>>
>>>As part of my work with NomCom '14, I'm preparing a revision of
>>>RFC3777 that incorporates all of the updates made to it subsequent to
>>>its publication ten years ago.  This would roll all of the documents
>>>making up the NomCom's definition and procedures into one place.
>>>
>>>The draft is available here:
>>>
>>>https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kucherawy-rfc3777bis/
>>>
>>>It is at present nothing more than a republishing of RFC3777 verbatim,
>>>with some slight organization adjustments that come along with
>>>conversion to xml2rfc (RFC3777 was done in nroff), and all of the
>>>changes made by the other documents that currently comprise BCP 10
>>>have been incorporated.  There have been no other substantive content
>>>changes made.
>>>
>>>My plan is to keep it that way for this go-around.Â
>>
>>Hi Murray -
>>
>>
>>Until I read the "for this go around" sentence, I was actually hoping
>>someone was opening this up for a comprehensive revision.
>>
>>Here's what I think needs to happen (prior to the next IETF nomcom
>>selection):
>>
>>1) Update 3777 to merge in the various changes that have been posted.
>>(this rev)
>>2) Add text to fix the revealed-broken recall process
>>3) Add text to fill out what constitutes a vacancy.  E.g.
>>     a) Vacancy by term completion
>>     b) Vacancy by resignation
>>     c) Vacancy by death or incapacity
>>     d) Vacancy by recall
>>     e) Vacancy by expulsion
>>4) Add text to fix disconnects between what the Nomcom and the
>>confirming bodies believe to be true with respect to:
>>    a) what is and is not confidential about a candidate with respect to
>>the confirming body
>>    b) what MUST be provided to the confirming bodies
>>    c) what MAY be provided
>>    d) what must be provided to the nomcom by the confirming body on
>>rejection of candidates (my take, simply the fact of rejection)
>>    e) that the rejection of a candidate is NOT a failure of process.
>>5) [This one is one of my hot buttons, but is somewhat controversial.
>>It's based  in part on my belief that the "we all participate as
>>individuals, rather than members of company" trope is no longer even
>>minimally true, especially for more recent participants.] Rework the
>>Nomcom selection process to minimize the statistical affects of one or
>>more companies each comprising large portions of the Nomcom volunteer
>>pool. [Statistically,  if a company has 30% of the volunteers, they have
>>an 85% chance of having 2 nomcom members, a 97% chance of having at
>>least 1].
>>
>>
>>Item's 2, 3 and 4 are fixes  for events (failures of process) that have
>>happened since the publication of 3777.
>>
>>With respect to 5 - the text in 3777 is that the selection process
>>should be fair - which is defined to mean:  "
>>
>>A method is fair if
>>each eligible volunteer is equally likely to be selected."
>>That definition is already broken in that we cap the number of nomcom
>>members from any given company at 2 - which means that anyone in a large
>>company already has a lesser chance of selection then that represented by
>>his portion of the volunteer pool.
>>
>>I think we benefit from diversity of opinion, and even more from
>>diversity of experience. I'm concerned that the Nomcom has been at times
>>rather over populated with large company representatives with a related
>>narrowing of the experience pool.
>>
>>
>>>Then, if the community would like to actually crack open the document
>>>and revisit some of the content, that would be a second project (for
>>>which I would probably volunteer to act as editor).
>>
>>See above.  I don't think you actually gain anything by splitting this
>>into two stages as the text from the roll up revision is going to need
>>to change; going through the process - twice - to move revisions to RFC
>>seems to be to be a waste of effort.
>>
>>Mike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Comments welcome.
>>>
>>>-MSK, hatless