RE: AD Sponsorship of draft-moonesamy-recall-rev

["Adrian Farrel" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Andrew,

Useful thoughts, thanks.

> My concern about this document is rather different.  It lays out a
> bunch of reasons to make adjustments, and does not in fact address
> most of those reasons.

Well, doesn't the draft offer three areas of concern, and address them with
specific proposed changes:
- Eligibility of IAB and IESG members and other Nomcom appointees
- Eligibility of remote participants
- Number of signatures required

> The main thing it does is make the procedure
> easier to start, but it also doesn't adjust the procedure at all.

These are two truths. 
I think that questioning the first of these has an interesting oppositional
view: do you propose making it *harder* to start the procedure? Perhaps we
could say all signatories must have first names starting with the letter A
:-)  But seriously, what in the last n years suggests that starting the
procedure has been "easy enough"? Have we already been overrun with recall
petitions?

> The procedure, however, is not itself inexpensive, it entails a degree
> of collegial damage to the organization that ought to be taken quite
> seriously

That is true. And it must be weighed against the damage caused by an
unaddressed need for a recall.
We actually don't have any evidence on either side of this issue and so must
aim to strike a balance letting it be "reasonably" possible to start a
recall process, but not having the IETF swamped by recalls. We start from
knowing that the current process is not causing swamping. This document
proposes some relaxations (that are not extreme). I should imagine that if
the number of recall petitions is suddenly found to be too many (and without
good cause - i.e., the recalls are unsuccessful) we could adjust again.

> and it does not have a lot of clean exit procedures (so,
> for instance, the procedure can't AFAICT be called off once it has
> been initiated, if the petitioners pull out).

We have no knowledge of how this works. But if I was on a recall committee
and the petitioners sent me mail to say that they had changed their mind, I
might talk to them and possibly conclude that the petition can be deemed to
have failed.

> It seems to me to be worth some pretty careful, even-tempered 
> discussion. 

Yes, hopefully.

> Perhaps the
> procedure as designed is so designed because of an implicit
> understanding that it would be somewhat hard to inititate.  Perhaps it
> was designed in a cultural context of much greater social cohesion and
> cultural homogeneity of the IETF than may be the case today.  The
> present age is fractious and divided everywhere, and the IETF does not
> appear, to me, to be resisting that zeitgeist.

Perhaps all of those things.

I tend to believe that resistance to fractiousness is best achieved by open
accountability.

For the other points we could consult some people a little older than us.
Was it an abundance of caution or a deliberate attempt to make it "too hard
to execute"?

> Speaking selfishly, the procedure also imposes a burden on the
> Internet Society President to find and appoint a Recall Committee
> Chair.  As the incumbent who'd have to do that, my first problem is to
> write a job description, then to find a suitable candidate who has the
> time and motivation and reputation to do this.  Making this burden
> easier to impose on me at surprising intervals is something that,
> quite frankly, I would be inclined to resist were someone to ask me in
> my professional capacity what I thought.  

Well, I certainly don't want to make your life harder.

But, assume there is a real need for a recall: in that case, I guess you
would be more than pleased to appoint a recall committee chair.

And, since there is a potential for a recall petition at any time, I don't
think you escape the need for a policy/process/job-description for the
recall committee chair. The only way around that would be to deprecate
recalls, which I don't think you are suggesting.

> That suggests to me that the
> procedure would need some additional modifications in order to make
> the changes practical, and once the worm-can is open who knows what
> additional red wrigglers will start moving around?

Do you have some suggestions for a vermicide? 
Perhaps if the proposed changes were time-limited?
Perhaps if they were limited by a count of recall petitions?

> I just don't see how to treat this change as "fine tuning".  It's an
> effort to make a nuclear option easier to use, and I do not understand
> how that could be understood as anything other than a fundamental,
> community-altering decision.  That kind of decision seems to me to
> warrant the use of every mechanism one has to ensure one proceeds
> with the right care.

I think applying "the right care" is absolutely spot on.

I disagree with you about a recall petition being a nuclear option. It seems
to me to be a reasonable check in the event of unreasonable behaviour. Not
something to be feared, but a tool that shows that the IETF is a mature
organisation.

Ciao,
Adrian