Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 03/03/2013 20:14, Michael Richardson wrote:
>>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Burger <[e-mail]> writes:
>     Eric> There are two other interpretations of this situation, neither
>     Eric> of which I think is true, but we should consider the
>     Eric> possibility. The first is the TSV is too narrow a field to
>     Eric> support an area director and as such should be folded in with
>     Eric> another area. The second is if all of the qualified people
>     Eric> have moved on and no one is interested in building the
>     Eric> expertise the IESG feels is lacking, then industry and
>     Eric> academia have voted with their feet: the TSV is irrelevant and
>     Eric> should be closed.
> 
> To be considered qualified the candidate needed to:
>   a) have demonstrated subject matter expertise (congestion in this case)
>   b) have demonstrated IETF management expertise (current/former WG chair)
>   c) have time available
> 
> Generally speaking, people who can not satisfy (c) do not show up on the
> list of nominees, as they have to decline the nomination.   
> There definitely are many people who have (a) and (b), but not (c). 
> 
> Were money not an issue, filing this position would be easy.  
> 
> The nomcom then needs to look at the remaining candidates and along with
> the confirming body (the IAB) determine if they can compromise on (a)
> or (b).
> 
> Brian has suggested that (b) is more important than (a).

What I'm saying is that if you have nobody that satisfies all three
constraints, you have to make a choice, and the choice of (b)+(c)
is a legitimate judgment call. I don't know whether NomCom did this
and submitted it to the confirming body, or whether the NomCom failed
to make a choice.

Incidentally, while mulling this over, it occurred to me that RFC 3777
doesn't (I believe) talk about conflict of interest within the
confirming bodies. I do recall members of the IAB and the ISOC Board
recusing themselves from confirmation discussions on occasion, but that
was done on an ad hoc basis. I wonder whether we should write something
down about this.

    Brian