RE: Nomcom off in the wilderness: Transport AD

[Eric Gray <[e-mail]>]

Dave,

	There's an aspect of what people tend to include when talking about "politicking" that is
not - AFAIK - part of the job as a member of the IESG or as an AD.  That aspect is the desire to be
much in the public.

	So far, it has not been any part of the normal duties of an IESG member or AD to hold
press conferences, glad-handing with the masses, baby kissing, etc.

	Opening up the process to allow (read "encourage") candidates to "go public" with their
(so far) relatively private observations about why they would be a good candidate for the job is
very likely to effectively eliminate some potential candidates who are unwilling to do so but are 
otherwise completely qualified to do the job.

	This would become particularly true if the NomCom - and the IETF as a whole - were to
develop expectations that this would routinely happen, or suspicions about those who don't wish
to do so.

	Because this aspect of "politicking" should not become a criteria for the job, there is more
to the general desire to avoid it than the notion that we just don't want to see it.

--
Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Dave Crocker
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 8:57 AM
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Nomcom off in the wilderness: Transport AD


On 3/6/2013 4:26 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:
> However, there is something you can do. Take a quick moment to look at 
> the set of nominees and consider what you know about their 
> qualifications.
...
  > I'd also appreciate private feedback on how I could improve my approach
> for raising this concern. I'm not at all sure that sending this 
> message was the best choice,
...


I don't have an opinion about the current candidates.  This note concerns Sam's effort:  I think it's thoughtful and reasonable, within the bounds of the situation, IETF rules, and IETF culture.

And I have a further suggestion, which some other folk and I happened to have discussed privately some time ago and unrelated to the specific TSV situation...

There's an option available that the candidates might want to consider, to facilitate the public review of candidate qualifications:

Candidates fill out a questionnaire for Nomcom review.  Roughly, it has two parts, with one that is available to Nomcom and the appropriate Confirming Body, and a second that is withheld from the Confirming Body.

      Candidates could choose to circulate the first part publicly.

Nomcom is prohibited from making these documents public, but the candidates are not.

The long-standing argument against publicly issuing this information is that it might be seen as politicking, and the IETF Nomcom process tries hard to avoid such opportunities.  The language in the forms is necessarily self-promoting.  After all, the candidate is trying to explain why they think they are appropriate for a job.

However there is a difference between explaining why you think you are qualified, versus the hype of politicking.  One would hope that IETF participants can tell that difference.  And it could be helpful for the community to see how a candidate sees themselves.

d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net