Re: ops dir review of draft-ietf-nomcom-rfc2727bis-07.txt !!!

[Pekka Savola <pekkas@netcore.fi>]

I think the responses are pretty good, a few comments inline..

On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> Some responses as shepherding AD.... feel free to forward to ops-dir.
>
> --On 1. oktober 2003 13:33 -0700 Randy Bush <randy@psg.com> wrote:
> > From: Pekka Savola <pekkas@netcore.fi>
> > To: Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
> > cc: ops directorate <ops-dir@ops.ietf.org>
> > Subject: draft-ietf-nomcom-rfc2727bis-07.txt [Re: Agenda and Package for
> >  October 2, 2003 Telechat]
> > Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 22:47:44 +0300 (EEST)
> >
> >
> > First time I looked into the Nomcom rules, so watch out..
> >
> >>       o draft-ietf-nomcom-rfc2727bis-07.txt
> >> 	IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of
> >> 	the Nominating and Recall Committees (BCP) - 8 of 9
> >> 	Token: Harald Alvestrand
> >
> >        Third, the confirming body has two weeks from the day it is
> >        notified of a candidate to reject the candidate, otherwise the
> >        candidate is assumed to have been confirmed.
> >
> > ==> in these days of non-guaranteed email delivery, automatic spam
> > filters and /dev/nulling mails, wouldn't it make much more sense to *not*
> > to make any assumptions about this one way or the other -- just state
> > that  a confirmation/rejection must be transmitted (for as many times as
> > required :-)? ... or are the confirming bodies really so lazy that they
> > can't bother to send an email on time, despite harassments etc.
> 
> Believe me, you do NOT want to reopen this debate.
> This text was the result of about 200 emails and 15 different candidate 
> texts (with Ran Atkinson and Mike St. Johns alternating as chief 
> nitpickers) - the issue is that the nomcom WG is not the right body to 
> force the confirming bodies to have a decision process that actually can 
> deliver a result in finite time, and the document has to say SOMETHING 
> about how a non-answer is to be treated.

OK :-).. this was just a non-important point to me.

> >    5.   The Internet Society President appoints the Chair, who must meet
> >         the same requirements for membership in the nominating committee
> >         as a voting volunteer.
> >
> > ==> as I read it, the ISOC president could order anyone at all, with the
> > required qualifications, to serve as the NomCom Chair.  No questions asked
> > whether one is willing, capable, or not?  Is this the intended policy?
> > At least you can say no if someone nominates you for IESG/IAB...  :-)
> 
> Yes.
> If we have an ISOC president who is a total incompetent, we have bigger 
> problems than picking the nomcom chair. If the president is competent, we 
> should not create too many rules surrounding this appointment.
> IMHO.

My main point was actually that whoever the ISOC president appoints, 
cannot say "No, I can't do it because [FOO]."  Is that the intent?  My 
only point was whether the person being appointed can reject the 
appointment.

(I guess the process, really, is that ISOC president approaches a Nomcom 
chair candidate and asks for willingness first, but maybe it could spelled 
out a bit more..)

> >         No more than two volunteers with the same primary affiliation
> >         may be selected for the nominating committee.
> >
> > ==> I'd say the correct number is one.  This is because there are such
> > large corporations out there that the random selection could easily give
> > 2-3 of them 2 members each, causing a majority as is.  What we should have
> > is getting the comittee spread throughout more evenly.
> 
> Was debated in the Nomcom WG, and the WG reached consensus on two. I don't 
> want to reopen the issue.

I'm not really sure if this is the right approach, as one can see from the
current and previous nomcom, major organizations flood the nomcom,
populating at least half of the comittee.  The most important things
(IMHO)  from nomcom are to a) populate the nomcom with experts from the
whole breadth and width of the IETF, with as much variety as
possible/reasonable (wide input, no one able to dominate), and b) select
the best available leadership for the IETF.

But I can live with two as such organizations have usually competing
interests, so no need to reopen for my sake. :-)

> > But I can also agree to 2 members, it's not too much (and more often than
> > not, those big companies have conflicting interests :-).. personally I'd
> > prefer fewer though.
> >
> > 7. Member Recall
> >
> > ==> is it intentional that the hypothetical recall process could last the
> > same about 7 months as the nomcom process?  how useful would such a
> > process be to the IETF community, I wonder?  More than that, if recalling
> > a really misbehaving member would take 7 months, couldn't he already have
> > done a significant amount of harm?
> 
> I don't think there's a timeline on the recall process. We have never tried 
> it, so most of the description is just left alone.

Right.. maybe need spelling out a bit, but not much.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings