At 12:22 PM -0800 10/30/2003, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
I think we can do "General AD", slot two, by talking to the NomCom chair
(though I think we need to ask them to extend the nominations deadline if
we do, since it is two weeks from tomorrow now). Having this be "Vice
Chair" is a little different, as I think it will look like "successor",
especially if the current Chair doesn't plan to re-up. Making it a one
year term increases this as a possibility and the likely perception.
so what would you suggest as adequate process for that, if "talking to the nomcom chair" once the IESG agrees to it is not adequate?
Agree that the timeframe for nominations has to be extended.
How about you write what you wrote to the IESG in a wee little Internet-Draft,
we grant an extension to get it published as an I-D as -00, and last call the
sucker? We'll get a four week community review, and we can ask the NomCom
to consider candidates at the same time or to be filled after. Remember, we don't
have to ask the NomCom to do this job in concert with filling the rest of the
roles, though it might help if they knew they would have to do it (and it wouldn't
hurt it they happen to be able to get it done). Or heck, ask for a second slot
as General AD *now* and suggest in your draft that the second slot General
AD be the Vice Chair of the IETF, and spell out what that means. Would she
be a member of the IAB, to take one example of why this might not be an
IESG-only decision?
If the community pushes back, you have a second General AD who can take
over the working groups and do the two-in-a-box coverage the rest of
us have; if it doesn't, you have a Vice Chair with a reasonably well described
role.
For the General AD slot, I think having it be a 2 year term makes sense,
because that gives the continuity we're looking for in the event of the
other general AD not coming back. If the NomCom moves the slot two person
into slot one (by making them IETF Chair), the NomCom can then appoint a
person for one year to fit slot two; then the crab crawl of years will
work.
If we term limited the Chair role, having this be an explicit succession
might actually be a very good idea (and some organizations explicitly do
that by having a vice-chair rotate in to the Chair role after a set
time), but that requires a very different discussion with the community
on term limits.
The community's largely rejected explicit term limits every time the issue has been brought up.
At the moment, I feel that the chair role is adequately term-limited by time-to-burnout...... another suggestion I've heard floated is that the IESG should select its own chair (with or without filling the resulting vacancy - depends on what you want the chair to be).
Yet another discussion....
Using time-to-burn out is a lousy way to run a term limit, as I think we agree. I
wasn't suggesting that we need term limits, but indicating that planned succession
can be a good thing. It does mean whoever is planning the succession has to
be trusted by the later groups (that is, if NomCom 2005 effectively picks Chair 2007
by naming Vice Chair 2005, everyone has to be on board that that's okay).
Are we having fun yet?
Ted