Hi John, Not to detract from the overall message, but to touch on one small point... On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 02:17:08PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote: > > This subthread opens up a relate issued that I've been avoiding > commenting on. The original assumptions about the Nomcom was > that the number of voting members would be large in comparison > to the number of liaisons, advisors, and miscellaneous > hangers-on and that all voting Nomcom members would have a > relatively high degree of knowledge of the IETF, IAB, and their > functions and operations going in. The analysis that Barbara > posted indicates that the number of liaisons and advisors is now > over half the size of the voting membership. Comments that she > and others have made imply that contemporary Nomcoms are heavily > reliant on the liaisons (and any advisors who are allowed to > speak up) for information about the functioning of the relevant > bodies, what is needed in terms of people to fill positions, > etc. That almost inevitably creates a bias toward the status > quo in those bodies: if one of them includes people who think > that the body is badly off-course and that some incumbents need > to go, the odds that such people will be selected as liaisons > are low. As long as everything is going well everywhere, that > is fine. I'm rather curious to know how you are estimating the odds here. From my experience, the IESG selects its liaison to NomCom by simple procedure of "okay, some 1 to 3 people expressed any interest at all; haggle briefly amonst yourselves to see if you can agree on one person. You did? Great." One might expect that an IESG member who actively believed there was a need to change the course of the group as a whole might realize that advising the NomCom of that need might be effective, and might in turn attempt to volunteer to be liaison, in which case the odds wouldn't seem so low at all. Then again, one might not believe any or all of those to be the case... -Ben
