Re: Consultation on proposed IETF LLC Community Engagement Policy

[IETF Executive Director <exec-director@xxxxxxxx>]

On 12/10/2020, at 2:01 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

Staff, Secretariat and RPC are not expected to have any engagement regarding the content of technical standards except as required in their defined administrative roles. For Secretariat and RPC this may occasionally include contributing to or authoring RFCs related to their area of work.

I don't see how this will work if a staff member happens to be a subject matter expert and the IETF needs that expertise. I don't see the conflict of interest that we might be trying to avoid in that case. Suppose that an employee happens to be an expert in congestion control. Who is harmed, or who is in conflict, if they contribute to a discussion of congestion control in the QUIC WG? On the contrary, if they *don't* contribute, the IETF is harmed because it doesn't get the benefit of their expertise.

This is broader than Joel’s point, which was restricted to the RPC and so I’ve added a separate issue for this #4 "Staff, secretariat and RPC who are subject matter experts should be allowed to contribute to RFC work" at https://github.com/ietf-llc/community-engagement-policy-consultation/issues/4

Jay

I can certainly see that they shouldn't do this during working hours, because they are paid to do something else then, but there are another 128 hours a week available for them to contribute to the IETF as private individuals.

It seems to me that the policy should be different. Something like:

"Staff, Secretariat and RPC are not expected to have any engagement regarding the content of technical standards as part of their job, except as required in their defined administrative roles.  For Secretariat and RPC this may occasionally include contributing to or authoring RFCs related to their area of work. However, in accordance with IETF principles, they may contribute freely to IETF technical discussions as private individuals in their own time."

There might well be conflict of interest if a staff member contributes to the discussion of a process RFC that concerns their own work, so there naturally need to be some rules about that, as set out in the draft policy.

Regards
  Brian Carpenter

On 12-Oct-20 12:23, IETF Executive Director wrote:

The IETF Administration LLC (IETF LLC) has drafted a proposed IETF LLC Community Engagement Policy [1] that sets out how IETF LLC board, staff and contractors will engage with the IETF community, including

* what involvement board, staff and contractors may have in the the development of RFCs;
* what engagement they may have with the NomCom;
* How the IETF LLC seeks community feedback;
* What mechanisms the IETF LLC uses for community engagement.

The policy proposes a new mailing list ietf-admin@xxxxxxxx for the discussion of IETF LLC related matters.

The IETF LLC now seeks community feedback on this proposed policy.  Please provide feedback by 26 October 2020 00:00 UTC using any of the following methods:

* Raising an issue on the Github repository [2]
* Direct to the IETF Executive Director at exec-director@xxxxxxxx
* Direct to the IETF LLC Board (not including the IETF Executive Director) at llc-board-only@xxxxxxxx
* To the ietf@xxxxxxxx list

[1] https://github.com/ietf-llc/community-engagement-policy-consultation/blob/master/DRAFT%20Community%20Engagement%20Policy.md
[2] https://github.com/ietf-llc/community-engagement-policy-consultation/issues

-- 
Jay Daley

IETF Executive Director
jay@xxxxxxxx