Hi, John,
Just a couple of comments on your comments, which I largely agree with. I copied the one that seemed most important here, just so it doesn't get overlooked.
[2] There is arguably a fundamental conflict when the IESG
proposes or decides about suggested procedural changes that
would affect how the IESG works or how its members are selected.
On the one hand, ADs presumably have more intimate familiarity
with the issues than anyone else. On the other, they
volunteered and were selected with assumptions about how things
work, how (or if) they are held accountable, whether it is easy
or hard for them to get additional terms if they want them, and
so on. And the decisions to which that leads may or may not be
in the best interests of the community and the Internet even if
they are in the best interests of the sitting IESG and people
who are very much like them.I don't disagree, but one other point has come up repeatedly in my conversations with IESG members (both while serving as an AD, and while doing something else) - the sitting members of the IESG have been able to arrange their lives in a way that allows them to accept a confirmed appointment. If we keep asking people who don't have a problem with the way things are now to change the way things are now, that seems counterintuitive.
Best,
Spencer
On Thu, Oct 7, 2021 at 3:22 PM John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
--On Thursday, October 7, 2021 18:17 +0200 Carsten Bormann
<cabo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 2021-10-07, at 16:51, Salz, Rich
> <rsalz=40akamai.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> I would say no person can serve in a nomcom-chosen position
>> for more than four years in a row; there must be at least a
>> one-year gap. No exemptions.
>
> I don't think we can afford discarding all these potential
> Human Resources, if only for a year.
Hmm. Carsten, let me try suggesting almost the same thing Rich
did, but from a different perspective. It is a real advantage,
both to the people who serve and to the IETF community and the
Internet, if people in leadership roles remain actively familiar
with what it takes to get substantive work done in the IETF
rather than developing a "management" perspective and losing
both the recent memory of that experience and a bottom-up
understanding of the impact of whatever changes have occurred.
I think the percentage of IETF participants who actually want the IESG to be heavily weighted toward full-time managers is vanishingly small, but it's worth noting that a manager can do a better or worse job of managing, depending on what they are paying attention to, and who they talk to and listen to. If it is possible for the IESG to lock themselves in a room and only talk to each other, adopting a strategy that limits how long they can stay in a locked room makes a lot of sense.
If they get out more, talk to their chairs, and assemble directorates like the one Harald put together when he was GEN AD to extend his ability to remember and to listen, we would likely have more flexibility, if we wanted it.
I think it would be better for the community (and, actually, for
the sanity of the individuals) if someone who had served in an
IESG or IAB position [1] for a couple of terms take a year or
two as a participant (ideally, not even as a WG Chair), even if
they were returned to that, or some other position later.
> Instead, the spirit of this could be developed as IETF
> consensus and communicated to the noncom. They would still
> know when to stick with that simplistic rule and when it
> doesn't work. Do the right thing.
You (and others) may disagree, but I think the general principle
that multiple terms (N > 2) are generally a bad idea has gotten
at least rough consensus and been communicated to Nomcoms
multiples times. The fact that we are having this discussion
(again) suggests that has not been very effective.
I know you and I often communicate with Nomcoms about general topics, and recent versions of the datatracker feedback tools make that easier (at one point, if we had comments on the RTG area, for instance, we were copying that input into the input for each RTG AD nominee), but I'm not sure how we make sure that what has been successfully communicated to a Nomcom in year NNNN stays communicated in year NNNN+1, or NNNN+3, without writing and publishing an RFC as part of https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp10.
Even getting a new Nomcom to notice Informational RFCs (that aren't part of BCP 10, because they don't have BCP status) is a crapshoot. At one point, we had published https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5078, which was informational because it updated the informative timeline in https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3777#appendix-B. At least one Nomcom chair I talked to didn't see that, because they just looked at BCP 10.
And, that said, I still believe that some variation of what was
proposed years ago (and which the IESG refused to consider [2])
would be a good idea. The general idea was that incumbents who
were willing to serve another term would be considered by the
Nomcom even before the general call for candidates. The Nomcom
would be advised that a second term is usually A Good Thing
unless there were problems and that further terms often became
problems. The Nomcom would solicit feedback from the community
about, e.g., performance and could then decide "return" (in
which case there would never be a general call for that
position). Or they could decide "enough; no more now" or
perhaps "maybe". They would run the usual process for all
remaining open positions.
Am I remembering that https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-klensin-nomcom-incumbents-first-01 is the most recent draft suggesting how Nomcoms could evaluate the needs of areas first, and then discuss the willingness and ability of incumbents to meet those needs, before asking for non-incumbent nominations?
There would obviously be some side effects, starting with making
it difficult for an incumbent to both "run" for their existing
position and to seek another one. The community would have to
decide whether that was bad and, if so, do something about it.
If you're willing to serve a second term in your current position (to pick one example), and you're also willing to serve a first term in a different position, ISTM that's a fine conversation for Nomcoms to have with incumbents, because that would give the Nomcom a chance to look at the needs of your current position and the position you're also willing to serve in, and that's kind of their responsibility.
I know when we've talked about this (like, a decade or 15 years ago), people asked, "but what if the incumbent says they're not willing to serve again, or the Nomcom says the incumbent isn't able to meet the needs of the position, but the Nomcom can't find anyone better?"
I don't know why the Nomcom couldn't ask the incumbent to reconsider their willingness, for instance. Nomcoms solve problems like this now.
And, if there are advantages to "running" against a first-term
incumbent who has done a good job "for practice", they would
largely disappear. On the other hand, it would allow the Nomcom
to spend more of its time on the hard cases rather than deciding
whether an alternate candidate might be slightly better than a
one-term incumbent who has done a good job.
best,
john
[1] I am undecided about Nomcom-selected positions other than
the IAB and IESG. It is possible that different considerations
might apply.
[2] There is arguably a fundamental conflict when the IESG
proposes or decides about suggested procedural changes that
would affect how the IESG works or how its members are selected.
On the one hand, ADs presumably have more intimate familiarity
with the issues than anyone else. On the other, they
volunteered and were selected with assumptions about how things
work, how (or if) they are held accountable, whether it is easy
or hard for them to get additional terms if they want them, and
so on. And the decisions to which that leads may or may not be
in the best interests of the community and the Internet even if
they are in the best interests of the sitting IESG and people
who are very much like them.
I don't disagree, but one other point has come up repeatedly in my conversations with IESG members (both while serving as an AD, and while doing something else) - the sitting members of the IESG have been able to arrange their lives in a way that allows them to accept a confirmed appointment. If we keep asking people who don't have a problem with the way things are now to change the way things are now, that seems counterintuitive.
Best,
Spencer
