If the request had been to sanitize / anonymize the information, your
description below would be correct. But the request was for the
information to be available to the Chair and all voting members, but not
the liaisons. (Unspecified but presumably not the past chair either, on
general principle.)
That would be veyr difficult to do, particularly with the use of common
tooling to hold all nomcom confidential information. It also is not
clear, as Rich notes, that the rules even permit him to do that. One
way of looking at it is that in order for those liaisons who are
responsible for reporting that the process was properly followed need to
be able to see the input and hear the discussions. Even if one somehow
decided that the rules permitted blocking them from seeing the
information, they would still hear the discussions of the content.
Which would be highly likely to reveal whatever was desired to keep out
of their hands.
Additionally, I think that if the data is that sensitive, our current
processes probably leak too much in too many ways for it to be
reasonable to trust the confidentiality to the degree needed. I very
much wish that were not true.
Yours,
Joel
On 9/29/2022 1:27 PM, Michael StJohns wrote:
On 9/29/2022 12:07 PM, Salz, Rich wrote:
Revisiting a variation on a question that came up some months
ago, is the description of why a nomination is being made
* confidential to the Nomcom Chair and voting members
(not exposed to liaisons)
* confidential to the Nomcom (including liaisons),
or
* public
We don't really have a way to keep information from liaisons. And
looking at https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8713.html#section-4.7
and all occurrences of "liaison" in the text, that is clearly not
something to do, in my opinion as Chair. All information sent to the
committee is confidential and should not be disclosed. This includes
the questionnaire responses; they will not be made public, nor will
any public statement summarized from them be made public. (I never
said there would be change in that policy, only that I wanted to do
it. It's not happening.)
Hi Rich - I believe this is a entirely incorrect response. Sorry - the
way this is done is for the information to go straight to the chair
who shares it with the appropriate people. That's been the case at
least since I was chair oh so many years ago. There are situations
where it's just not appropriate for a given liaison (or liaisons) to
be given a piece of information. It may be the case that the *tools*
don't support this, but that is different than saying "this is clearly
not something to do...".
This is no different than a confidential provision of information on a
nominee being sent to the chair for anonymous posting.
Liaisons are there to provide information TO the Nomcom, not to glean
information FROM the Nomcom, although the latter happens in normal
course.
Later, Mike
Confidentiality is part of the "NomCom note well" that we show at the
start of every meeting. Of course, information has leaked before and
probably always will.
If there are concerns about some people seeing the rationale for a
nomination, then send that information privately to people you trust
to keep your confidence and who will find that input valuable.
-Rich Salz, 2022-2023 NomCom Chair
