--On Friday, September 30, 2022 13:26 -0400 Michael StJohns <mstjohns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi - > > I'm amused at how quickly this went off the rails. Unfortunately, I am neither surprised nor amused :-( > On 9/29/2022 3:12 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote: >... >> On Wed, Sep 28, 2022 at 07:31:34PM -0400, John C Klensin >> wrote: >> >>> either or both will be made public beyond the Chair and >>> Voting Members who have an obligation of confidentiality. >> >> My understanding of my role as a liaison when I was one, and >> my reading of the relevant RFCs at least at the time, was >> absolutely that the liaison had exactly the same obligations >> with respect to confidentiality as any voting member. I >> recall everyone involved at the time as agreeing with such >> an obligation, as well. So whatever the distinction might >> once have been, at least in my experience there was no such >> distinction except in the capacity of voting or not voting >> in the decisions, and in being aware of that distinction and >> being deferential towards it. > I don't disagree, and I don't think John does. You are correct, I don't. > BUT. The > question was about how someone would make a confidential > comment to the Nomcom that was not shared with the > Liaisons. That suggests that there's a need to do so or at > least someone believes there is a need to do so. So maybe > let's address that rather than extolling the commitments of > the liaisons to confidentiality. Yes. That is much closer. And I was concerned about some of the nomination materials, not just comments. In the same context and wrt Rob's comment about the confidential part of the questionnaires, each Nomcom gets to write its own questionnaires, this year's, according to the schedule, won't be available until next week, so, at least until them, that question remains legitimate (even though I didn't ask it). > While I agree that the non-voting members and advisors are > bound to confidentiality, that's not necessarily what this is > about. The US military and intelligence communities (and I > would expect many other countries) differentiate being cleared > for information (and signing all the binding oaths) from have > a need to know. It's unclear to me that the non-voting members > (with the exception of the chair and past chair) have a > universal need-to-know. Unfortunately the evolution of the > process, the addition of more liaisons, the addition of > advisors, and the current tool set make managing need-to-know > problematic and mostly difficult. (Side comment - why can > the various boards have various levels of executive session, > but this wasn't contemplated for the Nomcom?) Yes. That is _much_ closer to the roots of my concern. > This year, there are exactly as many non-voting participants > as voting members. And according to the rules, all of those > non-voting participants get to comment and discuss and vote on > everything except the candidate selections. I'm > concerned about this as a large quantity of "advisors" has the > potential for undue influence, regardless of best intentions. Not covered by my earlier question, but that too. I'll save time and space by not including the rest of your note, including the Franklin quote, but we are in agreement, perhaps violent agreement. One of the possible responses from the Nomcom (or at least Rich) to my concern would be "yes, we understand the issue in general and, if alerted to particular problems for a particular case, will be hyper-careful". That would not satisfy the concerns that you raise and the subset of them that I tried to raise, but Rich's comment about sending some material privately is a step in the right direction. "Extolling commitments...", as you point out, does not help very much if the person with the concerns things they are legitimate. thanks, john p.s. Not ignoring your earlier note or Joel's response -- this is a particularly bad week for me and I don't want to try to respond until I have a bit more time to think about it.
