Re: NomCom 2022-2023 Call for Nominations

[Warren Kumari <warren@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 5:01 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 01-Oct-22 07:10, John C Klensin wrote:

--On Friday, September 30, 2022 13:26 -0400 Michael StJohns
<mstjohns@comcast.net> wrote:

...

(Side comment - why can
the various boards have various levels of executive session, but this wasn't contemplated for the Nomcom?)

All NomCom meetings are executive sessions, since they are bound by the rule of strict confidentiality.

A meeting that excluded the liaisons would be unacceptable, IMHO, since one of the liaisons' duties is to witness the process. A session from which the liaisons were excluded would raise an intense suspicion of horse-trading.

I find the idea that *any* of the confidential material should be concealed from the liaisons quite disturbing, for the same reason. How can a liaison audit the process and assert that it was followed correctly if they have not seen all the material?

If a candidate is concerned that one of the liaisons might be prejudiced against them or that there is a conflict of interest (e.g. the candidate and the liaison have the same employer), is this worse than the same situation between a candidate and a voting NomCom member or the NomCom chair?

Perhaps?

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that voting members do not serving in any of the groups to which that are appointing people, and so the "opportunities" for retaliation are lower. 

Let's take a (hopefully) strawman scenario:

I'm tossing my hat into the ring to serve as OpsAD again. 

This year's IESG Liaison to the NOMCOM is Martin Duke. Y'all might not know this, but Martin and I are best buds. We wash each other's hair; we go on long walks on the beach together; we finish each others sentences; when we go out to dinner, we feed each other desert... 

It also happens that Brian thinks that I'm a crappy AD - apart from the fact that I constantly abuse my position, have never actually progressed a document to RFC status, and ballot by picking positions from a hat, Brian also knows that I don't wash my hands after using the restroom. 

Brian would like to provide this feedback to the NomCom, but he's concerned that if he does, Martin will retaliate by slapping DISCUSS positions on all of his future documents… because of this, Brian keeps quiet, the NomCom never finds out about my poor personal hygiene habits and I'm reappointed as OpsAD. This leaves me free to paw through all of the cookies at IETF118, trying to choose the one that simultaneously optimizes for a: size  and b: highest density of chocolate chips…

… 2 weeks later, everyone at the meeting mysteriously dies of cholera. 

Now, *hopefully* this is just a strawman — but it does seem like it might be useful for Brian to be share some information with the nomcom without any fear of retaliation (or death!).

Yes, everyone is bound by the nomcom confidentiality (and I've always been impressed by how well this is honored), but because the liaisons serve in positions of "power" there may be concerns other than just confidentiality.

We rely on personal integrity for such cases, because we have no choice. (RFC 8713 doesn't seem to mention recusal for such cases.)

Ok, that's probably fair. Presumably (hopefully?) the liaisons will always have sufficient personal integrity that we don't have to worry about retaliation… I'm also assuming that any liaison who's integrity is so poor that one does have to worry, would already have been recalled, and so, perhaps this is a self-solving problem?

W

Brian