Phillip and Joel,
--On Wednesday, 27 July, 2005 13:32 -0700 "Hallam-Baker,
Phillip" <pbaker@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> My biggest worry is the one piece of structure that has no
>> wiggle room. As
>> defined, if the Nomcom in phase 1 decides not to reappoint
>> the incumbent,
>> there is no way to recover if that turns out not to work. I
>> like the idea
>> of considering incumbents on their own. But I can not find a
>> way to make
>> the two-phase system work without severe risk of backing
>> ourselves into a corner.
I did worry about that. But I agree with Phillip's comments
below, although I would have stated some of them more
positively. FWIW, there was an early version of this proposal
that essentially permitted the nomcom to say "too bad, not
enough leadership depth in this area to continue it, we can't
find a plausible candidate and the area is hereby shut down".
I was convinced that was much too draconian but, frankly, if we
get into a situation in which the Nomcom's only choice is put an
AD back in whom they have already decided to retire, I'd like to
see some other options considered. Those might include:
* Dragging a former AD (one who has spent a few years
back in the trenches) out of retirement for a
really-short term appointment while the nomcom beats the
bushes and twists arms.
* Leaving a vacancy and asking the IESG to carefully
consider whether the area is defined and organized
properly given the shortage of leadership.
* And probably some other things.
As indicated in my longer note, my goal was to promote turnover
and more circulation of ADs back into technical work,
leadership, and mentoring at the WG level. If an area has a
leadership shortage, that should be a stronger reason to get
people with AD experience back on the front lines of where the
work is being done and able to train or mentor others, rather
than holding them on the IESG longer and making the situation
worse.
YMMD, of course, and the proposal could be easily changed to
allow escapes that would permit recycling an AD who had been
retired in the first round if the community really thought that
was desirable. But I'd argue that it is not.
More below.
> Given the '2 terms' limitation described I think that it is
> not very likely that this would occur. A NOMCON is not very
> likely to be considering replacing an AD unless their first
> term gave a very very good reason to do so. The AD has in
> effect had to screw up in a pretty major way that is not
> attributed to being new to the job within their first 18
> months. The most likely way that would happen is if they were
> not doing the job.
Exactly. After one term, there isn't going to be an issue
unless there has been a major screwup, probably more than one
with no signs of learning. After two terms, the incumbent is
presumed to be out and therefore part of the job --during the
second term if not the first-- is to be sure that there will be
good candidates. If there are no plausible successors, I'd
expect the incumbent and the IESG to deal with that. Dealing
with it would presumably start by reconsidering the viability of
the area, long before any of this gets to the Nomcom. The
intent is to permit a third term in exceptional circumstances,
but to create a really strong bias against those "exceptional
circumstances" being "can't find anyone else".
> The other advantage of the 2 terms limitation not mentioned so
> far is that it makes it much more attractive to an employer to
> have someone become an AD if they know that it is a fixed term
> commitment than if it is open ended. I can see a real
> advantage in terms of career development to having a member of
> my group serve a four year term. An eight year term for a
> single individual is a rather different matter. I would much
> rather have two (even three) individuals serve four year terms
> than have one effectively committed for a life sentence.
Exactly. See the "jury duty" comments in my long note about
motivation.
> The change also improves accountability. I think a lot of the
> problems caused during the 'old boys network' period were due
> to the perception that the members of the IESG had been
> permanently promoted to a higher status and that this
> represented the culmination of their IETF career.
>
> The four year time limit means that an AD who e.g. makes
> unilateral decisions that override WG consensus in unfair ways
> will eventually be called to account when they return to
> ordinary status.
I'm not sure, and I want to focus more on ways to encourage the
behavior the community wants rather than on how to punish the
behavior it doesn't. The above doesn't really work as an
accountability formula because, in principle, someone could
systematically misbehave as an AD and then exit the IETF
entirely at end of term. For that situation, only recalls are
likely to work, and this doesn't change the recall mechanism.
However, my personal theory is that what the community sees as
unilateral decisions are the result of either getting seriously
out of touch with the work and WG process or of the massive
overload problem. More rollover and time in the WGs before and
after IESG terms will tend to reduce the tendency to get out of
touch with those processes (see below) and the other proposal
addresses the overload part. Let's try to figure out what the
problems are and find things that solve or at least reduce them,
rather than figuring out ways to punish people for responding
badly to intolerable circumstances.
john
p.s. We've got something of a tradition of moving people from
the IESG to the IAB and vice versa. This document deliberately
does not address the question of whether someone should spend a
year or two as an IETF participant before making that switch.
Anecdotally, I would say that sometimes the direct migration has
worked out very well... and sometimes it hasn't. Having made
the move without a break, my own feeling, in retrospect, was
that I would have been better off, and it would have been better
for the community, if I had a year or two to do some bottom-up
technical work again before ending up on the IAB. The
experience of others probably differs. I don't see a need to
write a strong rule about this, but, if we do the rest of it, I
would hope that the nomcom would get the general message that
moving people between the two bodies (and if the other proposal
goes through, between either of them and the review panel) is
probably to be avoided unless there is some specific reason to
do so. Again, the idea is not really "term limits", but the
considerable value of circulating people with the perspectives
and experience gained on the IESG and IAB back into the
community. Nothing in the proposal would prohibit them from
ending up on either body "later", even the one they served on
before, but I believe the break is A Good Thing for both the
IETF and the individuals involved.
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