Stewart Bryant wrote:
However the Nomcom consists of a cross-section of the community all of whom see the same input from the community as to the suitability the candidates for the jobs. The members of the Nomcom keep each other honest because for every member of the Nomcom that has a particular partisanship there are 9 others with a different agenda, at least 8 of whom work for a different organization. Provided the selection pool is sufficiently large the probability of a skewed Nomcom is small and the process works fairly.
All true. However a question worth asking is about the potential influence of the liaisons. Sometimes, they are remarkably active participants in the Nomcom discussions, to the point of leading discussion. Should that be their role?
If a Nomcom has voting members with relatively less direct experience in the management of IETF work -- as chairs or authors -- then the liaisons must be relied on particularly heavily.
What the liaisons all have in common is that they are part of the existing IETF management structure. The potential for this producing a process that tends to cater to the established structure, rather than explore alternatives, seems rather straightforward, no matter how diligent everyone is. That is, this seems an inherent bias.
In addition, the Nomcom research process is weighted towards obtaining opinions from within the existing management structure. An enormous amount of energy is devoted to interviewing all IAB and IESG mbmers, as well as working group chairs. All of this is entirely reasonable, of course, except to the extent that it contains an inherent bias. Although not absolute, the sitting members of IETF management can effectively issue a veto on a candidate.
A straightforward means of obtaining more diverse input is to make candiates' names public. This permits the rest of the community to decide whether to comment, rather than limiting Nomcom input to those who the Nomcom chooses to solicit. (No, this is not a new idea.)
A possible means of ensuring that Nomcom voting members always have a strong base of IETF operational knowledge is to require that some percentage of its membership have more experience than mere attendance. (Note that the meeting attendance requirement does not mean that the person has ever attended a single working group meeting, nevermind never done any serious IETF work.)
d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf