--On Friday, 25 May, 2007 15:17 -0700 Lakshminath Dondeti <ldondeti@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Glad to hear that you see the value in making the IAB reports > public. I think that this is something that needs to happen > on an urgent basis. Please see inline for additional notes: >... > That all sounds too political! Most of this should be > transparent. What are people on the IESG/IAB afraid of in > sharing their honest views on whether a particular BoF > proposal is bad/ugly/good/ok? Being recalled? That never > happens! That may be a separate problem. However, while I would hope that the frequency is low, I've been parts of discussions --as an IESG and then as an IAB member-- in which people have said things equivalent to "while my employer is pushing this, I think it is a terrible idea because...". So, for those few cases, you might consider whether "fear of being fired" is an issue. > As to picking chairs, why is the BoF process any different > than the WG chair picking process (interim appointments)? The > sponsoring/advising AD may send a call for nominations, may > seek input from the community (some of them may be on I*, > sure) and makes a decision. He/she might write a blurb on why > a certain person was selected too. > > There is no need for any significant "private" discussion > (except for discussion on personnel, legal and financial > aspects). Let's just say that I like BCP 39's Section 3.6 > better than Section 3.2 of 3710. I know I'm in the minority in the community about this, but I think the IAB and IESG are likely to make better decisions if they can consider issues, discuss them privately from their different perspectives, and then decide. If, by making everything public, you prevent people from exploring ideas and encourage them to "play to an audience", you may get worse results. While I have not been on the Nomcom and don't know anything about the internal discussions, there is much evidence that many of the choices of the last few years have favored people who don't offend anyone over people who are determined to exercise their very best judgment to get the right things done, even if those decisions are unpopular. Of course, if one is going to have collective decision-making processes that work and are subject to appropriate checks, one must have an appeals process that works, a nomcom process that works, and a recall process that works, or appropriate substitutes for all three. In addition, if you want thoughtful group decision-making, you need to be able --and willing-- to get the group to explain those decisions and then hold them responsible as a group. I'd give the appeals process a reasonably high score but the recall process has become purely theoretical and, despite a great deal of hard work and good intentions, I don't have a lot to say about the nomcom process that is really positive and would observe that notions of not changing out too many people in order to preserve continuity work against holding groups responsible as a group. >... > Having been on the nomcom, my recollection is that people say > the right things in their questionnaires or interviews. So, I > wonder what's going on. What almost anyone who had taken political psychology 101 or its equivalent would tell you is that you have just answered your question. People say the right things. Saying the right things becomes more important than an understanding of them and how they will behave. People who don't say the right things don't get selected. And, insofar as the people who are saying the right things do so because they _want_ those positions for whatever it will bring to them personally or corporately, you get bad behavior in the long run. >> So, I would see value in the IAB's BOF reports being made >> public, as far as their technical content goes, but on the >> clear understanding that there will be private communication >> on sensitive issues. > > Let's start making the IAB BoF reports public! Do we need to > write a draft for this or does the IAB just need to start > doing the right thing? Let's assume that there are three types of information in those reports. There is material that could easily and reasonably be made public, although the IAB members may have developed a shorthand for discussions among themselves and with the IESG that might take some effort to explain. There is material that could be made public, but only at the risk of offending people, especially people who might later turn up on, or influence, a Nomcom. And there is material that, for one good reason or another, should not be public. Just separating the three and providing those additional explanations increases the IAB member workload. I don't know if it does so significantly or not but my sense when I was on the IAB was that only a small fraction of the membership were regularly producing BoF reports that could actually be useful. If you discourage people from writing reports, or reduce the number of BoFs that an effective IAB member is willing to cover, that isn't necessarily a good tradeoff. Nothing is free, including lunches and beer. Speaking bluntly --and as someone who has given up on wanting or being willing to take official positions sufficiently to not be worried about retaliation-- I think you need to think about this further and, in particular, be more sensitive to unintended consequences. >From your later note... > Coming to the fear of retaliation issue (I guess we are > talking about unethical behavior on part of an IESG or IAB > member at this point), we need to find a way to fix that. On > this, we seem to be worse off than the outside world. > [...] Yet, > our own processes allow ADs to do exactly that (more > specifically, someone who becomes an AD might try and see what > all he or she can get away with and the push back is often too > little or too late). Then you need a recall procedure that actually works, that can be used, and that is as public as possible (perhaps more public than the Nomcom process). Making more of the discussions that go into regular decision-making public won't help: all a potentially-misbehaving IAB or IESG member would need to fear from having the misbehavior be more public would be the possibility (not the certainty for a number of bad reasons) that a Nomcom might not return him or her in a couple of years. Suggestions have been made over the years about how to do that. They have included standing or standby committees that don't need a long and drawn out selection and appointment process to begin considering action, restoring the ability of IAB and IESG members (who might be the only ones who know the details of behavior patterns) to initiate recalls, and changing the nature of the Nomcom review model for incumbents. None of those proposals have gone anywhere: those who are inclined to see conspiracies and power grabs assume this is because the IESG would have to approve them and doesn't like the idea of more controls on its authority; I'm more inclined that, beyond participation in an occasional conversation on the IETF list, the community has stopped caring. john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf