At 03:10 AM 10/10/2014, John C Klensin wrote:
>--On Thursday, October 09, 2014 13:53 -0400 Michael StJohns
><mstjohns@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> However, I'm concerned that we are proposing to not follow our
>> own rules.
>>
>> The first issue is that once the IETF ExecDir passes on the
>> vacancies to the Nomcom, there is no provision for the Nomcom
>> not to fill those vacancies, nor is there provision for that
>>...
>
>Mike,
>
>I think we have a little bit of a philosophical disagreement
>that has a lot to do with what the IETF is about and much less
>to do with this particular case.
I'm going to pseudo-top post here. I don't think of this as so much a disagreement in the philosophy of how flexible we should be, but more a disagreement about when it's expedient and appropriate to throw the rules away. Most of the stuff we've come up with has a deliberative component to it - "figure out what you need, socialize it and get consensus" coupled with procedural items ("normal AD appointees take office during the First IETF"). If you follow the rules, you mostly get a predictable outcome and predictable times. If you want to bypass the rules, then you *still* need to "figure out what you need, socialize it and get consensus", but not just for the change, but for the change in procedures.
In the instant case we got "The IESG has decided to close out the APPs area - discuss. Oh and by the way, while the discussion is taking place you guys over at the Nomcom should ignore the open slot in APPs in your deliberations." The first piece of it is fine; the second less so. As has been evident by the discussion, the form of the IESG in fall of 2015 is still up in the air; leaving me to wonder if there's something else going on that's not been made public.
I've no idea how far the Nomcom is along the process. AIRC, Nominations were supposed to be in as of 8 October or right about when this got started.
>I spent many years of my life in assorted positions, often
>oversight or management, in standards bodies in which the main
>(or only) criterion for almost anything --including standards
>approval and leadership appointment-- was that rigid procedures
>were followed to the letter. To a considerable extent,
>technical quality, implementability, relevance to anything
>actual users or any likely producer of implementations actually
>cared about, and so on were secondary to careful step-by-step
>procedure following if they counted at all.
>
>The IETF, by contrast, tended to focus on identifying the right
>things to do and getting them done.
Yes but. There's a difference on getting documents through the process (and it's unclear we're doing better there than we used to be) and all the rest of the cruft that makes up an organizations operating system. I'm not saying that applying "do what's right" to the operation of the IETF is necessarily wrong, but that's the place were we touch the legal systems of various jurisdictions. Not following our own rules is one way to get in trouble.
All of the above said, my large objection to this is that it seems rushed, and not well thought out with possible hidden implications and unintended consequences. It's unclear the need espoused by Jari rises to the level of exception processing and I would feel uncomfortable acceding to the IESGs desire to not fill the slot at this time.
Mike