On 03/13/2015 04:04 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:
Speaking only for myself:
Oh, yes. Spencer is also speaking only for myself.
On 3/13/15 12:34 PM, Sam Hartman wrote:
old:
(The Ombudsteam can not impose that a Respondent
who is in a IETF management position be removed from that
position. There are existing mechanisms within IETF process for
the removal of people from IETF management positions that may be
used as necessary.)
new:
The Ombudsteam MAY ask a respondent to consider resigning from an IETF
management position. The Ombudsteam May remove a respondent from a
working group or document editor position. While this document does
not create additional procedures permitting a nomcom appointee be
removed, the Ombudsteam can exclude a respondent from meetings and
mailing lists and other activities, making it impossible for them to
carry out their appointed tasks.
- With regard to NomCom appointed positions, this is just fine, and in
fact what the current text intended, while making it perfectly clear
what was intended.
I don't strongly object to the "MAY ask a respondent to consider
resigning", although I'm somewhat on the fence between
- If that's the right thing to do, I'd hope the Ombudsteam would do the
right thing, whether the procedures included this MAY or not, and
- I'm not getting how involved the community expects the Ombudsteam to
be in repairing the situation.
I agree with Pete that the rest of the text is more clearly saying what
I thought the text said.
- I am ambivalent about the Ombudsteam being able to remove someone
from a WG (editor/secretary/chair) position. While it certainly
doesn't get into the morass that we do with NomCom-appointed
positions, it seems to me that it's still a bit of
"crossing-the-streams", and as far as I can tell the same kinds of
things that can be done for NomCom-appointed positions (ask them to
consider resigning their position, exclusion from meetings / mailing
lists, etc.) would have equal effectiveness. So, I'm not sure it's
necessary. But as I said, I'm ambivalent.
I don't actually know much about what ferresnickel talked about that
didn't make it into the draft and subsequent discussion within the IESG,
but the discussion I was involved in was focused more on excluding from
meetings than from mailing lists, and we noted that the IETF actually
has running code experience with ADs who aren't able to attend multiple
IETF meetings in a row, and Nomcoms returned at least one AD in that
situation for another term.
If the community thinks that if you're excluded from meetings, you're
also excluded from mailing lists, that's pretty much fatal for any IETF
management position I've ever served in (WG draft editor, WG chair, IAB
member, and AD). So, that's definitely worth discussing.
And yeah, we spent more time trying to figure out what to do with Nomcom
appointed positions than with anything else, so definitely worth discussing.
As for the thought experiment on how a recall might go after such an
incident: I am certainly more sanguine than Sam. Presuming an incident
where the Ombudsteam decides that an AD can no longer participate in
meetings and mailing lists (already I would hope a *highly* unusual
circumstance) *and* the AD goes haywire and refuses to relinquish
their title (even more unlikely) *and* the "two sides" try to get
their friends on the recall committee, *and* these supposed friends
agree to participate in such a thing (I have a hard time imagining any
of the people I know in the IETF being willing to do so), we still
have the case that the (hopefully sane) ISOC-President-appointed
recall committee chair is going to tell the committee, "Look, we are
not deciding whether this person can start participating in meetings
or on mailing lists again. They can't and that's not going to change.
The only question is whether they get to keep their office in light of
that fact." If at that (almost unimaginable) point a sufficient number
of people on the recall committee are willing to be so destructive to
the IETF that they are willing to participate in leaving the person in
the position, I think I'm willing to live with the IETF going *boom*.
So, confidentiality ...
If an AD who has been excluded from meetings says "I won't be in Dallas
for personal reasons", unless the AD lives 2.6 miles from the IETF
meeting hotel (this time, I do), maintaining confidentiality is fairly
realistic.
If we're talking about excluding ADs from mailing lists, we've lost
that. ADs who can't send e-mail to the IESG mailing list would be
fabulously visible to the rest of the IESG. ADs cc: a lot of mailing
lists on almost everything we engage in, and if every WG chair has to
forward my comments and discuss ballots on every draft because I'm
excluded from their mailing lists ... done.
At least, that's the way it looks to me, speaking only for myself.
Spencer