--On Monday, August 31, 2015 09:20 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> This may be too radical but, in the spirit of allowing people
>> to apply discretion, let me success such a process experiment
>> based on the principle that the reason for Nomcom-volunteer
>> qualification rules is to be sure that the selecting members
>> of the Nomcom have a reasonable understanding of the IETF and
>> how it works. For the purpose of this experiment,
>>
>> (1) Anyone meeting the current requirements is automatically
>> qualified to volunteer, just as they are today.
>>
>> (2) Anyone inclined to serve on the Nomcom and willing to meet
>> whatever requirements for attendance and participation during
>> the Nomcom's term apply for the Nomcom of interest may submit
>> his or her name and a very brief statement of qualifications
>> (or, more specifically, why they believe they are qualified)
>> to the Nomcom Chair. The Chair and previous Chair will
>> consider all such applications and may, based on their
>> personal discretion and the "reasonable understanding"
>> principle may be added to the volunteer pool. When the Chair
>> publishes the list of volunteers, those who submitted a
>> statement of qualifications will be included along with their
>> statements and the decision of the Chair and prior Chair.
>> Egregiously silly decisions may be objected to following the
>> usual procedures.
>>
>> That experimental model has three important properties: it
>> involves no new filtering rules, it may allow some people onto
>> the Nomcom whom everyone would agree have an adequate
>> knowledge of the IETF but who do not qualify on meeting
>> counts alone, and it allows us to accumulate information
>> about who actually volunteers and asks for an exception and
>> what their claimed qualifications are. Put differently, it
>> may help us tell whether we have an actual problem or only a
>> theoretical one.
>
> I decided to sleep on it, and the result is that I'm quite
> attracted by this idea. Maybe we should have three
> "gatekeepers" instead of two, but since the random selection
> process makes the final cut, it doesn't seem that personal
> bias could be a major factor anyway.
Largely because of the randomization, I'm not even sure we need
more than one, but Harald's numbers suggest that there might be
some advantages in either load-sharing or not dumping this on
the sitting Ncmcom Chair. The main reason I suggested two was
to give the sitting Chair flexibility if deciding about an
applicant was uncomfortable because of, e.g., a work
relationship.
> We could add a list of *suggested* criteria such as RFC
> authorship, active WG contributions, remote participation.
Yes, but I'd see those as recommendations to the applicant
(would-be volunteer) to include in a request rather than as
recommendations to those making the decision about what to
consider. If there were less than complete consistency in
evaluations during the experimental period, that might actually
be an advantage.
john