Re: DISCUSSION: should there be term limits?

[Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>]

No, I don't think we need term limits.

The "problem" such as it is of appointees serving forever is largely
that it is very hard to find people who are all of qualified, acceptable,
and willing, to take on one of these rules.

If you look, I think you'll find that the "problem" occurs more in the
IESG than the IAB - that's largely because much more is required of IESG
members than IAB members, so it is harder to find qualified willing
candidates, even before the question of whether they're acceptable is
raised.

Brian has indicated that he will have "a number of things to say" which
"cut quite deeply into the status quo" during the plenary at the IETF
meeting.   I won't be there, and I have no idea what he's going to say,
but I have been of the opinion that some radical changes are needed for
a long time now.  When I first suggested this I was told I had no IESG
experience, and so no idea ... then I became IAB liaison to the IESG for
a while, so now I have some (no longer very recent) experience of how
the IESG works - my opinions changed not in the slightest.

That is, the IESG is way overworked, they have been given two separate
jobs to do - unrelated jobs - and ones which actually conflict with
each other.

It is no surprise that it is hard to find people to take on IESG positions,
and hence, that there isn't a lot of churn.

The two jobs are managing the working groups (which includes creating
new ones, terminating old ones, making sure they're making progress, ...)
(and day to day administrative issues, though much of that gets delegated
to the secretariat, as it should).

And validating that the result of the WG process is truly acceptable to
the IETF as a whole - that it meets the standards, and has rough consensus
of the whole IETF.

Those are actually contradictory - as manager of the working group, the AD
is expected to champion that group's work at the management level.  In fact,
IESG rules actually require the AD to vote "yes" to any WG doc from their
WG for the doc to be considered at all (what the rest of the IESG thinks
about a doc is irrelevant unless the AD in question has approved it).
So, to get the doc considered at all, the AD has to say it is fine, and
the IETF has approved it - which puts them in the position of having to
go against the expressed wishes of their working group, or perhaps misrepresent
the actual wishes of the IETF as a whole (and if the AD happens to be
mistaken in their judgement of the latter - believe that the doc isn't
approved by the IETF, and tell the WG "no", then there is no way other than
the appeals process for the rest of the IESG to correct the mistaken AD).

I firmly believe that these two roles should be separated out into two
different bodies.   The new one could be much smaller than the current
IESG (about 7 people would be right I think, perhaps even 5), the IESG
may even decide that will less work to do, it also needs less people
though I'd hope not - as part of the reason for a change like this is
to make it require less effort to participate, reducing the workload is
an aim.

The only real objection to this that I have heard when I have proposed it
in the past, is that it is too hard to find volunteers when we need 25,
requiring 30 or more would be that much harder.

But we really don't know - and unless we try it, can't know.  The work
required and the type of person required, will be quite different for
this new body, so guessing how many volunteers there might be, cannot
really be possible without any experience at all.

My guess is that if this were to happen, then the result would be more
people in management type rolls, hence more opportunity for people to
get involved.  Also a lower workload on those who are involved, and
thus, hopefully a bigger willing candidate pool - which might then allow
more changes to me made with less harm to the I* overall - and without
requiring term limits to force that to happen.

kre