RE: DISCUSSION: publish list of nominees?

[Russ White <ruwhite@cisco.com>]

Agreed.... At some point this information should be published. It
should be early enough in the process that the real
confidentiality we care about--who's really on the short short
list--isn't revelaed, but late enough to make certain that the
list of candidates is short enough to get real feedback on from
the community at large.

Russ

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, David Allan wrote:

> Tom
> 
> I think you raise a number of good points, coverging on: if the process is
> to be made transparent, a "confirmed nominee" list is probably the most
> useful point of transparency , and would faciliate the NOMCOM collecting
> (semi-solicited) community feedback. For simplicity the list would include
> incumbents re-upping.
> 
> I think many of the gyrations/arm twisting etc. beyond that point...if
> necessary...would require minimal justification if it was simply understood
> that for the NOMCOMs reasons, the list of confirmed candidates did not
> contain a legitimate contender according to the criteria the NOMCOM formed
> in talking to the community. It was a snapshot in time of the process.
> 
> cheers
> Dave
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Thomas Narten [mailto:narten@us.ibm.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 2:05 PM
> > To: NomComDiscussion
> > Subject: Re: DISCUSSION: publish list of nominees?
> > 
> > 
> > This is an important discussion to have, but we should be clear about
> > what we are talking about, as I think some of the details are *very*
> > important.
> > 
> > Terminology (from rfc 2727)
> > 
> > nominee - a person whose name has been sent to the nomcom as someone
> > to consider for a particular open position. Note that a nominated
> > person doesn't necessarily know they've been nominated, nor would they
> > necessarily even agree to serve if selected.
> > 
> > Candidate: Person selected by the nomcom to serve, but not yet
> > confirmed by the confirming body.
> > 
> > Confirmed candidate: person confirmed by the confirming body, i.e.,
> > one that is formally appointed.
> > 
> > Note that there are yet more distinctions internal to the nomcom (I'm
> > making up some of this terminology):
> > 
> > confirmed nominee: a nominee that has agreed to serve (i.e., doesn't
> > say "no" when asked, fills out the questionaire, etc.) But the nomcom
> > has done no real filtering yet on this list.
> > 
> > "short list": persons still in the running. Typically, the nomcom
> > makes several passes over the short list, removing names until it has
> > a list that is manageable in terms of looking at each of the persons
> > on the list very carefully (e.g., maybe interviewing them). The short
> > list can change over time, getting shorter, than maybe longer again,
> > then maybe shorter, etc., all depending on how the deliberations go.
> > 
> > IMO, publishing the list of nominees is a lot less useful than some
> > people seem to think. For some positions (e.g., IAB, or IESG where the
> > incumbant is stepping down) one might get 20-30 nominees.  Asking the
> > community for feedback on such a long list is pretty useless,
> > especially when the names on the list that folks are most comfortable
> > with are in fact not even willing to do the job.  Indeed, for the IESG
> > case, moving from "candidate" to "confirmed candidate" might winnow
> > the number down by 2/3rds. Lots of people say no.
> > 
> > The list of "confirmed candidates" gets more interesting. It's
> > somewhat shorter, but it too may be so long as to not be useful.
> > 
> > What would probably be the most useful to the nomcom is if some
> > version of the short list is made public. This would give the
> > community a much better idea of who the nomcom was seriously
> > considering, which is the point at which frank and broad input is most
> > useful. Publishing a longer list without knowing which of those on the
> > list have effectively already been removed from consideration by the
> > the nomcom makes it too easy for folks to focus on the wrong people or
> > assume that things are reasonably on track.
> > 
> > But... the short list can change. Would every version need to be
> > published? (seems problematic and would give too much visibility into
> > the internal processes). Also, if the nomcom decides it doesn't like
> > *any* of its choices, and then goes out and recruits someone else,
> > would the short list need to be published again? If it didn't wouldn't
> > the community be rather surprised to see someone selected that was
> > never on the published list? But, when it gets to crunch time, the
> > nomcom may not be able to wait (say) 48 hours between publishing a
> > list and making a selection.  All kinds of potential problems here...
> > 
> > Finally, one thing not to forget is that for some positions (IESG
> > especially), some serious arm twisting is needed to get folks to agree
> > to serve. It has happened on previous nomcoms that nominees have
> > effectively said "I'd be interested in serving, but I think the
> > current incumbent is doing a fine job (and is a friend/colleage/etc/),
> > thus I am NOT willing to be a nominee unless the incumbant is stepping
> > down voluntarily. This makes publishing a "confirmed nominee" list
> > rather problematical if the nomcom is in fact seriously considering
> > replacing an incumbent.
> > 
> > Thomas
> > 
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> 

__________________________________
riw@cisco.com CCIE <>< Grace Alone