Re: NEW TOPIC: clarifying normative nomcom instructions

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

    Date:        Tue, 02 Apr 2002 22:38:22 +1000
    From:        Geoff Huston <gih@telstra.net>
    Message-ID:  <5.1.0.14.2.20020402223257.028001c0@kahuna.telstra.net>

  | I personally like the idea of "good advice".

I certainly have no problem with this, but ...

  | It may well be that good advice can achieve what rules cannot readily 
  | achieve: e.g.: that while there are no strict term limits, there is a view 
  | that movement of individuals has merit in this domain.

figuring out what that advice should be may not be easy.  Certainly
in earlier days there was a pretty strong opinion that stability was
more important than random change just for the sake of it, and when some
previous nomcoms seemed to have made changes without any particularly
good reason, other than to make change, there was a fair amount of
adverse feeling around.

That's how we got the "or aappoint a superior" language that we have
now - that is, we change only if the replacement will be better than
the incumbent.

[Aside to whoeevr raised this point - of course that's a subjective judgement
made by the nomcom, that's irrelevant, all the judgements are].

kre