Re: DISCUSSION: rejecting candidates

[Donald Eastlake 3rd <dee3@torque.pothole.com>]

Most of the nomcoms I have been involved with have assumed that the
confirming body might say "no" or their selected person withdraw at the
last minute and have had a back up available in all cases except for
very hard to fill IESG positions.

It would be reasonable to add a paragraph to recommend this practice.

A rule saying that if someone is rejected they can't be resubmitted is
just useless extra baggage. If someone were rejected, either the nomcom
overlooked something (and will be suitably corrected by the negative
feedback from the confirming body and submit someone else) or the nomcom
is wedged (at least from the point of view of the confirming body, which
is what is important here). If people are at loggerheads, the nomcom can
just refuse to submit anyone until the confirming body withdraws their
rejection. See other comments below...

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 16:26:44 +0200
> From: Brian E Carpenter <brian@hursley.ibm.com>
> To: Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>
> Cc: Joel M. Halpern <joel@stevecrocker.com>,
>      ietf-nomcom <ietf-nomcom@lists.elistx.com>
> Subject: Re: DISCUSSION: rejecting candidates
>
> Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> >
> > --On fredag, mars 29, 2002 13:53:53 -0500 "Joel M. Halpern"
> > <joel@stevecrocker.com> wrote:
> >
> > > While I am not sure it can be achieved, I agree strongly with Avri's goal
> > > of enabling the approval bodies to say no without exploding the entire
> > > process.
> > >
> > > One step that may help is to change the text that says the whole slate is
> > > approved or rejected so as to allow for specific rejection.
> >
> > well, it doesn't say that in 2727:
> >
> >    c. The sitting IAB members review the IESG candidates, consenting to
> >       some, all, or none.
> >
> > ....
> >
> >    d. The Internet Society Board of Trustees reviews the IAB candidates,
> >       consenting to some, all, or none.
> >
> Exactly. I think we need to adjust the timing to give NomCom enough
> time to identify a replacement candidate - that is the practical
> problem today.

The normal process of evaluation and ranking of possibilities tends to
automatically lead to their being a second and third choice. It may be
necessary to switch for other reasons than rejection. When I was nomcom
chair, there were two persons who were final choices and when I went
back for their final written confirmation that they had the time and
were willing, if confirmed, to act in the interests of the Internet
community, they backed out (due to time availability in both cases).

Sure, a rejection would cause some scrambling, like a withdrawl, but
except in the case of a hard to fill IESG position, where the second
place possibility might not be good enought, it shouldn't be that bad.

> > the problem is that even rejecting one candidate can be considered "going
> > nuclear".
>
> When I think about it, extra time would make this less of a problem. The timing
> today is very tight and a rejection would create a real panic, just when the
> I-Ds are raining down on us by the hundreds.

Work expands to fill the available time.

Donald

>     Brian
>
> >
> > BTW, combating the "nomcom is a black box" feeling that Brian reports may
> > be one argument in favour of having an ISOC Board liaison on the Nomcom.
> >
> >                  Harald