Re: DISCUSSION: rejecting candidates

[Eric Gray <eric.gray@sandburst.com>]

I was truly tempted to leave this one alone.  Really.

But what the heck does 'achieve something workable' mean?
Certainly it does not mean the same thing to all people.

As disgusting as committee work is, it is the way to do work
when it is not even clear what it is that you need to do.  And
a huge part of this discussion is about where the real work is
going to be done - by the NomCom, or by the confirming
bodies.

I'm certainly prepared to admit that there are some people 
that know where the IETF, the Internet and its users are going
to end up in a few years a bit better than others.  There also
seems to be a much larger number of people who are convinced
that they know the answers far more than anyone else and -
while a fair number of people from the first group are going to
be in this group as well - it is a bit surprising how often people
in this second group disagree.

If people with 'clue' disagree, then it is likely that there is more
than one right answer.

I'm even prepared to admit that the people who make up the
confirming bodies in the NomCom case have a substantially
higher chance of being included in the first group then in the
second.  But anyone who feels certain of their infallible 'clue'
is fooling themselves.

Lately, the term 'fractious' has been applied extensively to
describe the way the IETF works.  Which is a nice way of
saying it doesn't work too well.  The IETF appears to be made
up of cliches and each cliche tends to be convinced that only
the members of their own cliche 'have a clue'.  Most of us
learned better behavior than this, I thought, well before we
were allowed to attend meetings far from home.

If you take an objective view and assume that maybe, just
possibly, more than one of these groups is right, then you
need a process for reconciling the differences and finding
solutions that contain at least some of the better elements
of all groups and are acceptable to most.

So, you could argue that having the real work done by the
confirming bodies - rather than the NomCom - should work
just as well.  After all, these are committees too, aren't they?  
Unfortunately, that is not reliably the case.  There are two
problems with expecting the confirming bodies to be as
responsive to the Internet community as the NomCom can
be: ability and willingness.  Both of these are hampered to
a great extent by the notorious tendency for the majority
of people in the confirming bodies to be members of the
same cliche.

To illustrate why this is the case, imagine the confirming
body in each case soliciting feedback from the community.
Who would they ask?  What would they expect to be told?

I hear arguments that people who are otherwise ideal might
not be acceptable because of 'personality issues' - in particular
that they might not get on well with one or more of the people
they would have to work with.  Unless there is real reason to
believe that all of the people involved lack the maturity and
professionalism to rise above this sort of thing, then the only
reason for rejecting someone on this basis is to stack the IETF
leadership with people who pretty much agree with each other
on all important issues.

An analogy might be to extend the process to government.
If we did things this way in any government, whatever group
was once in would never be out and whatever groups were
out would never be in.  This is the easy road to the wrong
answer.

kre wrote:

>    Date:        Wed, 24 Apr 2002 16:58:03 -0400
>    From:        Eric Gray <eric.gray@sandburst.com>
>    Message-ID:  <3CC71C5B.7060704@sandburst.com>
>
>  |     Amazing the number of familiar voices in this discussion.
>
> Not really, there are only a comparatively small number of people who
> care much about how the IETF is run in the abstract.
>
>  |     If you truly have a group of loonies - or just people who don't
>  | know any better
>
> The latter is far more likely really - the IETF is full of people (most
> likely including me) who don't have any real idea what is going on, but
> believe that they do (in all fields).   The danger in the nomcom is when
> there's no-one outside that (large) group selected, however well meaning,
> the selections they make simply aren't necessarily going to achieve something
> workable.  One might hope that the liaisons might act to prevent that early
> in the process, but unless we spell out the liaison role more clearly, this
> isn't at all certain.
>
> That is, it wouldn't be unreasonable for the past chair to feel (justifiably)
> that their main function was the past year, and the role this time is just
> to answer questions about what happened last time.   The IAB/IESG liaisons
> tend to be whoever on those bodies feels they have time available, and so
> can be one or the less experienced members - as there's currently no guidance
> as to what the liaisons should do the bodies appointing them have no real
> guidance as to the qualities needed - the only real known factor currently
> is that it is likely to take a lot of time.
>
> The general questions of the role of the confirming bodies, and of the role
> of the liaisons probably need to be treated together, to produce something
> consistent and workable, not treated seperately.
>
> kre
>
>
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--
--
Eric Gray (mailto:eric.gray@sandburst.com)
http://www.mindspring.com/~ewgray