Re: A proposal for publishing nominee names

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

--On 13. juli 2002 13:22 +0900 Dave Crocker <dcrocker@dcrocker.net> wrote:

> Publishing all the names at the beginning of the process invites
> all sorts of gaming.

note: I don't propose publishing all the names at the beginning of the 
process, but *all the names that have been suggested, throughout the 
process*.

> What is the purpose of publishing the names?  It is to ensure that
> the general IETF has a chance to provide feedback about a
> candidate's
> qualifications.

I think this is too simple-minded.

The scenarios where having the list be public may help the nomcom process 
include:

- "how could you think of that guy? He's impossible!" (feedback)
- "of course, now that you mention it, he would be great - I'd never have 
thought of him, but now it's obvious" (feedback)
- "how come nobody nominated <name>?" (more nominations)

That is, not only the qualifications of the individual candidates, but the 
visibility of the pool of nominated candidates is an important result of 
the publication.

WRT gaming:

When faced with gaming attempts in other contexts, my advice has almost 
invariably been to expose the actions to public view.
With an informed and fair-minded populace, that will lead to the attempted 
manipulators getting egg on their face.
(Without that populace, we're up the creek anyway.)

But in the case of nomcom, gaming can go undetected or be impossible to 
expose in this way - BECAUSE of the confidentiality rules.

If the publication of names makes some kinds of gaming visibile to the IETF 
community, I think we've gained something, not lost it.

                    Harald