Re: Possible extra "oral tradition" for draft-ietf-nomcom-rfc2727bis-01.txt

[John C Klensin <john+nomcom@jck.com>]

Thomas,

A useful perspective, thanks.

Please note that I am in complete agreement that we are in a
sub-optimal situation now, in that I believe that the community
should either explicitly give the nomcom responsibility for
considering the IAB Chair situation, or the nomcom should get out
of that business.   I don't intend to express a strong opinion as
to which choice should be made.  Nor, if nomcom involvement is
chosen, do I want to take a position on whether that should be
having the Nomcom make the selection or by engaging in more
dialog on the subject with the IAB, perhaps as you suggest.

But I believe that this is one of several areas in which the
community should give the nomcom specific guidance or
instructions, rather than having each nomcom develop its own
rules about how much it is appropriate for it to try to
reorganize and reshape the IETF.

As you probably know, but the rest of the WG may not, I generally
favor permitting (or requiring) the Nomcom to share credible
(negative and positive) feedback with all selected candidates and
the body to which each is appointed.  That is rather different
from disclosing comments, especially unedited ones, about people
being considered for positions.  Once the nomcom has made a
decision, it ought to be able to disclose, in a non-comparative
way, the data about the particular candidate that figured into
that decision.  I believe both the IAB and the IESG would find it
helpful to know about types of unrest or strong support that the
nomcom identified and considered important, especially in the "we
are appointing you in spite of... and wish you would work on
that" situations that sometimes arise.  And I would discount any
concerns about the selected IAB or IESG member having his or her
feelings hurt: these are high-visibility positions, the IETF
isn't shy, and strong opinions about personality and performance
will come out soon enough anyway.

I haven't figured out whether I think it would be reasonable for
the nomcom to share (non-comparative) pros and cons about a
candidate with the confirming bodies during the confirmation
process, but some of the same arguments for doing so might apply.

One other pair of observations:

* In practice, the IAB Chair serves pretty much at the pleasure
of the IAB.  I can't imagine anyone in that role (past, present,
or, I would hope, future) who would not instantly step down if he
or she lost the confidence of even a significant fraction of the
other IAB members.  That reality, which could certainly be
written into a future revision of RFC 2850 if that made people
more comfortable, provides considerable protection against a bad
decision made (or acceded to) by newly-appointed members or
someone running wild.  It probably even provides better
protection than the recall procedures, since it does not involve
nearly as much fuss to initiate and use.

* That said, I don't think having the term of an IAB Chair start
at the same time as new members are seated is ideal.  General
stability, getting new members up to speed, etc., would probably
be enhanced by offsetting the Chair's term by three to six months
from the first IETF meeting of the year.  But I don't have even a
vague idea as to how to make that work without rather significant
side-effects such as effectively imposing a one-year term limit
on the IAB Chair or removing the person who was in the chair from
the regular nomcom review process.

     john