Re: Nomcom candidate name announcement alternatives

["Joel M. Halpern" <joel@stevecrocker.com>]

There is an interesting implication here that I had missed.

The phrasing of these points raises the spectre of public discussion (on 
IETF lists) about the published individuals.  If this is likely, it would 
then lead almost inevitably lead to politicising the environment.  This is 
very bad.

However, rather than concluding that we should not publish the names, I 
conclude that we should put in a very strong policy prohibiting this 
discussion on any IETF list.  While this would not stop all discussion, it 
should be sufficient to prevent serious politicing.

(And those who color me naive for not having seen this problem sooner can 
chortle quietly.  But publish anyway.)

Yours,
Joel

At 03:06 PM 7/16/2002 +0900, Dave Crocker wrote:
> All.    Names made public (effects common to all proposed changes)
>
>         PRO:  Any of the changes may result in public discussion of 
> candidates and public awareness of candidates who were 
> declined.  Essential information might be provided to the nomcom, about 
> current candidates or candidates that should be considered. The public 
> review could add another degree of validation of a candidate's 
> qualifications, with respect to their ability to handle the public "heat" 
> that is a regular part of this community.  The nomcom might find out 
> whether a candidate has the requisite thick skin.
>
>         CON:  Public discussion can result in public and personal 
> attacks. (This is the "heat" cited above.)  This might hurt people 
> professionally.  It might affect who is willing to be a candidate.  It 
> might affect their future participation in the IETF.  In terms of effects 
> on the nomcom process, publishing names might alter or increase 
> electioneering and the efforts to manipulate the public discussion, as 
> well as manipulating the resulting input to the nomcom. That is, the pool 
> of potential game players is perhaps two orders of magnitude larger than 
> we experience today; the IETF usually considers such a scaling to have 
> effects that are worthy of concern.