Re: Nomcom candidate name announcement alternatives

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

Two observations on Dave's summary (no comment on the rest of it).

--On Tuesday, 16 July, 2002 15:06 +0900 Dave Crocker
<dcrocker@brandenburg.com> wrote:

> 4.      Announcement of nominated candidates, prior to
> confirming body approval
> 
>          PRO:  This is the last opportunity for public review
> prior to formal approval, and therefore ensures that comments
> are limited to public review for preventing extraordinary
> selection errors.
> 
>          CON:  In reality, announcement at this stage would be
> too late for making any changes, without massive trauma to the
> community.  It could also be seen as forcing the hand of the
> confirming bodies, increasing the community trauma if a
> rejection were to occur (whether justified or not).

I have personally come to the conclusion that the disadvantages
of publication probably outweigh the advantages (I'm not prepared
to try to convince anyone else).  However, Dave's summary of the
"con" position for this late stage seems to me to imply that a
confirming body cannot reject a candidate without causing
"massive trauma to the community" as well.  By the time a
candidate name is submitted to the confirming body, that
candidate knows that he or she has been selected by the nomcom
(the "are you really willing to do this" call from the Chair is a
tipoff), possible candidates who can guess at the schedule have a
fairly good idea they were _not_ selected (or are buried in
controversy), and, if a particular Nomcom is inclined to be
leaky, the leaks have become a flood.

So, while I don't believe that publication at this point would be
desirable, I believe that, if we are serious about a confirming
process, we had best be ready to accept some trauma.

One additional thought: While general publication of names may
(or may not) be a good thing, I think we should consider
disclosure of the names of incumbents who have agreed to be
considered for renomination.  The risks there are very different:
the community knows that they are potential candidates, and
focusing attention of getting a good range of feedback to the
Nomcom strikes me as an advantage.  Disclosure also doesn't, in
practice, give away much information.   The reality is that
incumbents usually give the Nomcom one of three answers:

	(i) "I don't want to do this again".  (But I know of
	cases in which a nomcom, or several nomcom members, have
	more or less ignored that and engaged in fairly heavy
	arm-twisting to get the person to commit to another term.)
	
	(ii) "I am willing to take another term if the nomcom
	concludes that it is the best thing for the community,
	but would be happy to be out."
	
	(iii) "I really, really, want the job again".

My suspicion, from some prior experience and observation, is that
the third is fairly rare (and I would hope that Nomcoms would be
suspicious of anyone who actually said it).   Giving the
community a greater chance to twist arms in the first case or to
provide feedback and/or alternatives in the second would seem to
be to be generally beneficial.   And, as for the marginal
abuse... well, the amount of abuse that comes to IAB and,
especially, IESG members is such that anyone who can't take a bit
more is almost certainly going to give that first answer.

      john

(ii)