Re: Nomcom candidate name announcement alternatives

[Russ White <ruwhite@cisco.com>]

> > In some cases, the very large list was "all working group chairs and
> > all authors of any I-D's in a particular area" --- minus people whose
> > e-mail address had changed (say, due to @home's sudden shutdown).
> > This is a very large list, and so after a partially blinded list is
> > sent to such a large list of people, it might as well be public, I
> > would argue.  And yet, there were some people who didn't manage to get
> > their opinions solicited via this process, and in some cases, they did
> > step forward and whine a lot.  
> 
> There has been a repeated theme that when (say) 50 people are
> given some information, that information is no longer secret
> and you might as well make it public. I do not quite follow
> the logic here.
> 
> There were some 2001 persons at the Yokohama IETF (plus many
> more that didn't make it at all). 50 is a rather small
> percentage of that. This doesn't seem to me to automatically
> translate to "everybody finds out".
> 
> Also, the "50" that were contacted would have been for a
> particular position; a different set of folk would typically
> be contacted for different positions (i.e, RTG vs. APPs, vs.
> ...).
> 
> Again I don't see this as coming anywhere close to
> translating into the equivalent of everyone knowing the list
> of candidates.

It turns out that way in fact. Of the 2000 people at IETF this
time, who cares who was on the list? Who would care most? The
people we have to contact in order to find out who is best for
the job, correct? So, in eccense, the list is not a secret in any
meaningful form. Those who care will be asked about the people on
the list. Those who don't care won't recognize the names anyway,
even if they are asked. What's the secret?

Next question--how do you resolve the issues with this nomcom
being accused of leaking, at least in part because of the wide
net cast for feedback, and also resolve the issues with others
stating this nomcom didn't get enough feedback? 

Finally, why is the list of candidates a secret? Can _anyone_
give me a good reason why this is so? It might have made sense in
a smaller community, but how does it make sense now? To allow the
candidates not chosen to save face? Are we adults? 

To prevent people from second guessing the nomcom? They do
already. To prevent people from critizing the list of
candidates? Well, nominations are taken from the community at
large, so nominating a candidate would be the best solution to
this problem, whether or not the list is a "secret." So, what
purpose, in today's IETF, does this rule serve, exactly?

To wit:

-- The list is not a secret anyway. If you cast the net of
feedback wide enough to get everyone who care's comments, then
everyone who cares knows who is on the list.

-- The secrecy of the list serves no purpose whatsoever in
today's process and community.

So, why is it still secret?

:-)

Russ

__________________________________
riw@cisco.com CCIE <>< Grace Alone