criteria for nomcom participation

[Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>]

Folks,

Monday, December 2, 2002, 2:11:07 PM, you wrote:
Avri> The first issue involved the qualification for volunteering with the
Avri> basic question being was attendance at 2 out 3 of the last IETF
Avri> meetings a sufficient criteria.

Avri>   Joel Halpern observed that we seem to have a problem of not getting enough
Avri>   experienced IETF participants on the nomcom.  We need to encourage more
Avri>   participation.  He  didn't like the idea of 2 pools.  Maybe 4 out of 6 
Avri> IETF
Avri>   meeting would be better then 2 out of 3?
...
Avri>   Dave Allen commented in favor of allowing people who had attended many
Avri>   IETFs to be included,

The problem with a criterion of meeting attendance is that it has a weak
correlation with knowing anything about the job of managing the IETF.  Even
continued participation in working group discussions has a weak correlation.

For that matter, there seems to be rough consensus that it is quite common
to have people who attend the IETF but not do any real participation in the
technical work.

If we want to ensure that nomcom has participation by people who know about
IETF processes, then we need to ensure that it has participation by people
who have been directly involved in the administrative process. That means
chairs, editors, (former) ADs and (former) IAB members.

Such a pool of potential participaants is too small -- and too select -- to
be adequate for the entire membership of nomcom. That is the reason for
suggesting filling some nomcom slots -- choose a percentage: 25%, 33%, 40%,
50%? -- from a pool of those who have held formal positions and another pool
of those who have a recent attendance record, to fill the remaining nomcom
slots.

Yes, this is more complicated than anyone would like.  But simply changing
the number of meetings one must attend does not in any way assure knowledge
of IETF process.


Avri>   Harald suggested two changes:
Avri>    - add a statement to the oral tradition 'if you don't know how the IETF
Avri>      works don't volunteer for NomCom.

This represents a fine desire, but is not likely to serve as a very
effective filter.

As merely one example:

Avri> John Klensin ...worried about the "don't volunteer" folk self
Avri> selecting out in favor of the ax grinders.


d/
-- 
 Dave <mailto:dhc@dcrocker.net>
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