Re: Should a CB approve a slate or individuals?

[Brian E Carpenter <brian@hursley.ibm.com>]

Jim, I think the 2 person consensus I reached with Mike StJ is that
your first bullet is incomplete, because it implies a unilateral decision
by Nomcom to change a nomination that may already have been
confirmed. Thus I supplied some text that states explicitly
that both the confirming body and the nominee have to agree to
any musical chairs.

   Brian

James M Galvin wrote:
> 
> Speaking as editor of the document:
> 
> Let me try some a different description of this issue that should either
> clear up any confusion or make it clear there is an issue.
> 
> The instructions I have are as follows:
> 
>     The principles to be documented are:
> 
>     * The NOMCOM can change any part of the slate at any time up to the
>       time the entire slate is approved.
> 
>     * The confirming body can reject any single candidate or more than one
>       candidate, including the entire slate.
> 
> The second bullet above has always been clear and unambiguous in the
> document.  I regard the first item as a clarification based on my
> understanding of the intent of the rules overall but, regardless, it is
> fair to say the document has always been ambiguous on this point.
> 
> On the whole, it is the NOMCOM's job to present a slate that best
> embodies all of the requirements it believes the community wants.  One
> of those qualities surely includes "the ability to work as a team."
> 
> With that in mind, if the confirming body rejects a particular
> individual, it seems like a reasonable interpretation of the rules to
> permit the NOMCOM to completely or partially change its original slate.
> All I have been instructed to do is to make that point clear.  No other
> changes will occur.
> 
> However, there are some logical consequence from documenting the
> principles as stated.  Specifically, the NOMCOM can submit a partial
> slate to the confirming body.  In addition, as a confirming body
> receives each partial slate, one of the criteria it may use to evaluate
> the current partial slate is how it "teams" with the prior slate.
> Although the confirming body may *not* change its mind about a prior
> partial slate, it can reject the new partial slate.
> 
> This issue would be resolved during the communication between the NOMCOM
> and the confirming body when the new partial slate is rejected,
> according to the ordinary process.
> 
> Jim
> 
> On Mon, 31 Mar 2003, Avri Doria wrote:
> 
>     Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 21:52:01 -0500
>     From: Avri Doria <avri@acm.org>
>     To: ietf-nomcom@lists.elistx.com
>     Subject: Should a CB approve a slate or individuals?
> 
>     Michael StJohns wrote:
> 
>      > At 05:05 PM 3/31/2003 -0500, Avri Doria wrote:
>      >
>      >> Re: the question of reviewing a slate as whole or as individual
>      >> candidates.
>      >>
>      >> While more often the case in selecting the IAB then IESG, though
>      >> it does occur in the IESG as well, a slate is often picked for its
>      >> balance of talents.  The recommendation of the DT is that a slate
>      >> is sent to the CB as a whole and must be accepted as a whole.  In
>      >> rejecting a slate, the CB is certainly encouraged to indicate what
>      >> parts of the slate it finds unacceptable, but the NomCom can
>      >> reconsider the entire slate and resubmit a slate with different
>      >> candidates, even if some of the replaced candidates were acceptable
>      >> to the CB during its prior review.  It is in keeping with this
>      >> recommendation for the NomCom to submit a slate to the CB that does
>      >> not fill all open roles.  In this case, the presented slate counts
>      >> as a unit and its approval is not affected by any later submissions.
>      >> To reiterate, a slate can only be accepted in its entirety, but t
>      >> here is no rule stating that a slate must fill every vacancy - a
>      >> slate is defined as being a single list of names and positions
>      >> presented to the CB for approval.
>      >> It is considered approved and unchangeable once the CB notifies the
>      >> NomCom that it has been accepted.
>      >
>      >
>      >
>      > No.  Just no.  Its unfair and unreasonable to expect the CB to be able
>      > to balance individuals against a complete slate.  The slate represents
>      > no more than 1/2 of the sitting members of the body being appointed, the
>      > change of one or two individuals based on a rejection should not be
>      > considered to cause that much perturbation.  In any event, any imbalance
>      > can be fixed in the following year.
>      >
>      > Confirmations are discussed and decided upon based on the qualifications
>      > of an individual, not on the ability of the slate as a whole to succeed
>      > or fail.   If I were managing the confirmation process for the IAB
>      > (fortunately, that's Leslie's job), I wouldn't know how to frame the
>      > question of whether to accept or reject a slate based on whether one or
>      > more individuals were bad enough to prevent us from accepting the rest.
>      > It may be possible to frame this for a single rejection, but you start
>      > getting interesting combinatorial problems when you start thinking about
>      > more than one unacceptable person.
>      >
>      > Please, leave this as a confirmation of individuals.  If an individual
>      > fails of confirmation, it shouldn't be that traumatic to suggest an
>      > alternative, even if the balance among the whole slate isn't exactly
>      > what the Nomcom hoped it would be.  Think of it this way: if changing 1
>      > or 2 fully qualified candidates (out of 12 or 18 total members) causes
>      > so much perturbation,  there's a lot more wrong than the Nomcom can
>      > actually fix.
>      >
>      > The suggestion that partial slates could go forward also fails.  It
>      > needlessly extends the process without actually adding to the quality of
>      > the result.
>      >
> 
>     I am curious to hear some discussion of the list on this issue.
>     So far I think there have been only a few voices.  While I need
>     to review the list again, I think I have heard one voice for
>     voting as a slate and one against.
> 
>     As for RFC2727, I think it was ambiguous on the notion of a slate
>     of candidates versus single candidates.
> 
>     a.
>