Recommendations for closing open issues.

[Avri Doria <avri@acm.org>]

On 1 April, a list of topics and recommendation from the
design team was sent to this list for review and discussion.

If I have counted correctly there have been 38 comments by 10
people with 2 people accounting for 60% of the traffic.  I
have tried to capture the rough consensus points in this list.
there has also been and extensive and sometime lively discussion
in the design team on these issues.

On several issues, there was a fairly even split on the
opinions.  In those cases, where there was a preexisting
practice, a lack of consensus to change the practice
was taken as an indication that the practice should remain
as document in RFC2727.

The following reflects actions to be taken in the document.

A new draft should be out shortly for WG review.



-------
Issue 1
-------

Re: Discretion of the IAB or IESG over whether a midterm
vacancies must be filled.

2727bis allegedly removed discretion for whether a mid-term
vacancy should be filled by the NomCom.  This would have been
a process change from previous practice.  There was no consensus
for such a change.

The discretion should remain with the body that looses a member.
This means that the language for mid term vacancies should be
clarified to indicate this.

Essentially, from the NomCom point of view, a vacancy exists only
when the ExDir informs it of a vacancy.  The resignation per se
does not constitute such notification.


-------
Issue 2
-------
Re: Poaching rules

It has been the practice of NomCom to not only choose candidates
from mid-term sitting members of the other sitting body, but to
nominate replacements for that person at the same time.

The policy will be clarified based on the the fact
that a vacancy does not exist until a resignation occurs and
the ExDir notifies the NomCom that the vacancy does exist.

There is, however, interest in keeping the process efficient.
Therefore the following 2 stage process will be documented:

1. Once the candidate is confirmed he/she is advised to immediately
resign from the prior post.  This resignation does not need to
be made public immediately, nor does it need to take effect
until a later time.  The NomCom is notified of the pending
resignation by the ExDir.
2. The NomCom then nominates a candidate for the 'to be vacant'
post.  Since the NomCom can predict this vacancy, it can be
ready with a candidate.


-------
Issue 3
-------

Re: Question of whether someone can be a member of both the IAB and
the IESG

This was discussed earlier in this WG process and the consensus
was that while this is inadvisable, it should not be prohibited
by rule. Advise was therefore inserted in the advice section stating
that it was inadvisable and that is had never been done.

While there have been some strong opinions voiced in the recent
discussion that this should be prohibited by an explicit rule,
there still does not seem to be a consensus for elevating it to
a rule. It therefore remains as advice.

-------
Issue 4
-------

Re. Question of whether the confirming body, CB,  is limited
to reviewing only for process irregularities or can do a full
review of candidates.

The WG consensus appears to be in favor of a CB requirement
for due diligence in its review of candidates.
The document should reflect this.

-------
Issue 5
-------

Re: the question of reviewing a slate as whole or as individual
candidates.

In the past it was accepted that once the CB approved a candidate
that candidate could not then be withdrawn by the Nomcom.
The language of RFC2727  does not include the notion of a slate
being submitted, but rather a list of individuals who are each judged
and confirmed on their own separate merits.

The latest version of 2727bis added the notion of a slate which
has a coherence beyond simply being a list of individuals. New
text made explicit the possibility of Nomcom revisiting the slate
once submitted, including candidates who had already been confirmed,
until such time as the entire slate had been approved.

This change did not appear to receive WG consensus.  The lack of
consensus warrants returning the process to the language of
RFC2727 that deals with lists of individual candidates and which
does not give the Nomcom the ability to withdraw candidates once
they are approved by the CB.

-------
Issue 6
-------

Re. The rules under which the CB decides to accept or not
accept a candidate should be strengthened from the RFC2727
rule:
      that at least one-half of the sitting
      members agree with the decision.


There was also a counter proposal that the rule should changed
to leave the full discretion up to CB, i.e. the rule for one-half
of sitting members be removed.

While there were some strong opinions that a stronger dictate
on the CB decision procedure was warranted, and some strong opinions
that the CB should pick using a process of its own choosing without
any predefined rules, there was no consensus for changing the language
of RFC 2727.

-------
Issue 7
-------

Re: Is the IETF chair a sitting member of the IAB?

The role of the IETF chair with regard to the IAB is
defined in the IAB charter.  2727bis should refer to this
language.

There was no consensus for making any change to the IETF chair's
role in 2727bis.

--------
Issue 8
--------

Re: Issue of succession rules for IETF Chair

The WG was asked to include rules describing the process
of succession for the IETF chair.

There did not appear to be a consensus for adding such
language to the text of the nomcom document.  Rather, there was 
recommendation to IESG chair that the IESG charter should fix
this.

Otherwise this falls under normal midterm vacancy rules.  As
with any other vacancy upon request of the IESG the ExDir
informs the Nomcom of the vacancy and the IESG deals with the
vacancy in its own fashion.

There was no consensus for making a change to cover this in
2727bis.

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I await the WG's comments.


a.