Re: deadlock problem

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

RJ Atkinson wrote:
> 
> On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 01:30 America/Montreal, Brian E Carpenter
> wrote:
> > I would prefer to remove the rule completely and leave the
> > CBs to set their own rules.
> 
> During my time on IAB, (at least once) a lack of pre-planning (e.g. with
> respect to handling 'abstain' votes) by the collective IAB (i.e. what
> happened is really no one's fault) created serious issues in convergence
> on one or more IESG nominees.

But that is another matter. The IAB *has* a defined voting rule
in its own charter, and the ISOC Board has voting rules in the by-laws.
So your rules (A or others) simply create scope for ambiguity with
those existing rules.

> 
> Based on that experience, I think that it would be a disaster to have
> the confirming bodies set their own rules.  Instead of having a
> straight-
> forward confirm/reject/abstain vote with a clearly defined outcome,
> letting each CB set their own rules has strong potential for (1)
> different procedures each year and (2) individuals trying to arrange
> the rules in a given year to favour particular nominees.  In short,
> letting each CB set their own rules would reduce consistency
> year-to-year
> and would increase the political quotient of the confirming activity.
> I view increasing the political quotient of anything in the IETF
> to be a bad result.

Yes, so maybe the NomCom doc should simply state that each confirming
body must apply its own standard voting rule, first to confirm the entire
slate, and if that fails to confirm individuals.

I don't agree with Jim that defining failure to confirm as equal to 
rejection is a process change; that's simply been undefined in the 
past. Ran is correct that it prevents a theoretical deadlock.
> 
> By contrast, having a small number of simple, clearly defined, rules
> would tend to reduce the political quotient and help ensure consistency
> in the procedures from one year to the next.

Nothing will inject common sense if it is absent.
> 
> > If we don't remove the rule, I would support (A) which is
> > effectively the status quo.
> 
> I wish it were the status quo.  Thanks for that support.

It's pretty close to the status quo. You must have had
a bad experience.

    Brian