Re: Question 1 about deadlock issue

[RJ Atkinson <rja@extremenetworks.com>]

On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 09:37 America/Montreal, James M Galvin 
wrote:
> While I agree with Ran completely, my concern is I want the CB to take
> responsibility for its actions.  Specifically, if the CB can not agree
> to confirm a candidate I want the process to force them to actionably
> reject the candidate.
>
> The problem with the default being reject is it sets aside 2 months of
> hard work of the NOMCOM for 2 weeks of the CB being unable to agree.

It is never the case that the CB would not be taking responsibility.

In practice, most nominees fly through with unanimous support from the 
CB.
It is actually quite rare for a nominee to have any controversy.
Even then, it is usual that the controversial nominee can easily obtain
a majority of the CB members.

So if the CB can't garner at least half of the CB members to actively
support some nominee, this is (1) very very unusual, (2) a very bad
indication of the candidate, and (3) a strong indication that the
Nomcom process might have gone awry somehow.

Hence my preference for the (A)/(C)/(E) approach over the (B)/(D)/(F)
approach.

Reasonable people might well prefer B/D/F over A/C/E.

> The communication path between the NOMCOM and CB is very narrow.  I 
> want
> to make sure that if it needs to exist it will exist.  Letting the CB
> take no action leaves the NOMCOM disconnected from the CB.  Forcing the
> CB to actually reject a candidate if they can not agree to confirm the
> candidate ensures that both parties have a path to communicate.  
> Whether
> or not they will is an entirely separate matter, but the process should
> not leave a hole like that, in my opinion.

In practice, the communication path is moderate in size -- "very narrow"
is not something I've ever witnessed.

Under the A/C/E approach, the CB must still take action -- hold a poll
of the CB members.  So "inaction" is NOT at issue in any of these cases.

The only difference here is whether the standard for approval is
(at least 50% support) [as in B/D/F] or the standard for approval is
(less than 50% reject) [as in A/C/E].

You seem to be reading "inaction is permitted" into A/C/E, when in fact
that is neither stated nor intended.  If you want to propose a sentence
to clarify that the CB must hold a poll on each candidate to clarify
that, please offer some clarifying text.

Cheers,

Ran
rja@extremenetworks.com