Additional Criteria for Nominating Committee Eligibility
draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-02

Network Working Group                                     B.E. Carpenter
Internet-Draft                                         Univ. of Auckland
Intended status: Experimental                                 S. Farrell
Expires: 29 September 2020                        Trinity College Dublin
                                                           28 March 2020

        Additional Criteria for Nominating Committee Eligibility
                 draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-02

Abstract

   This document defines a process experiment under RFC 3933 that
   temporarily updates the criteria for qualifying volunteers to
   participate in the IETF Nominating Committee.  It therefore also
   updates the criteria for qualifying signatories to a community recall
   petition.  The purpose is to make the criteria more flexible in view
   of increasing remote participation in the IETF and a probable decline
   in face-to-face meetings.  This document temporarily varies the rules
   in RFC 8713.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 29 September 2020.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction
   2.  Term of the Experiment
   3.  Goals
   4.  Criteria
   5.  Open Questions
   6.  Possible Future Work
   7.  IANA Considerations
   8.  Security Considerations
   9.  Acknowledgements
   10.  Normative References
   Appendix A.  Change Log
       A.1.  Draft-01 to -02
       A.2.  Draft-00 to -01
   Authors' Addresses

1.  Introduction

   According to [RFC8713], the IETF Nominating Committee is populated
   from a pool of volunteers with a specified record of attendance at
   IETF plenary face-to-face meetings.  In view of the unexpected
   cancellation of the IETF 107 meeting, the risk of future
   cancellations, the probability of less frequent meetings in future in
   support of sustainability, and a general increase in remote
   participation, this document defines a process experiment [RFC3933]
   of fixed duration to use additional criteria to qualify volunteers.

   Also according to [RFC8713], the qualification for signing a
   community petition for the recall of certain IETF office-holders is
   that same as for the Nominating Committee.  This document does not
   change that, but see Section 6.

   The source for this is at https://github.com/sftcd/elig/ and PRs are
   welcome there.  Discussion on the eligibility-discuss@ietf.org list
   is also welcome.

2.  Term of the Experiment

   The cancellation of the in-person IETF 107 meeting, and the risk of
   IETF 108 also being cancelled, mean that the current criteria are in
   any case seriously perturbed for the next two years.  The experiment
   therefore needs to start as soon as possible.  However, the
   experiment does not apply to the selection of the 2020-2021
   Nominating Committee.

   The experiment will cover the two IETF Nominating Committee cycles
   starting in 2021 and 2022.  As soon as the 2022-2023 Nominating
   Committee is seated, the IESG must consult the Nominating Committee
   chairs involved and publish a report on the results of the
   experiment.  The IESG must then also begin a community discussion of
   whether to amend [RFC8713] in time for the 2023 Nominating Committee
   cycle.

3.  Goals

   The goals of the additional criteria are as follows:

   *  Mitigate the issue of active remote (or rarely in-person)
      participants being disenfranchised in the NomCom and recall
      processes.

   *  Prepare for an era in which face-to-face plenary meetings are less
      frequent (thus extending the issue to many, perhaps a majority, of
      participants).

   *  Ensure that those eligible are true "participants" with enough
      current understanding of IETF practice and people to make informed
      decisions.

   *  The criteria must be algorithmic so that the Secretariat can check
      them mechanically.

4.  Criteria

   There will be several alternative paths to qualification, replacing
   the single criterion in section 4.14 of [RFC8713].  Any one of the
   paths is sufficient, unless the person is otherwise disqualified
   under section 4.15 of [RFC8713]:

   *  Path 1: As per [RFC8713], the person has attended 3 out of the
      last 5 in-person IETF meetings.

   *  Path 2: Has been a WG Chair or Secretary within the last 3 years.

   *  Path 3: (Feedback on path 3 from draft-01 was uniformly negative
      so ignore this, we'll leave placeholder text here for now just to
      avoid renumbering.)

   *  Path 4: Has served in the IESG or IAB, or has been appointed to a
      formal role by the IESG or IAB, within the last 5 years.

   *  Path 5: Has been a listed author of at least 2 IETF stream RFCs
      within the last 5 years.  A draft that has been approved by the
      IESG and is in the RFC Editor queue counts.

5.  Open Questions

   *  Should we also consider authorship of drafts formally adopted by a
      WG?

   *  Should BOF chairs qualify for Path 2?

   *  Should we consider remote meeting attendance and if so how do we
      measure it?  Is there any difference from this point of view
      between plenary and interim meetings?

   *  Should we consider how many nomcom voting members qualify via
      which paths?  For example, would it be ok if all 10 nomcom voting
      members qualified via path 4 in one year?

   *  We have not yet done an analysis of the effects of the criteria
      described here based on information from the public record and
      IETF datatracker.  That should be done before this process
      experiment starts.

   Certain criteria were rejected as not truly indicating effective IETF
   participation.  These included authorship of individual Internet-
   Drafts, sending email to IETF lists, reviewing drafts, etc.  Since
   the criteria must be objectively and mechanically measurable, no
   qualitative evaluation of an individual's contributions is
   considered.

6.  Possible Future Work

   *  Combined paths (e.g., a person who partly satisfies Path 2 and
      Path 5); otherwise known as a "points system".  That seems to
      involve work/complexity either for the secretariat or for the
      volunteer.

   *  Tweaking the "time decay" in each of the path definitions that
      ensures recent participation is more highly valued.

   *  Separating the NomCom volunteer criteria from the recall
      petitioner criteria.

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.

8.  Security Considerations

   This document should not affect the security of the Internet.

9.  Acknowledgements

   Useful comments were received from John Klensin, Warren Kumari,
   Michael Richardson, Martin Thomson, (to be completed)

10.  Normative References

   [RFC3933]  Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
              Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, DOI 10.17487/RFC3933,
              November 2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3933>.

   [RFC8713]  Kucherawy, M., Ed., Hinden, R., Ed., and J. Livingood,
              Ed., "IAB, IESG, IETF Trust, and IETF LLC Selection,
              Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the IETF
              Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 8713,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8713, February 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8713>.

Appendix A.  Change Log

A.1.  Draft-01 to -02

   *  Made this an RFC 3933 process experiment

   *  Eliminated path based on directorate reviews, used to be: "Has
      submitted at least 6 reviews as a member of an official IETF
      review team within the last 3 years."

   *  Other comments from IETF107 virtual gendispatch meeting handled

A.2.  Draft-00 to -01

   *  Added author

Authors' Addresses

   Brian E. Carpenter
   The University of Auckland
   School of Computer Science, PB 92019
   Auckland 1142
   New Zealand

   Email: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com

   Stephen Farrell
   Trinity College Dublin
   College Green
   Dublin
   Ireland

   Email: stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie