Additional Criteria for Nominating Committee Eligibility
draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-03

Network Working Group                                     B.E. Carpenter
Internet-Draft                                         Univ. of Auckland
Intended status: Experimental                                 S. Farrell
Expires: 2 January 2021                           Trinity College Dublin
                                                             1 July 2020

        Additional Criteria for Nominating Committee Eligibility
                 draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-03

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

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 2 January 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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   extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text
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   provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Term of the Experiment  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Criteria  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Open Questions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Available data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Possible Future Work  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   10. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   11. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Appendix A.  Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     A.1.  Draft-02 to -03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     A.2.  Draft-01 to -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     A.3.  Draft-00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

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 7.

   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.

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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.

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      -  This criterion has been retained for backward compatibility.
         It has not been extended to include remote participation in
         meetings, since the additional criteria below are intended to
         capture significant participation without regard to meeting
         attendance.

   *  Path 2: Has been a WG Chair or Secretary, or a BOF Chair, 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
      and/or WG-adopted drafts within the last 5 years.

5.  Open Questions

   *  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?

   *  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.  Available data

   An analysis of how some of the above criteria would affect the number
   of NomCom-qualified participants if applied in June 2020 has been
   performed.  The results are presented below in Venn diagrams as
   Figure 1 to Figure 4.  Note that the numbers shown may differ
   slightly from manual counts due to database mismatches.

   See https://github.com/sftcd/elig/blob/master/venn-2018-2019.pdf

                          Figure 1: 2019 - 5 years

   See https://github.com/sftcd/elig/blob/master/venn-2018-2019.pdf

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                          Figure 2: 2019 - 3 years

   See https://github.com/sftcd/elig/blob/master/venn-2018-2019.pdf

                          Figure 3: 2018 - 5 years

   See https://github.com/sftcd/elig/blob/master/venn-2018-2019.pdf

                          Figure 4: 2018 - 3 years

7.  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.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.

9.  Security Considerations

   This document should not affect the security of the Internet.

10.  Acknowledgements

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

   The data analysis was mainly done by Robert Sparks.

11.  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>.

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   [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-02 to -03

   *  Adjusted criteria according to comments received

   *  Added data

A.2.  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.3.  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

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