Network Working Group D. Crocker, Ed.
Internet-Draft Brandenburg InternetWorking
Intended status: Informational S. Brim
Expires: January 27, 2011 Cisco
J. Halpern
Ericsson
B. Wijnen
B. Leiba
Internet Messaging Technology
M. Barnes
Polycom
July 26, 2010
Nomcom Enhancements: Improving the IETF leadership selection process
draft-crocker-nomcom-process-00
Abstract
Every year the IETF's Nominating Committee (Nomcom) reviews and
selects half of the IETF's leadership on the IESG, IAB and IAOC/
Trust. In the 18 years since the inception of the Nomcom process,
the Internet industry and the IETF have gone through many changes in
funding, participation and focus, but not in the basic formation,
structure or operation of Nomcom. This paper explores challenges
that have emerged in the conduct of Nomcom activities, particularly
due to changing IETF demographics. The paper reviews the nature,
causes and consequences of these challenges, and proposes a number of
specific changes. The changes provide better communication of Nomcom
institutional memory, enhance Nomcom membership expertise, and
produce stronger confidentiality and etiquette practices among Nomcom
participants. Some changes require formal modification to Nomcom
rules; others can be adopted immediately.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
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material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on January 27, 2011.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Nomcom Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Nomcom Member Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Nomcom Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5. Nomcom Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1. Liaison Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2. Politicking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Appendix A. Draft IETF Nomcom Independence and
Confidentiality Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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1. Introduction
The IETF conducts an annual process, selecting half of its
leadership. Selections are made by a Nominations Committee (Nomcom)
of randomly chosen volunteer participants. Each Nomcom spends more
than 6 months, recruiting nominees, interviewing them and the
community, and laboring over criteria and trade-offs. The Chair of
Nomcom and the liaisons from IETF-related groups are appointed, non-
voting members. The selections made by a Nomcom are reviewed by
Confirming Bodies that consider the conduct of the Nomcom process
and, to some extent, the adequacy of selected candidates. The Nomcom
process was developed in 1992. In the 18 years since then, the
Internet industry and the IETF have gone through many changes in
funding, participation and focus, but not in the basic formation,
structure or operation of Nomcom. The only significant changes were
to add to Nomcom's workload, by creating more staffing positions for
the recently-formed IAOC/IETF Trust and the RAI area, and to its
disclosure by making the list of nominees public. [RFC5680]
When the Nomcom process was created, most IETF meeting attendees were
heavily involved in a range of IETF work; most really did see
themselves as integral to an IETF "community". Today there is
significantly greater diversity in IETF participants' background,
knowledge, and working styles. Many participants still are deeply
involved in the IETF, but many others are more narrowly focused, with
limited IETF involvement. Often they track only one working group
and contribute to none of its discussion, writing or leadership.
Many participants are more familiar with the process and culture of
another standards body and are therefore more likely to use that
frame of reference when pursuing IETF work. This results in
volunteers with potentially less IETF experience, less understanding
of IETF culture and less appreciation of the specific strengths (and
weaknesses) of the IETF approach to standards development. Instead,
they bring their own norms, often including a stronger sense of
loyalty to other groups.
This can create conflicting goals. One of the cornerstones to the
IETF's cultural model is that an individual participates as a private
individual rather than as a representative of their employer. The
IETF Nomcom process requires confidentiality among participants. For
example it is not acceptable for a participant to report details of
the process to their work supervisor. Violation of confidentiality
threatens participant willingness to be candid in interviews and
discussions. Equally, politicking intimidates participants and makes
political leverage more important than the skills of an applicant.
Nomcom decisions are to be based on individual merit, such as quality
of technical contributions. The model of personal participation
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encourages individual assessments based on professional judgment,
rather than on expedient corporate preferences that are driven by
current business interests. Certainly Nomcom takes note of
organizational affiliation, but this is for better understanding the
current perspective of the individual and for attempting to ensure
diversity of views. Still some participants have difficulty making
the distinction between their role as an individual, versus their
role as a corporate representative.
Whatever their causes, some significant problems are affecting the
operation of Nomcoms. (For example, see [Nomcom2009].) The
recommendations made here cover four basic areas of concern:
Knowledge of IETF culture, rules and processes
IETF leaders do work that is substantial and difficult. It is
not possible to choose among different nominees without knowing
the depth and breadth of that work, since different nominees
will have different skills and limitations. Some IETF
leadership work is managerial, some is conceptual, some is
administrative and some is legal.
A Nomcom voting member must understand which position requires
which talents. By itself, attending a few IETF meetings cannot
ensure enough experience with IETF leadership work to
understand the current demands.
Nomcom Confidentiality
Nomcom performs a human resources personnel hiring, firing and
retention process for the IETF. In order to obtain accurate
and meaningful input from the community and in order to have
full and frank discussions about nominees, the details of a
Nomcom's work must be restricted to the current members of the
Nomcom. The need is not merely for confidentiality of the
comments made about nominees but also those made about everyone
else. For example it can be extremely destructive to have a
candid comment about the IESG get back to the IESG. Any
pattern of such leakage makes it unlikely that candid comments
will be offered.
Nomcom Independence
Since Nomcom is tasked with selecting IETF leadership,
credibility in the Nomcom process relies on having Nomcom's
operation be meaningfully independent of the current IETF
leadership. At the same time, the process requires oversight,
to ensure that it is fairly conducted. One source of tension,
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given these two requirements, is in having liaisons from
leadership groups be responsible for oversight. They represent
core IETF authority. Particularly within interviews, the fact
of their role with those groups can sway participants away from
full candor. This threatens the ability of Nomcom to obtain
sufficiently complete information that is needed for making
truly independent assessments.
Politicking for Nominees
An organized campaign that seeks selection of a particular
nominee directly works against the Nomcom effort to select
candidates based on merit. The use of political leverage is
destructive to efforts at evaluating skills and
accomplishments. However such politicking is common in some
other standards groups and has been observed in the IETF.
The basic concepts of confidentiality and protection against conflict
of interest are intended to ensure that those entrusted with an
important process are free to perform it, without any appearance or
reality of external pressures and with strict focus on the quality of
the process. This is not a question of individual integrity, but
rather of inherent confusion created by any participant exerting
undue influence on the Nomcom process.
This note discusses some of these challenges and offers
recommendations for alleviating them. The recommendations are
specific. However the reader should distinguish between a suggested
framework for action, configured according to a number of types of
choices. That is, definition of parameters, versus the specific
values assigned to those parameters. Therefore, the reader should
separately consider the approach being suggested for solving an
issue, versus the specific details suggested when using that
approach.
For example, there is a suggestion to have two different pools for
selecting Nomcom members and criteria that would distinguish between
the pools. It is possible to debate whether to have multiple pools,
as distinct from debating whether the number should be two or whether
the offered criteria for the second pool compose an acceptable set.
Readers are encouraged to separately consider the broader
recommendations versus the details that make the recommendations
concrete. Equally, some recommendations lack complete detail. The
details matter, of course, but first there must be agreement about
the approach. The details should be developed after that.
Readers are encouraged to offer alternatives and garner support for
them, should they consider specific recommendations problematic.
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2. Nomcom Management
There are informative specifications for the selection of Nomcom
participants, for Nomcom's primary deliverables and for its major
deadlines. [RFC3777] [RFC5078]. The documents provide little detail
about Nomcom internal operations, and each Nomcom is both free and
required to make many decisions about the details of the way it will
operate, in terms of meetings, interviews, nominee analysis,
decision-making methods and candidate selection criteria. Much of
this flexibility is useful, to allow each Nomcom to determine the
operating style that best suits the current year's Nomcom
participants, as well as the current year's priorities that should
guide its selections. However the fact that each Nomcom starts from
what is essentially a clean operational slate makes its initial
organizing efforts rather daunting.
In order to develop sufficient understanding of the task and to
review and resolve the logistical details, each Nomcom must scale a
very large, initial hurdle. Although a Nomcom has the considerable
benefit of on-going participation by the previous Nomcom's chair,
there is no organized documentation to help Nomcom's benefit from the
long history of Nomcom's useful or problematic self-management
choices, although Nomcom Chair reports may contain some examples of
guidance.
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Operations Guide
A collection of past Nomcom chairs and participants should
write non-normative guidance about common Nomcom operational
process choices that have been made, when these choices seemed
to work and what their limitations appeared to have been. A
Nomcom remains free to make its own organizational decisions,
but it has the option of simply adopting procedures and
milestones recommended by a group that has had extensive
experience in the process.
(Implementation) This requires no formal authorization to start
happening. While it might be appropriate to publish as an RFC
and therefore might need a degree of formal IETF approval, it
appears better to pursue this as an IETF wiki, to encourage
continuing enhancement by the community. A basic wiki could
easily be in place for the 2010-2011 Nomcom.
Each Nomcom is created as a new group. One challenge in the
management of new groups is to ensure that fair and thorough
discussion takes place. Any group has the risk of excessive
participation by one or another participant. This is exacerbated
when that participant carries additional power, such as being the
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liaison of a confirming body. However the general concern about
dominating discussion applies for all participants.
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Discussion Management
It is primarily the job of the Nomcom Chair to ensure that no
individual dominates the group. All participants in Nomcom
discussions are encouraged to assist the Chair in assuring that
no participant dominates Nomcom discussions.
(Implementation) The conduct of meetings and the staffing of
interviews is already under the control of the Nomcom chair.
So this topic requires no change to Nomcom rules. However it
will probably be helpful for the operations Guide and an RFC
3777 revision effort to emphasize this issue.
RECOMMENDATION -- Selective Exclusion
The Nomcom Chair may selectively exclude any participant from a
single Nomcom activity. This action may be overridden by a
majority of Nomcom Voting Members. Reasons for exclusion
include, but are not limited to a conflict of interest,
potential for violation of confidentiality, and potential for
intimidation of other participants.
(Implementation) This is a formal change to rules concerning
Nomcom "members", which will require a modification to RFC
3777, presumably as an enhancement to an RFC 3777 revision
effort.
3. Nomcom Member Knowledge
Anyone who merely attends a few recent IETF meetings is allowed to
volunteer for Nomcom. This rule has the considerable benefit of
being highly inclusive, but it does not guarantee that a volunteer
has any meaningful, direct experience in the IETF's technical or
leadership processes. That is, the criteria and the selection
process for members make it quite easy to have a Nomcom in which no
voting members have ever written RFCs, participated in formal reviews
of drafts, chaired working groups, or served on the IESG, IAB or
IAOC/Trust. In fact given the proportion of IETF participants that
have low levels of IETF process experience, the statistical
probabilities over time make it virtually inevitable.
The issue is a matter of insights and skills, not of motivations.
Direct participation does not guarantee an understanding of what is
needed to make the IETF work successfully, but it makes it more
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likely.
The danger of a Nomcom with voting members who have little experience
in making the IETF work is that they will have little direct
knowledge of the qualities necessary for the people being selected to
run the IETF. Job descriptions exist for the positions that are to
be filled, and the descriptions are generally viewed as being useful.
However they cannot provide insight into practical aspects of
performing the jobs they describe, nor problems with the way those
jobs are done. In addition, the jobs being filled are for leadership
and oversight activities, yet Nomcom members often only have
experience as individual contributors. So the nature of leadership
skills also is not within their direct experience.
A special comment should be made about filling the IAOC/IETF Trust
position. The IAOC and IETF Trust perform the administrative and
legal work of the IETF. The work, and the members doing it, tend not
to be in the spotlight of the IETF and very few IETF participants
have much understanding of the required knowledge or activities.
Hence, even very active IETF participants are likely to have little
insight into the details of that position. That makes it extremely
difficult to evaluate nominees. The most recent Nomcom pursued a
series of tutorials with IAOC/Trust, in an effort to improve Nomcom's
ability to assess candidates. The tutorials were extremely helpful.
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Tutorials
In order to select personnel for the IAB, IESG, and IAOC/Trust,
Nomcom members need to understand the current responsibilities,
activities and problems with these groups. To this end, it
would be extremely helpful to hold a series of scheduled
tutorials, during the first IETF meeting of a new Nomcom, by
representatives of IAB, IESG, and IAOC/Trust. They should be
closed, to permit more candid discussion. These tutorials will
be important, independent of the knowledge level of a Nomcom's
voting members. In addition to providing basic introductions
to the nature of the work done by members of each group, it can
highlight nuances of operation and current challenges. A
Nomcom would, of course, be free to use or ignore the
information from the tutorials, as it sees fit.
(Implementation) This does not require any formal approval. It
does require the collaborative concurrence of those presenting
material and those attending. It could easily be put in place
for the 2010-2011 Nomcom.
The random selection of Nomcom members usually produces a number who
have extensive IETF experience, but this really is merely a matter of
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statistical happenstance. The criteria for volunteers and the manner
of selecting them make it statistically likely that some Nomcom will
eventually have none of these "senior" participants. That is, the
methodology makes it possible to have a Nomcom whose voting members
have no meaningful expertise about the IETF's operation. Repeated
application of this sampling rule means that the "possible" is
certain to eventually occur.
A Nomcom whose voting members lack sufficient expertise about IETF
management issues is overly dependent on its advisers and liaisons.
Such a dependence is a matter of strategic weakness that requires
making changes to the criteria and procedures for selecting at least
some Nomcom members to guarantee a basic level of expertise among
voting members.
RECOMMENDATION -- Nomcom Expertise Requirement
There needs to be review and agreement on the baseline level of
expertise that must be represented within Nomcom's voting
members. This requires agreeing on the details of the
expertise and on the minimal proportions of Nomcom that must
have that expertise, as well as on the means by which
differential expertise levels are selected.
Based on this requirement, here is a specific proposal...
RECOMMENDATION -- Selection Pool
There needs to be assurance of a minimum presence of Nomcom
voting members who have meaningful knowledge of IETF "decision
and leadership processes". A greater level of knowledge is
acceptable and preferred, but it is important to ensure a
minimum, while avoiding turning the Nomcom into an exclusive
committee of long-time participants.
Therefore, create a second pool of volunteers who satisfy more
stringent Nomcom participation rules.
Volunteers in this 'expertise' pool must have been on the IESG,
IAB or IAOC/Trust, or have been a working group chair. These
positions require a degree of direct involvement in the process
of IETF leadership.
Three (3) volunteers from the 'expertise' pool are selected
first. Those who are not selected from that pool are then
added to the general pool of volunteers, for the second round
of selection. Nomcom is not limited to having only three of
its members be experienced.
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Various selection mechanisms are possible and reasonable. The
specific details are less important than is the requirement for
ensuring knowledge of IETF workings among the voting members.
(Implementation) This is a formal change to Nomcom selection
rules, which will require a modification to RFC 3777,
presumably as an enhancement to an RFC 3777 revision effort.
This enhancement might also require a change to [RFC3797], or
the Nomcom chair might need to accurately describe this when
they publish the seeds for the random selection.
4. Nomcom Confidentiality
The IETF mandates that Nomcom's internal activities be confidential.
Nomcom is a personnel hiring process and confidentiality is,
therefore, an appropriate professional standard. Sensitive
information about nominees and discussions needs to be kept internal
to the Nomcom.
Nominees, nominee's companies, the IAB, the IESG and others typically
know more about the internal workings of each current Nomcom than
they should. Examples abound. To cite one: with no prior discussion
of the topic by a Nomcom member with a particular nominee, that
nominee thanked the member for a comment the member made during the
previous day's internal Nomcom discussion about the nominee!
Leaks such as this are corrosive to the process. They mean that
participants must assume all of their comments will be reported to
others. This causes them to limit their comments, depriving Nomcom
of valuable information about nominees.
We need to reverse this tendency towards sloppiness. We need to make
clear that confidentiality is important and is expected to be
respected. Nomcom members need the understanding, incentives and
tools to preserve this confidentiality.
RECOMMENDATION -- Confidentiality Agreement
Everyone participating in Nomcom needs to sign a formal
Confidentiality Agreement. The Agreement needs to be carefully
tailored to cover the particular roles and relationships of
Nomcom members, especially including strictures against
discussing Nomcom activities with their friends, family, co-
workers, employer or other IETF participants who are not part
of Nomcom. For example, it needs to specifically state that
none of the covered information pertains to the signer's
employer. Having participants acknowledge the terms of the
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Agreement means that the expectations on Nomcom members will be
explicit, detailed and documented.
A draft Confidentiality agreement is provided in Appendix A.
(Implementation) Requiring use of this Agreement probably needs
a formal change to Nomcom selection rules, which will require a
modification to RFC 3777, presumably as an enhancement to an
RFC 3777 revision effort. Note, however, that Nomcom members
and those participating in the Nomcom process can voluntarily
choose to sign the agreement, without any formal changes to RFC
3777.
RECOMMENDATION -- Anonymous Input
Any individual can submit anonymous comments, by approaching a
Nomcom voting member and requesting to have their comments
communicated with some obfuscation.
(Implementation) Private contact with a Nomcom members are
existing means of providing anonymous input. However this is
not necessarily well known to the community. It will probably
be useful to emphasize this alternative in the operations Guide
document and possibly the Nomcom web page. It might also make
sense to document them in an RFC 3777 revision effort.
RECOMMENDATION -- Liaison Disclosures
Liaisons are required to disclose some Nomcom information back
to their groups, but there is no clear guidance about what is
acceptable to disclose and what is not. Previous efforts to
specify this as a strict rule reached an impasse, as did the
effort to formulate one for this proposal.
Generally the point of a confirming body's questions should be
to ensure that the Nomcom was properly diligent in making their
selections, and not to second-guess the Nomcom's choices such
as by asking why a particular candidate was not chosen.
Broadly, then, it is reasonable and appropriate for the
confirming body and the Nomcom to discuss whether particular
skills or issues were considered, but not to discuss the
details about these skills or issues with respect to a
particular candidate. Some examples are provided here, to show
what types of interactions are viewed as acceptable and what
types are not.
Examples of interactions:
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+ "Did the Nomcom consider a particular candidate's lack of
skill in a specific technical area?" The question attempts
to pursue details about a specific candidate, but Nomcom
must not discuss candidate details. Hence a response of the
form "Nomcom had extensive discussion of the candidate's
technical skills" would be acceptable while a response such
as "Yes, the Nomcom noted that gap in the candidate's
skills, and chose the candidate in spite of it" would not.
The error could be compounded by then discussing the
particular deficiencies of competing candidates.
+ "Doesn't the Nomcom see that choosing particular candidates
leaves a gap that a different, particular candidate would
have filled?" This asks about the details of at least three
candidates. A reasonable response would be limited to
noting that Nomcom considered these candidates carefully and
discussed the abilities of each and remains comfortable with
the selection(s) made. A problematic response would discuss
the details of particular candidates' skills or any
disclosure of the details of the discussion, or of why,
specifically, a particular candidate was not chosen.
+ "Did the Nomcom consider a particular skill or factor for a
particular candidate, or compare particular candidates
according to particular factors?" This crosses into details
about specific candidates. On the other hand, it is
reasonable for Nomcom to respond that it considered the
importance of the skill, when evaluating candidates.
+ "Why wasn't a particular candidate chosen?" Nomcom must not
discuss the details of its reasons for picking or rejecting
specific candidates.
+ Did the Nomcom consider the disastrous personality conflicts
between a particular candidate and another IETF participant,
when they selected the candidate to work alongside that
participant?" If indeed this provides Nomcom with new
information, it could be reasonable for Nomcom to response
"No, the Nomcom may not have been aware of that situation."
Perhaps more safely, the Nomcom could respond that this
concern is indeed serious but that Nomcom still supports the
candidate, or that Nomcom wishes to instead select a
different candidate. Note that this responds to the
substance of the concern being raised, but not to its direct
application for a specific candidate.
+ A confirming body might directly or indirectly recommend an
alternate candidate or, worse, suggest someone who was not
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nominated. In general, the best response would be in the
style "Nomcom selected from among the nominated candidates
the one who exemplified the best available mix of
capabilities."
(Implementation) If a liaison is not completely certain that it
is acceptable to convey certain information to the confirming
body, or to answer a particular question, they should bring the
issue to the Nomcom chair and abide by the chair's guidance.
This practice would be useful to record in the proposed Guide.
5. Nomcom Independence
There are several concerns that have the potential to undermine the
independence of the Nomcom process. The multiple roles of liaisons
from the IETF groups for whom candidates are selected can produce
competing goals and their presence in portions of the Nomcom process
can produce distraction or intimidation. In addition, attempts to
assert undue influence in terms of promoting a nominee based
primarily on affiliation and politicking in general have become
problematic. Separately, any participant in Nomcom's internal or
interview processes can come to exert excessive influence. This last
concern is discussed in Section 2.
5.1. Liaison Influence
Liaisons to Nomcom serve multiple roles. In addition to the usual
job of "representing the views of their respective organizations" and
providing information to Nomcom, liaisons are tasked by [RFC 3777],
Section 4 #7 with a process oversight function for the IETF in
general and for their respective groups. Since Nomcom fills
positions in three of the groups that provide liaisons, these groups'
liaisons face inherent conflicts of interest. It can be difficult to
provide neutral oversight and maintain confidentiality to a group
which is judging the body that the liaison is representing. Still,
the need for oversight reasonably extends to include at least a
sampling of interviewing. Further, there might be specific concern
about a specific interviewer, prompting a need to observe their
interviewing behavior.
For example, the mere presence of some people who hold special
positions of authority (and therefore power) is sometimes problematic
in an interview. Interviewees making comments about one of these
groups have reported concern when a liaison from that group is
present, and are known to have avoided certain issues, for fear of
jeopardizing their working relationship with that group. Indeed,
liaisons have been known to report back to their groups the internal
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discussions of a Nomcom.
Balancing these conflicting needs and concerns is challenging. The
concern for oversight has sometimes led to the extreme of having
liaisons participate as fully active Nomcom members, including
participating in every interview! The problem with suggesting that
they participate in only some is that this gives an appearance of
balance, but does not address the problem, for those interviews in
which a liaison is present.
Some obvious and reasonable choices appear not to be workable. For
example, one thought is to limit interview presence to liaisons who
are not part of a direct IETF leadership team. At best this reduces
to only the ISOC Liaison. However that would rely on the
interviewee's understanding the distinct difference in roles for that
liaison, and most will not. Further, it can reasonably be argued
that a representative from the group that supplies the IETF with much
of its funding should be counted as having significant (and
potentially intimidating) power.
RECOMMENDATION -- Interview Monitoring
Liaisons must not sit in on interviews without a specific
invitation. Liaisons currently have a monitoring
responsibility that reasonably includes sitting in on
interviews. However some interviewees are intimidated by
having liaisons present from IETF leadership groups --
currently consisting of ISOC Board of Trustees, IAB, IESG and
IAOC/Trust.
In order to remedy this, Liaison participation in interviews
must be a considered exception, and not a regular practice. In
order to achieve the required monitoring of interviews, the
Chair and Advisors are tasked with attending interviews -- but
only as needed -- such as at the specific request of a Liaison.
[RFC3777] (section 4, rule 3) gives any committee member the
right to propose the addition of advisors to participate in
some or all of the deliberations of the committee. Under that
authority, committee members may choose to propose one or more
advisors to monitor interviews. The chair can therefore
appoint additional Advisors to assist with this, where the
Advisor is not affiliated with any IETF leadership group and is
not a candidate for any position with one.
This recommendation was the most difficult to develop, of those
in this proposal. It balances removing the inherent conflict
of interest and potential for intimidation from interview
situations, while ensuring that reasonable interview oversight
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is possible.
This recommendation was the most difficult to develop, of those
in this proposal. It removes the inherent conflict of interest
and potential for intimidation from interview situations, while
ensuring that reasonable interview oversight is possible:
Liaisons currently have a monitoring responsibility that
reasonably can and should include sitting in on interviews.
However some interviewees are intimidated by having liaisons
present from IETF leadership groups -- currently consisting of
ISOC Board of Trustees, IAB, IESG and IAOC/Trust. In order to
remedy this, xxxLiaisons must not sit in on interviews. In
order to achieve the required monitoring of interviews, the
Chair and Advisors are tasked with attending interviews as
needed, possibly at the specific request of a Liaison. RFC
3777 (section 4, rule 3) gives any committee member the right
to propose the addition of advisors to participate in some or
all of the deliberations of the committee. Committee members
may choose to propose one or more advisors to monitor
interviews, under that authority The chair can therefore
appoint additional Advisors to assist with this, where the
Advisor is not affiliated with any IETF leadership group and is
not a candidate for any position with one.
(Implementation) As a formal prohibition, this is a formal
change to Nomcom selection rules, which will require a
modification to RFC 3777, presumably as an enhancement to an
RFC 3777 revision effort. Note, however, that the Nomcom Chair
is entirely responsible for defining Nomcom procedures; and
each Nomcom determines the attendance and style of the
interviews it conducts. Therefore as a practical matter, any
Nomcom can choose to exclude its liaisons from the pool of
interviewers. It also can choose to appoint additional
Advisors to assist with interview oversight. Still, this issue
is core and inherent; for the long-term, its handling should be
the result of a formal IETF consensus process.
5.2. Politicking
The current reality is that politicking during the Nomcom process
does take place, sometimes quite aggressively. It is one thing for a
nominee to make invididual and personal requests for support. It
quite a different thing to have an organized campaign by a business
associate, such as an employer. As an example, one company sought to
recruit the employees of its business partners who participate in the
IETF to register positive comments on the Nomcom wiki.
The IETF Nomcom process needs protection against these sorts of
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attempts at manipulation. The IETF needs to make clear statements
about the behaviors that are acceptable, and those that are not,
among anyone involved directly or indirectly in the IETF process.
RECOMMENDATION -- Etiquette Guide
In order to ensure that every participant and organization
involved in the Nomcom process can be easily and adequately
informed of what is expected of them in the process, there
should be an "etiquette" guide supplied to all participants,
nominees, nominees' organization, interviewees, and others.
(Implementation) This is not, technically, a formal change to
Nomcom rules. It could probably be implemented informally.
However it asserts IETF norms. If only to add to its
credibility, this should be a normative document, detailing
desired and acceptable behaviors and those that are prohibited.
RECOMMENDATION -- Politicking
Any evidence of politicking should be reported to Nomcom and
should be treated as a significant, negative factor when
considering the nominee who is intended to benefit from the
politicking.
(Implementation) Nomcoms develop their own criteria. Hence the
use of this criterion does not require any formal change. It
will be useful to include this item in both the proposed
operations Guide and the Etiquette Guide.
6. Acknowledgements
This draft is the result of discussions among an ad hoc Nomcom
Selection Design Team, including Spencer Dawkins. Additional review
and suggestions have been provided by: Ross Callon, Olaf Kolkman,
Jason Livingood, Tony Hansen, Danny McPherson, Hannes Tschofenig.
7. Security Considerations
This document has no security implications, except for the viability
of the IETF's Nomcom process.
8. Informative References
[Nomcom2009]
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Barnes, M., "Nomcom Chair's Report: 2009-2010",
I-D draft-barnes-Nomcom-report-2009, February 2010.
[RFC3777] Galvin, J., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and
Recall Process: Operation of the Nominating and Recall
Committees", RFC 3777, June 2004, <informative>.
[RFC3777bis]
Galvin, J., "Operation of the Nominating and Recall",
I-D draft-galvin-rfc3777bis-00
(expired), March 2009.
[RFC3797] Eastlake, D., "Publicly Verifiable Nomcom Random
Selection", RFC 2777, June 2004.
[RFC5078] Dawkins, S., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and
Recall Process. Revision of the Nominating and Recall
Committees Timeline", RFC 5078, October 2007.
[RFC5680] Dawkins, S., Ed., "The Nominating Committee Process: Open
Disclosure of Willing Nominees", BCP 10, RFC 5680,
October 2009.
Appendix A. Draft IETF Nomcom Independence and Confidentiality Policy
I am participating in the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF)
nominations process. Working with the independent IETF Nominations
Committee (Nomcom) often includes access to information that is
confidential. Preservation of the Nomcom's independence and
confidentiality are necessary to the integrity of that process.
In light of this I understand that:
I am participating as a private individual and not as a
representative of any organization.
The confidential information that is part of the Nomcom process
includes:
* The activities of IETF participants, as they are part of IETF
work, and
* Details of the IETF's Nomcom operation.
An example of confidential information that I am expected NOT to
disclose is information about my business associates, such as my
employer, that is not already public information.
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I must not share any Nomcom confidential information with anyone,
unless the Nomcom Chair indicates it is acceptable. In particular
this means that I must not share any Nomcom information with co-
workers, family, friends or other IETF participants who are not
members of the current IETF Nominating Committee.
I understand that it is not possible to know what details are
harmless and what details are not. For example, people outside of
the Nomcom can combine small amounts of apparently harmless,
confidential information from multiple sources, in order to
generate a surprising level of insight into the workings of the
current Nomcom, and then disrupt its process. Therefore, I must
not communicate any of the Nomcom information to which I have
access.
Sometimes an employer, colleague, friend or family member will
attempt to pressure a Nomcom participant to reveal confidential
information or to take particular actions. I must explain to them
that the Nomcom confidentiality and independence policies do not
permit me to discuss this information or to act at their
direction. I should resign from the Nomcom, rather than allow my
employer or others to require that I disclose confidential Nomcom
information or change my interactions, preferences or voting.
I acknowledge that I have read and understand this Policy statement.
Participant:
Name (Print or Type):
Signature:
Date:
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Authors' Addresses
D. Crocker (editor)
Brandenburg InternetWorking
675 Spruce Dr.
Sunnyvale
USA
Phone: +1.408.246.8253 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +1.408.246.8253 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Email: dcrocker@bbiw.net
URI: http://bbiw.net
Scott Brim
Cisco
Email: scott.brim@gmail.com
Joel Halpern
Ericsson
P. O. Box 6049
Leesburg, VA
USA
Phone: +1.703.371.3043 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +1.703.371.3043 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Email: Joel.Halpern@ericsson.com
Bert Wijnen begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Email: bertietf@bwijnen.net
Barry Leiba
Internet Messaging Technology
Email: barryleiba@computer.org
URI: http://internetmessagingtechnology.org/
Mary Barnes
Polycom
Email: mary.ietf.barnes@gmail.com
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