Network Working Group J. Klensin Internet-Draft Updates: 3777 (if approved) S. Dawkins Intended status: BCP Huawei Expires: January 14, 2010 July 13, 2009 Nominating Committee Process: Incumbent Review Model draft-klensin-nomcom-incumbents-first-01.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on January 14, 2010. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2009 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 in effect on the date of publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Abstract The traditional IETF Nomcom model treats incumbents and new nominees (for the same and other positions) as equivalent. This has not Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 proven realistic in practice and has had a number of undesirable side effects. This document reviews the issues and the specific changes to the model that take advantage of the differences between incumbents and new nominees. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Mailing List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Separating Review and Nominations for Open Positions . . . . . 4 2.1. Phase 1: Review of Incumbents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2. Phase 2: Nomination and Selection of New Candidates . . . 7 2.3. Revised schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.4. Other Nomcom Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3. Issues with Public Nominations and Incumbents . . . . . . . . 8 4. Summary of Changes to RFC 3777 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 5. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 7. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 A.1. Changes in version -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 1. Introduction The IETF Nomcom model [RFC3777], going back to the origins of the Nomcom as described in [RFC1602] and [RFC2027], assumes that all nominees are to be treated identically, e.g., that there are no differences between incumbents who are willing to serve an additional term and new nominees. That assumption has proven unrealistic in practice. The differences make the current selection model for leadership roles inefficient for the community, for incumbents and potential alternate nominees and for the Nomcom itself. People are reluctant to "run against" incumbents and Nomcom members inevitably have difficulty comparing unknown alternate nominees against incumbents (sometimes to the advantage of the incumbents and sometimes to the advantage of the nominees). Recent proposals for changes to the Nomcom's practices about revealing nominee names [Dawkins-Openlist] may exacerbate the problem by making a challenge to an incumbent even more public than it is under the procedure of RFC 3777 as it has been interpreted in recent years. In evaluating an incumbent, the Nomcom should be able to consider actual performance in the role as well as the delicate balance between the advantages and disadvantages of longer tenure (including the disadvantages of removing someone who has done a reasonable job in a role for which a significant fraction of the first term is often spent learning to function smoothly) and to do so independently of a wider field of potential alternatives for which there is less role- specific data available. Consequently, there is reason to believe that a different model for consideration of renewal or replacement for members of the leadership would be more efficient for the Nomcom, would impose less hardship on incumbents and the community, would avoid the problems associated with trying to compete directly with an incumbent for a role, and would lead to better comparisons and perhaps better choices. This document outlines that alternate method. Somewhat different considerations apply to IESG, where multiple selections are made in a given year but for positions that are fairly specific as to technical skill requirements, and other positions selected by the Nomcom. Initially, this procedure is to be applied only to IESG positions even though other bodies and positions are discussed below. Once experience accumulates, it will be appropriate to review it for applicability to other Nomcom appointments (see Section 2.4). The Nomcom may apply its discretion, as usual, to details of the process. For clarity, this document uses the term "incumbent" to refer to someone occupying a particular position at the time the Nomcom Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 process begins and "nominee" to refer to someone nominated for a position who is not the incumbent in that position. This terminology differs slightly from that of 3777, which does not make a distinction between the two groups and refers to both as "nominees". 1.1. Mailing List [[anchor2: RFC Editor: Please remove this section.]] This proposal should be discussed on the ietf-nomcom@ietf.com list. 2. Separating Review and Nominations for Open Positions The current nomination process pits incumbents, incumbent performance, and questions of stability in relevant bodies against other potential nominees. This is undesirable for a number of reasons. It creates the notion of incumbents being "fired" rather than honorably retired to the citizenry after a brief period of contributing to the community by assuming a leadership role. And, while there is significant value in treating stability as a goal, too-low turnover in a decision-making body can contribute to that body's having an incomplete impression of the views of the community. It is worth noting that the trend in recent years (since at least 2002, the earliest year for which data or conveniently available) has been to return, rather than replace incumbents (see the table below for the data). If the Nomcom is going to return about half the incumbents in each cycle, time considering other nominees is time that could have been spent in more carefully considering nominees that hadn't served previously. The separation proposed here should promote more effective consideration of whether a given incumbent should be returned. If a decision is made to do so, no other nominees need be recruited, asked to submit information, evaluated, and so on, and there is no need to poll the community about possible replacements that aren't needed in this NomCom cycle. In addition to producing better results, the change is likely to reduce Nomcom workload, possibly encouraging a larger and more diverse pool of volunteers for the Nomcom itself. Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | NomCom | Reviewed | Returned | Percent | | | Positions | Incumbents | Returned | +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | 2008-2009 | 15 | 6 | 40 | | 2007-2008 | 14 | 9 | 64 | | 2006-2007 | 15 | 9 | 60 | | 2005-2006 | 13 | 4 | 31 | | 2004-2005 | 13 | 6 | 46 | | 2003-2004 | 12 | 8 | 67 | | 2002-2003 | 13 | 7 | 54 | +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ Table 1: Returned Incumbents per NomCom - IAB, IESG, and IAOC +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | NomCom | Reviewed | Returned | Percent | | | Positions | Incumbents | Returned | +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | 2008-2009 | 6 | 2 | 33 | | 2007-2008 | 6 | 2 | 33 | | 2006-2007 | 6 | 4 | 67 | | 2005-2006 | 6 | 2 | 33 | | 2004-2005 | 6 | 1 | 17 | | 2003-2004 | 6 | 3 | 50 | | 2002-2003 | 6 | 3 | 50 | +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ Table 2: Returned Incumbents per NomCom - IAB only +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | NomCom | Reviewed | Returned | Percent | | | Positions | Incumbents | Returned | +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | 2008-2009 | 8 | 4 | 50 | | 2007-2008 | 7 | 6 | 86 | | 2006-2007 | 8 | 4 | 50 | | 2005-2006 | 6 | 1 | 17 | | 2004-2005 | 7 | 5 | 71 | | 2003-2004 | 6 | 5 | 83 | | 2002-2003 | 7 | 4 | 57 | +-----------+-----------------+-------------------+-----------------+ Table 3: Returned Incumbents per NomCom - IESG only This specification changes the current model by reintroducing some principles that the authors believe are widely held in the community and optimizing the selection process to support those principles. Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 The principles include: o Service in the IETF's leadership bodies is a short-term contribution to the community, not a career. Indeed, willingness to assume those positions may be considered a responsibility to the community. o It takes long enough to learn the job of being effective in an IAB, IESG, or IAOC role (and most other roles that can be anticipated as being designated for Nomcom selection) that, in general, having someone retire after a single term is uneconomic for the community. o Just as retirement of an incumbent after one term should be considered a major step because of the inefficiencies of the learning period, the six-month or more period in which an incumbent is uncertain about whether work should be planned that spans the "first meeting of the next year" (or some other term cutoff) introduces inefficiencies that should be minimized to the degree possible. o While the issue lies largely outside the scope of this document, it is worth considering that a demonstrated shortage of people willing to do work in the IETF should be taken as an indication that there is insufficient real community interest in the work, and an appropriate level of resources, to reach meaningful consensus and produce high-quality results. While that position appears to be reasonably well-understood with regard to the number of active IETF participants interested in putting a working group together and in finding leadership for working groups, the same principle probably should be applied to ADs, Areas, and IAB seats: if there are only one or two people willing and qualified to do a particular job, that may be an indication that the IETF should review the appropriateness of that role (in the case of the IESG, the existence or definition of the area) or should reconsider the time and other requirements of the roles involved. To deal effectively with these problems, the Nomcom consideration and evaluation process is divided into two phases. 2.1. Phase 1: Review of Incumbents Incumbent performance should be evaluated, rather than being compared to potential other nominees to serve as replacements. The incumbent will always have more experience. An incumbent who has done his or her job well will have accumulated strong proponents and probably strong detractors. Direct comparison between the actual performance of incumbents and the potential performance of nominees is inevitably Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 difficult. In Phase 1, the Nomcom will evaluate the performance of incumbents, collecting information from the community as needed to do that. It is worth noting that names of incumbents are known to the community regardless of any Nomcom action or decisions. The Nomcom is advised that an incumbent who is willing to serve an additional term should be returned at least once (i.e., permitted/encouraged to serve two terms) unless there is strong evidence of problems (e.g., incompetence, inability to work with WGs, inability to work with other incumbents, non-feasance, or malfeasance). For incumbents who are completing their second or subsequent terms, the Nomcom should balance the advantages and disadvantages of long tenure as Nomcoms have done in the past. Discussions between the Nomcom and an incumbent as to whether that incumbent is willing to serve again should be covered by the Nomcom's normal confidentiality rules except as mutually agreed (e.g., if an incumbent wishes to make a public announcement that he or she is unwilling to serve an additional term, there is nothing for the Nomcom to keep confidential). If the Nomcom chooses to not return a incumbent who is willing to serve, the expectation is that this will be indistinguishable to the community (and to outside observers) from the incumbent voluntarily stepping down. Under normal circumstances, the Nomcom is expected to conduct informational evaluations of even those incumbents who have chosen to step down (the evaluations may inform later choices), but such incumbents may work with the Nomcom on the style of evaluation as appropriate, perhaps supplying in-depth analysis of the relevant Area and its status and issues as an alternative to an in-depth evaluation of the incumbent's performance. At the end of this phase, the Nomcom submits the list of returning incumbents as candidates to the relevant confirming body as usual. The confirming body makes its decision and the choices are announced to the community. The list of (remaining) open slots is then announced to the community before the nominal closing date for nominations and recommendations. Any incumbent who is not returned in this phase is not eligible for the relevant position in the second phase, so no one ever "runs against" an incumbent. 2.2. Phase 2: Nomination and Selection of New Candidates This procedure works exactly as described in RFC 3777, as amended [RFC3777], with the understanding that no incumbent will ever be a candidate for the same position under this process. As a side- effect, the process specified in this document makes it more difficult than it has traditionally been to shift people around within the IESG and possibly between the IAB and IESG. Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 2.3. Revised schedule Because of other proposals to alter the Nomcom timeline, it is inappropriate to propose a separate timeline here. However, it is worth noting that one interesting side-effect of this proposal is that consideration and evaluation of incumbents could occur in parallel with the beginning of calls for nominations. Of course a nomination for a slot held by an incumbent who was returned would become a no-op. There would be some advantages to guaranteeing confidentiality, even from Nomcom members, for the identities of anyone applying for such slots until the decision with regard to the incumbent was public and silently discarding the nominations if the incumbent were returned (see Section 3). 2.4. Other Nomcom Appointments In general, the model specified here is obviously much more applicable to selection environments in which nominees are matched to particular slots and specific job descriptions. It may still be useful when the selection involves a pool of positions that are not differentiated with regard to particular technical (or other) specialties. Consequently, the procedure will apply to IESG selections only in the first year of application. Once experience is accumulated from that year and the Nomcom and community have had the opportunity to observe its effectiveness, extension of the procedure to the IAB and/or IAOC should be considered. If positions are added in the future to those that the Nomcom selects, the documents that create those positions should specify whether they fall under this "incumbents first" model or not. 3. Issues with Public Nominations and Incumbents Over the years, there have been many discussions of the degree of confidentiality that is appropriate for the Nomcom, especially with regard to identification of the names of nominees being considered. That discussion surfaced most recently in conjunction with [Dawkins-Openlist]. The arguments against having the names be completely open focus on two main cases: o Some people fear publicly competing with incumbents. They are concerned that it would be interpreted as an attack or statement of lack of confidence in the incumbent and that the incumbent, if returned, would resent those actions and retaliate by making it more difficult for the challenger (or his organization) to progress documents. Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 o Relationships within or among organizations might make such nominations problematic even though the organizations might be willing to tolerate any problems if the nominee were actually selected (especially if it were not known whether the incumbent stepped down voluntarily). An individual might be reluctant to be nominated against her boss. A company might find it difficult to permit a nomination when the incumbent (or another nominee) was in a visible position with another company with which the first one had very close linkages. And so on. It is important to note that, regardless of whether these concerns are actually valid or not, they are perceived as valid and that the perception may reduce the number of people who are available as nominees for a given position. Having decisions made about incumbents and whether they were begin returned made, and made public, before the target cutoff date for nominations would eliminate the first of these problems and significantly reduce the second. 4. Summary of Changes to RFC 3777 Some of the procedures described in this document could be put in place without updating the current NomCom process, but [RFC3777] must be updated to provide for the following actions: 1. Section 4, bullet 13 of [RFC3777] ties the announcement of positions being reviewed to the call for NomCom volunteers ("The Chair obtains the list of IESG and IAB positions to be reviewed and announces it along with a solicitation for names of volunteers from the IETF community willing to serve on the nominating committee"). This document calls for the NomCom to be selected and seated, and to evaluate relevant incumbents, before announcing a list of positions that are unambiguously "open". 2. Section 5, bullet 14 of [RFC3777] calls for the NomCom to forward candidates to the confirming bodies as a group ("specifying a single candidate for each open position"). This document calls for a two-stage forwarding - first, renewed incumbent candidates are forwarded for confirmation, and then non-incumbent candidates are forwarded for confirmation. 3. Given that the notion of "partial-slate confirmation" has been contentious in past NomComs, it is probably best to insert language that calls for confirming bodies to confirm renewed incumbent candidates without waiting for a complete slate of candidates. Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 5. Internationalization Considerations This specification is about IETF Procedures. It has no effect on internationalization issues. 6. IANA Considerations This specification is about IETF Procedures. It has no effect on IANA issues and does not contemplate any IANA actions. 7. Security considerations This specification is about IETF Procedures for leadership selection. It has no direct consequences for Internet security issues although it is possible that it might produce a better IAB or IESG that might, in turn, be more effective in dealing with those issues. 8. Acknowledgements This draft is derived from, and draws on, a 2005 draft by the same authors titled "Mode of Selection for Nomcom-selected IETF Leadership Positions" [Nomcom-term]. That document mixed the specification in this document with term-duration recommendations and was originally written to apply to the IESG only. 9. References 9.1. Normative References [RFC3777] Galvin, J., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 3777, June 2004. 9.2. Informative References [Dawkins-Openlist] Dawkins, S., "Nominating Committee Process: Open Disclosure of Willing Nominees", May 2009, <https:// datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/ draft-dawkins-nomcom-openlist/>. [Nomcom-term] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "Terms of Appointments for NomCom-selected IETF Leadership Positions", June 2006. Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft Nomcom Incumbent Processing July 2009 [RFC1602] Huitema, C. and P. Gross, "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 2", RFC 1602, March 1994. [RFC2027] Galvin, J., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 2027, October 1996. Appendix A. Change Log A.1. Changes in version -01 o The document has been modified to apply only to the IESG, making other bodies matters for future determination. o More detailed historical tables have been included. o Minor editorial corrections have been applied. Authors' Addresses John C Klensin 1770 Massachusetts Ave, #322 Cambridge, MA 02140 USA Phone: +1 617 491 5735 Email: john-ietf@jck.com Spencer Dawkins Huawei Technologies (USA) 1700 Alma Drive, Suite 100 Plano, TX 75075 US Phone: +1 972 509 0309 Fax: +1 469 229 5397 Email: spencer@wonderhamster.org Klensin & Dawkins Expires January 14, 2010 [Page 11]