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NomCom 2006/07: Selection Process Reset
August 30, 2006

From:
Andrew Lange <andrew.lange@alcatel.com>
To:
IETF Announcement list <ietf-announce@ietf.org>
Date:
August 30, 2006
Subject:
NomCom 2006/07: Selection Process Reset
A few members of the community have expressed concern over two issues with the
selection process for this year's NomCom.

First: The list of volunteers was published later than recommended by RFC 3777.
  This happened because, after the nominations period closed, there was some
dispute on the eligibility of a number of NomCom volunteers. 
They were not on the secretariat's list, but they had attended the requisite
number of IETF's.  I chose to provide the secretariat some time to look into
their eligibility because I was concerned about (in no particular order):

1) Disenfranchisement.  I wanted to be sure that every voice that was willing
to be heard, was heard.  I didn't want an administrative snafu to prevent
someone who wanted to from serving.

2) Representation.  In order to ensure that the NomCom is representative of the
community we need the largest possible body of eligible individuals.

I believe that these are fundamental to the entire process of the IETF and
NomCom.

This resulted in the list being sent to the secretariat later than I would have
liked, and the message then got hung up in the secretariat's queue.

The selection is still deterministic, because the list ordering algorithm used
(alpha by first name) is deterministic.  However, since the list was published
late, the appearance is not ideal.

Second:  A sitting member of the IAB's name appeared on the candidate list. 
According to 3777, section 15, sitting IAB, IESG and ISOC members are not
eligible to serve on the Nomcom.  This was an oversight on my part.  Ordering in
the list does matter for the selection process.
Although this person was not selected to serve, and the harm done is minimal, it
is important that the IETF follow our own processes as closely as possible.

For these reasons, and after consultation with members of the IAB, IESG and
ISOC, I have decided that to remove any doubt from the proceedings we must
re-run the selection algorithm with new seed information.

This is unfair to the people who volunteered for NomCom and are the backbone of
the process.  These people rightfully believed that they were or were not
selected, and everyone selected was preparing to serve.  To the volunteers: 
Thank you for volunteering, for your patience and understanding.  I apologize
for any inconvenience this reset may cause.

In order to close this issue quickly, the same stocks and procedure will be
used as last time, but the trading date will be drawn from the September 1, 2006
Wall Street Journal which reports the the sales figures from the previous
trading day - August 31, 2006.  The list we will use is the same as before, but
with the IAB member's name removed.  The list will be sent in a separate mail.

Thank you.

Andrew