Subject: [Eligibility-discuss] Comments on draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-04

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2020 12:09:41 +0100

Brian, Stephen,

Thanks for persevering with this document.

A few comments below.

Cheers,
Adrian

===

Abstract

You (correctly, IMHO) say "temporarily". I believe it would be useful
if the Abstract quantified that by saying that the "the experiment is
of fixed duration and will end <when?>."

---

Introduction

   In view of the unexpected
   cancellation of the IETF 107 and IETF 108 face-to-face meetings

I think you might delete "unexpected". It doesn't matter whether the
cancellation was expected or not - the effect is the same. (And we
really don't want to debate who found it unexpected :-).

At the same time, you can add 109 to your list.

---

Introduction

   the probability of less frequent meetings in future

Please qualify as "face-to-face meetings"

---

Introduction

   experiment [RFC3933] of fixed duration

Good to know 'fixed duration'. Rather than have me search, could you add
a pointer to Section 2?  ("...as described in Section 2...")

---

Section 2

"or to do neither"

I think you might useful break this into two options:
- to run a different experiment for the next NomCom selection
- to revert to RFC8173 un-amended

---

Section 4

   *  Path 1: As per [RFC8713], the person has attended 3 out of the
      last 5 IETF meetings.  For meetings held entirely online, online
      registration and attendance counts as attendance.  For the
      2021-2022 Nominating Committee, the meetings concerned will be
      IETF 106, 107, 108, 109, and 110.

I think "As per [RFC8713]" is unhelpful here. Not all of this bullet 
is as per 8713. In fact, we just need to know the new rules, not the
commentary (you could put that in another section if you really want it,
but I don't think it is needed).

Pedantically, you will want to clarify "attended" as "registered and
attended" to catch the whole "but I was watching the stream and working
in jabber".

---

Section 4

      -  This criterion has been retained for backward compatibility and
         expanded.

I don't think you need to say this! It is somewhat confusing and we 
don't really need the commentary: we just need to know the rules. Per my
previous, you could move the commentary to another section.

---

Sections 4 and 5

Reading the first bullet of Section 4, I noted that you do not include
remote attendance at IETF 106, nor remote attendance at any future IETF
that is held face-to-face.  But I also noted that this is not listed in
Section 5 as a deliberate omission. 

Given that this question has been raised and discussed quite a bit, I 
feel that it should covered in one of the two sections.

My personal preference is to include it in Section 4. Failure to this
makes it appear that you have a "pay to play" approach to NomCom
eligibility (since IETF 106 remote attendance was free, and assuming
remote attendance at any future in-person IETF will also be free).

A compromise might be to exclude 106 but include any future in-person
IETF meeting.

---

Section 6

In view of some moderate urgency to get this draft completed, consensus
reached, and an RFC published, I think it is time to make a call on 
which of these points should be addressed in this document, which should
be discarded, and which should be marked "Other experiments may be
introduced in parallel to this experiment to consider the following
questions."

I would be inclined to split them as follows...

   *  Should we consider how many nomcom voting members qualify via
      which paths?  For example, would it be acceptable if all 10 nomcom
      voting members qualified via path 3 in one year?

The overlap between Path 1 and the other Paths is likely to be high. (I
found myself wanting to say that Paths 2, 3, and 4 were pretty much
pointless additions, but I suspect having them is harmless.)

Make this something that the experiment must report on.

   *  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.

There is no Path 5 :-)

This is just far too complicated. Move it to Section 5.

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

I think this one should be resolved in this draft. 5 years sounds like
a lot to me. Much can change in that period, and if the person doesn't
qualify through the other Paths then perhaps there is an issue. Maybe
just grab 3 years on everything?

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

This one could be for future experimentation (but that is hard to do
unless we have some recall petitions!). I'd just drop it.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2020 12:06:05 +1200

Adrian,

Thanks for the careful scrutiny. Most of your suggestions are straightforward.

This bit is more complicated:

On 28-Aug-20 23:09, Adrian Farrel wrote:
...
> feel that it should covered in one of the two sections.

True. And it's a bit tricky, because 106 clearly took place under the
old regime and future f2f meetings will be under some new regime. I don't
think we even *have* a policy yet on whether remote attendance at a
future f2f meeting will be free for everybody.
 
> remote attendance at any future in-person IETF will also be free).

Personally I don't want to see any form of "pay to play", so I agree.

> A compromise might be to exclude 106 but include any future in-person

You mean exclude remote participants at 106, but include remote
participants for 110, even if it turns out to be in Prague rather than
in cyberspace?

Regards
     Brian

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2020 10:04:29 +0100

Hi Brian,

Cutting to your final question on the compromise...

>> A compromise might be to exclude 106 but include any future in-
>> person IETF meeting.
>

Yes, that was the suggestion.

The support for that *might* be that when people attended or didn't attend IETF-106 they did so with the existing NomCom rules in place so it could be claimed that they knew what they were getting in to. Additionally, at the time of IETF-106 because we didn't have expectations for forming NomCom and because we didn't have the stricter pay (or get a waiver) to do remote attendance, we didn't necessarily have the right tooling in place to track and verify remote attendees.

Best,
Adrian

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> 
Sent: 29 August 2020 01:06
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Comments on draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-04

Adrian,

 

Regards
     Brian