Subject: [Iasa20] Board Size

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 16:47:10 +0000

We’re working on an update to the structure draft (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/) following the last meeting. On board size, I believe we heard that the proposed 5 trustees was likely too small. In which case, we could go to either 7 or 9. To me, 9 seems too large and so then 7 may be just right.

What do others here think?

Thanks,
Jason

---

From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 12:52:22 -0400

On 5/4/2018 12:47 PM, Livingood, Jason wrote:
>
> We’re working on an update to the structure draft 
> (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/) following 
> the last meeting. On board size, I believe we heard that the proposed 
> 5 trustees was likely too small. In which case, we could go to either 
> 7 or 9. To me, 9 seems too large and so then 7 may be just right.
>
> *What do others here think?*
>
7 sounds reasonable to me.

Lou*
*
>
> **
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> iasa20 mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 13:07:21 -0400

7 is reasonable.
Yours,
Joel

---

From: "Deen, Glenn (NBCUniversal)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 17:16:40 +0000

7 is a good size for a board.

Glenn Deen

Sent from my iPad

On May 4, 2018, at 9:47 AM, Livingood, Jason <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

Thanks,
Jason
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---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 07:41:24 +1200

> 7 is a good size for a board.

Agreed. It's also worth defining the size of the quorum for
when formal decisions are needed. That could be 5 or even 4.

   Brian

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 13:37:39 -0700

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 9:47 AM, Livingood, Jason <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> We’re working on an update to the structure draft (
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/) following the
> last meeting. On board size, I believe we heard that the proposed 5
> trustees was likely too small. In which case, we could go to either 7 or 9.
> To me, 9 seems too large and so then 7 may be just right.
>
>
>
Seven is reasonable to me if there are no board-selected seats, because
that makes it easy to to set up the rotations (e.g. IETF chair plus 3
rotations of two seats).  I'm not personally in favor of having the board
self-selecting any members, so if that's the plan, go ahead.  If we are
doing board selected seats, I'd recommend the larger size (9), to allow for
the same chair+rotations+small number of self-selected seats.

Wearing no hats,

Ted

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 16:56:51 -0400

> On May 4, 2018, at 4:37 PM, Ted Hardie <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 9:47 AM, Livingood, Jason <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> Seven is reasonable to me if there are no board-selected seats, because that makes it easy to to set up the rotations (e.g. IETF chair plus 3 rotations of two seats).  I'm not personally in favor of having the board self-selecting any members, so if that's the plan, go ahead.  If we are doing board selected seats, I'd recommend the larger size (9), to allow for the same chair+rotations+small number of self-selected seats.

I think that 7 is a good number.

I think that a quorum should be at least 4.

I also think that having the board self-select members is undesirable.

Russ

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 17:02:07 -0400

Hi Ted,

> We’re working on an update to the structure draft (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/ <https://datatracker.ietf..org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/>) following the last meeting. On board size, I believe we heard that the proposed 5 trustees was likely too small. In which case, we could go to either 7 or 9. To me, 9 seems too large and so then 7 may be just right.
> 
>  
> 

I don’t understand your point about the relationships between staggered terms and how the board members are appointed. Why would these necessarily be related?

Thanks,
Alissa

> [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20 <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20>
> 
> 
> [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20 <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20>

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 17:03:28 -0400

Hi,

On Fri, May 04, 2018 at 01:37:39PM -0700, Ted Hardie wrote:
> two seats).  I'm not personally in favor of having the board self-selecting any
> members, so if that's the plan, go ahead.  If we are doing board selected
> seats, I'd recommend the larger size (9), to allow for the same
> chair+rotations+small number of self-selected seats.

Can you say more about why you're not in favour of any board-selected
members?  The reasoning is that the board will be able to say for
itself, "We have a gap here," in a way that nobody else will be able
to say.  If that happens, how will the board fill that expertise if it
can't select some members for just those needed qualities?

Thanks,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 17:05:09 -0400

> On May 4, 2018, at 5:03 PM, Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

That happens today on the IAB.  It is resolved by the IAB members talking to NomCom.  I think this solution is the same.

Russ

---

From: Lou Berger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 17:06:01 -0400

> can't select some members for just those needed qualities?

Andrew,
     What would these folks need to be on the board?
Lou

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 14:17:47 -0700

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 2:05 PM, Russ Housley <[email-masked]> wrote:

> That happens today on the IAB.  It is resolved by the IAB members talking
> to NomCom.  I think this solution is the same.
>

It also happens, of course, with the IAB seeking outside expertise when it
needs it, often in the shape of a program.   The difference between the two
is really in what kind of gap we're talking about.

If the gap is focused on a short-term issue, then I think we can all agree
some advisory position is sufficient.  If the gap is a long term need, the
reasons for making it a board selected appointment rather than by one of
the other methods seems to amount to one of three things:

1) The board can't express the need to any of the bodies providing it
members or those bodies are not convinced enough of the need to prioritize
it above other desirable characteristics.

2) The bodies providing the board members agree that it is needed but can't
find the right people to fill that need, but the board itself can.

3) The total skillset required has gone up beyond what can be reasonably
expected by the initial board size, and the board will be the first to
recognize that and thus would be the fastest to remedy the situation.

I personally tend to discount the first as I expect the board to be able to
express itself and to be able to take feedback from the community on
priorities.  The last seems to be potentially reasonable, but not something
we would optimize for at the outset (as the initial board seems to need
time to figure out where the lacunae are, for one thing).

Most of what I have heard in hallways is around the 2nd, and I'm not sure
why it would be convincing, since a smaller group is drawing on personal
networks that they presumably would have been willing to draw from for
other appointments.  But it is possible I am missing something critical
there or some compelling argument I have not cited.

regards,

Ted

---

From: Richard Barnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 May 2018 21:23:52 +0000

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 5:18 PM Ted Hardie <[email-masked]> wrote:

> 2) The bodies providing the board members agree that it is needed but
> can't find the right people to fill that need, but the board itself can.
>

I would offer a fourth reason:

4) The selecting body is not in a good position to select candidates in the
domains the board requires.

Assuming we're talking about NomCom as the selecting body -- at the end of
the day, this is a random set of volunteers drawn from a pool comprising
almost exclusively engineers.  As much as I love engineers, if the board is
looking for members with skills in other domains, why would we assume that
NomCom is an appropriate group to evaluate who is good at those skills?

--Richard

>
> I personally tend to discount the first as I expect the board to be able
> to express itself and to be able to take feedback from the community on

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 14:31:55 -0700

Howdy,

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 2:23 PM, Richard Barnes <[email-masked]> wrote:

>>> That happens today on the IAB.  It is resolved by the IAB members
>>> talking to NomCom.  I think this solution is the same.
>>>
>>
>> It also happens, of course, with the IAB seeking outside expertise when
>> it needs it, often in the shape of a program.   The difference between the
>> two is really in what kind of gap we're talking about.
>>
>> If the gap is focused on a short-term issue, then I think we can all
>> agree some advisory position is sufficient.  If the gap is a long term
>> need, the reasons for making it a board selected appointment rather than by
>> one of the other methods seems to amount to one of three things:
>>
> 4) The selecting body is not in a good position to select candidates in
> the domains the board requires.
>
>
I think that's what I meant by number 2.  "the bodies" there was "one or
more selecting bodies" (if there is more than one).  Sorry that this wasn't
clear.

> NomCom is an appropriate group to evaluate who is good at those skills?
Well, I think we should probably have more than one selecting body.  At the
very least, I think we should have the ISOC Board and the NomCom, and I
think possibly the IAB as well.  That seems to me to get a broader set of
networks to draw on than either the NomCom or the board itself (especially
in the original proposal, where the board was 5 selected by parties other
than the board).

Ted

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 23:09:23 +0000

Seven is better than five, and slightly better than nine.  Self-selected is bad, too easy to ossify/self-perpetuate. I don’t see a reason to not use the standard 50%+1 as quorum requirement.

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 23:12:49 +0000

The same way any other organization fills in gaps?

IMO, the risks of self-perpetuation seem too great to justify the believed benefit.

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 16:17:20 -0700

> IMO, the risks of self-perpetuation seem too great to justify the believed

I'm not going to fight this to the death or anything, but I find myself
kind of surprised at the negative reactions people are having to the board
selecting some of its embers. This is basically the standard way that
corporate boards work, for instance, namely the BOD nominates people and
then the shareholders vote (it's also how Mozilla's BOD works,
incidentally), so it's not like it's some new thing we've just invented.

It would help me, at least, if those who are against this could point to
some examples they have seen where this has been a real problem.

-Ekr

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 23:21:16 +0000

Yes, in many corporate structures, the current Board nominates new members and the shareholders vote. The proposal here is the same thing, but without shareholders voting.  And I should point out that the voting is generally a sham, which is why there’s always so much interest when an outsider or activist slate is presented.

So I think you argued against the point you wanted to make ;)

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 16:28:46 -0700

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 4:21 PM, Salz, Rich <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Yes, in many corporate structures, the current Board nominates new members
> and the shareholders vote. The proposal here is the same thing, but without
> shareholders voting.
>

Well, I do think that any board-nominated members should be approved by
some non-board entity (e.g., the IAB).

And I should point out that the voting is generally a sham, which is why
> there’s always so much interest when an outsider or activist slate is
> presented.
>
>
>

Not sure why you think that. Can you explain?

-Ekr

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 23:31:36 +0000

I don’t recall there was a non-board entity involved, as you most recently said. I was concerned about one-party self-nomination, apologies if I missed something.

I think the current governance of commercial orgs (at least in the US) is not something to aspire to because it’s captured or self-perpetuating, mostly.  Do you think otherwise?

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 16:38:06 -0700

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 4:31 PM, Salz, Rich <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I don’t recall there was a non-board entity involved, as you most recently
> said. I was concerned about one-party self-nomination, apologies if I
> missed something.
>

It's not entirely clear to me what the current working documents are, but
this was in the DT recommendations:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-haberman-iasa20dt-recs-02#section-5.3.1.1

"

One common way to select board members is to have the existing board
   select new members.  The advantage of this structure is that the
   existing members have the skills and connections to identify other
   people with similar skills.  For this reason, this is a common
   structure for nonprofits.  The design team recognizes that there are
   concerns about the board drifting away from the IETF Community
   interest, but believes these concerns would be adequately addressed
   by having some of the board directly selected by nomcom and all
   members subject to IETF confirmation.  The details of how the initial
   board is to be constituted would need to be determined, but one
   possibility would be to draw from the existing IAOC and IETF-selected
   ISOC BOT members, with the board replacing itself within a short
   period.

"

> I think the current governance of commercial orgs (at least in the US) is
> not something to aspire to because it’s captured or self-perpetuating,
> mostly.  Do you think otherwise?
>

Well, captured and self-perpetuating are different things. I agree captured
isn't great, but the question here is whether self-perpetuating is bad. I'm
not sure that corporate Board performance is especially bad, compared to
the alternatives. And as I said, this also isn't an uncommon structure for
nonprofit boards.

-Ekr

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 May 2018 20:26:03 -0400

In article <CA+9kkMCTrCP=i+7NkgsenwKB6zP5TKgPhT=[email-masked]> you write:
>think possibly the IAB as well. ...

I would like to understand the selection process before deciding on a
board size.

It seems to me that the skills this board needs are fairly
straightforward, primarily to make budgets, oversee contracts for
meetings and tools and RFC production, and to keep track of and deal
with long term issues like who comes to meetings from where.  If the
board members from selecting bodies don't have those skills,
something's wrong.

There will no doubt be questions that need special skills, but the
usual way to deal with that is to pay someone with the skills, as we
pay people who have legal skills or experience negotiating hotel
contracts.

FYI, the ISOC board is allowed to self-select additional members, but
has only done so once, to fill a vacancy, and since the bylaws were
changed to provide a vacancy process, not at all.

R's,
John

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 18:07:32 -0700

> board members from selecting bodies don't have those skills,

Hi Jon,

I would actually expect most of these to be *staff* functions.

In my experience, the staff (and who exactly depends on the size
of the organization) prepare the budget, sign contracts, propose
the overall corporate strategy, etc. The board oversees these
functions, which primarily consists of:

- hiring and firing executives
- ratifying very large matters, such as large contracts,
  the annual budget
- having regular staff reporting on the state of the organization
  and the organizations's strategy

Of course that's not to say how straightforward those skills are.

Best,
-Ekr

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 21:13:02 -0400

If the staff of this new corporation are proposing "overall corporate 
strategy", then we have failed.  Either there is no such thing as 
corporate strategy, or it better be set by the IETF.
Having just watched the (staff) CTO of another standards body decide 
that the staff strategy was more important than the membership actions, 
I think it is VERY important to avoid this.

Yours,
Joel

On 5/4/18 9:07 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 5:26 PM, John Levine <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     In article
>     <CA+9kkMCTrCP=i+7NkgsenwKB6zP5TKgPhT=[email-masked]
>     <mailto:[email-masked]>> you write:

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 18:16:56 -0700

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 6:13 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked]> wrote:

> strategy", then we have failed.  Either there is no such thing as corporate
> strategy, or it better be set by the IETF.
>
Having just watched the (staff) CTO of another standards body decide that
> the staff strategy was more important than the membership actions, I think
> it is VERY important to avoid this.
>

Hi Joel,

Thanks for your note. I very much agree with you I don't want the staff
deciding on the strategy for the IETF.

What I meant in this case by corporate strategy was stuff like "this is how
much money we plan to take in via registration versus donations, this is
how many years out we plan to make our hotel contracts, etc." Maybe calling
that strategy is a bit too grand?

-Ekr

>> On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 5:26 PM, John Levine <[email-masked] <mailto:
>> [email-masked]>> wrote:
>>
>>     In article

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 21:27:07 -0400

I note that currently, even things like how many years out we should aim 
to have meetings well-located is an IETF decision, not a staff decision. 
  As currently formulated, taht isn't supposed to change.

Making sure the data is well organized and actually useful is very much 
a staff function.  Analyzing alternatives for their financial 
implications for the organization probably needs to be staff in practice.

Neither of those would be what I would call strategy.

Things like deciding how much we should lean on various source of 
financing do start to look like strategy.  And I really hope that they 
would be decided by the board, with input from staff.  That is not 
simple to get right.  It gets "interesting" when we get to things like 
"we could get more sponsorships if we described the IETF work as X 
instead of Y".  That sounds like reasonable marketing decisions by 
staff.  But it tends to have effects on what work gets attention.

It is clear that we need staff.  Even clear that we need more staff than 
we have by a fair margin.

But we need to be VERY careful about what tasks get left to them.

Having said all that, I do not think that the solution is for the board 
to appoint board members with expertise in those areas.   It seems 
unlikely that such would reduce the impact of staff.

Yours,
Joel

On 5/4/18 9:16 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 6:13 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     If the staff of this new corporation are proposing "overall
>     corporate strategy", then we have failed.  Either there is no such
>     thing as corporate strategy, or it better be set by the IETF.
> 
>     that the staff strategy was more important than the membership
>     actions, I think it is VERY important to avoid this.
> 
> 
> Hi Joel,
> 
> What I meant in this case by corporate strategy was stuff like "this is 
> how much money we plan to take in via registration versus donations, 
> this is how many years out we plan to make our hotel contracts, etc." 
> Maybe calling that strategy is a bit too grand?
> 
> -Ekr
> 
> 
>     Yours,
>     Joel
> 
>         <mailto:[email-masked]> <mailto:[email-masked]
>         <mailto:[email-masked]>>> wrote:
> 
>              In article
>             
>         <mailto:[email-masked]>
>              <mailto:[email-masked]
>         <mailto:[email-masked]>>> you write:
>              >Well, I think we should probably have more than one
>         selecting body.  At the
>              >very least, I think we should have the ISOC Board and the
>         NomCom, and I
>               >think possibly the IAB as well. ...
> 
>         <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iasa20>
> 
>

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 May 2018 22:55:43 -0400

> I would actually expect most of these to be *staff* functions.

Oh, of course, but the board (or whatever we call it) needs to understand 
them well enough to oversee the staff doing it.  At ISOC the staff runs 
the finances but it's rather important that we have board members who can 
read and understand the budgets and balance sheets.

R's,
John

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 15:44:26 +1200

Chiming in a bit late:

On 05/05/2018 09:23, Richard Barnes wrote:
> NomCom is an appropriate group to evaluate who is good at those skills?

Whether it's NomCom, IAB or IESG that's true; in our menagerie, it's really
only in the ISOC Board that this might not be a problem.

As others have said, it's common practice for boards to co-opt expert members.
Subject to confirmation by some 3rd party (I don't really care whether it's
the IAB, the sitting NomCom, or the ISOC Board) and that it's limited to 2
seats, it seems completely reasonable to me, and the risk of self-perpetuation
is low. It's not likely that we'll be overwhelmed by a crush of volunteers,
anyway (especially with the IETF Trust to populate as well).

The comparison with the self-perpetuation of boards of major companies,
which often approaches 100%, isn't fair. We're talking about a small
minority of the board.

     Brian

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 May 2018 09:52:26 -0400

>which often approaches 100%, isn't fair. We're talking about a small

It's worth noting that corporate board members are paid, often quite a
lot if it's a large company.  Or if not, because the member already
has a financial interest as an employee or as a large stockholder.

If this board is anything like the IAOC or the IETF Trust or the ISOC
board, it'll be a worthwhile but time sucking pain in the patoot.  I
agree that our problem will continue to be finding qualfied
volunteers.  I still don't see why people expect that the selecting
bodies will not select board members who are adequate to do the job.

R's,
John

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 11:07:54 -0400

On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 4:21 PM, Salz, Rich <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
Yes, in many corporate structures, the current Board nominates new members and the shareholders vote. The proposal here is the same thing, but without shareholders voting. 

To me, board members ought to freely put forward names to fill the "gaps" that Richard talked about.  That ensures that NomCom has many candidates.  Since we do not have a shareholder vote, this offers a check on self-perpetuation.

Russ

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 May 2018 09:53:37 -0700

>   and the organizations's strategy

and sets (signs off on) overall policy.  of course, in an organisation
of O(1000) engineers with deep talents in law, micro-management, ...,
policy is more of a public discussoon.

randy

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 21:15:23 -0400

Hi Joel,

> On May 4, 2018, at 9:27 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> I note that currently, even things like how many years out we should aim to have meetings well-located is an IETF decision, not a staff decision.  As currently formulated, taht isn't supposed to change.

I’m not sure precisely what you’re referring to here, but perhaps it is this bit from the charter?

"Aside from instances where they presently relate to IASA, it is outside the
scope of this working group to consider any changes to anything related to
the oversight or steering of the standards process as currently conducted by
the IESG and IAB, the appeal chain, the confirming bodies for existing IETF
and IAB appointments, the IRTF, or ISOC's memberships in other organizations.”

I would say the meeting planning timeline certainly “relates to IASA” and therefore is something that could (and I expect would) become a staff responsibility, subject to whatever TBD community engagement process emerges from the discussions here.

Alissa

> 
> Making sure the data is well organized and actually useful is very much a staff function.  Analyzing alternatives for their financial implications for the organization probably needs to be staff in practice.
> 
> Things like deciding how much we should lean on various source of financing do start to look like strategy.  And I really hope that they would be decided by the board, with input from staff.  That is not simple to get right.  It gets "interesting" when we get to things like "we could get more sponsorships if we described the IETF work as X instead of Y".  That sounds like reasonable marketing decisions by staff.  But it tends to have effects on what work gets attention.
> 
> It is clear that we need staff.  Even clear that we need more staff than we have by a fair margin.
> 
> Having said all that, I do not think that the solution is for the board to appoint board members with expertise in those areas.   It seems unlikely that such would reduce the impact of staff.
> 
> Yours,
> Joel
> 
>> On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 6:13 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>> Thanks for your note. I very much agree with you I don't want the staff deciding on the strategy for the IETF.
>> What I meant in this case by corporate strategy was stuff like "this is how much money we plan to take in via registration versus donations, this is how many years out we plan to make our hotel contracts, etc." Maybe calling that strategy is a bit too grand?
>> -Ekr
>>    Yours,
>>    Joel

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 21:26:39 -0400

My comment had nothing to do with what the meeting planning timeline is.

My comment was in response to Eric's apparent suggestion that the 
meeting planning timeline decision was a staff decision.  Given the 
history of community interest in this point, it seemed an odd example of 
staff decision.

I was not getting into whether this working group could / should / must 
not change that.  Just that under current setup it is an odd example of 
staff decision.

And as I said, I agree that being able to get more staff support is a 
desirable result.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 19:45:07 +0200

On 05.05.18 01:17, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>
> It would help me, at least, if those who are against this could point
> to some examples they have seen where this has been a real problem.

Some of us remember the IAB pre-Danvers.  They got way in front of where
the community was, and tried to drive.  They didn't realize they were
driving off a cliff at the time.  We're also here, at least in part,
because it is IMHO difficult to even inform the community how to hold
the IAOC accountable for their actions.  The levels of indirection are a
bit much.

This having been said, I too am a little nervous about whether your
average NOMCOM member will be able to discern a good Praetor from a bad
one.  It might also make sense to consider direct elections using those
who are NOMCOM-eligible as a base for these roles instead of going
through the NOMCOM.   This presumably(*) is not a case where a company
could stack the Board of Praetors and have its way with the standards
process.  Yes, the NOMCOM process is convenient to leverage, but it
seems to me that those people have done a very good day's work just by
having selected good IESG and IAB members.

Also, while this might sound a bit self-serving, since I work at such a
company, I wonder if it makes sense for institutions who have hosted an
IETF to have at least some voice in selection, or even a seat between
them.  Many of those folk have the necessary skills to at least
understand business side.  And it might be a nice carrot.

That would make this look something like the following:

  * 1 from the IESG (could be the IETF chair or delegate)
  * 1 from the IAB (could be the IAB chair or delegate)
  * 1 from ISOC (could be the CEO of ISOC or delegate)
  * 3 from the community (3 years)
  * 1 from hosts (3 years)

Were you to skim one from the community to be given to the board for
additional expertise, I wouldn't mind.  This also addresses all the key
constituencies (e.g., not the same pool).  That leaves open the length
of time the selections from the IESG, IAB, and ISOC would serve.  My
preference would be "at pleasure of", but I don't know if that is
possible.  The key thing is that at different times the IETF chair, IAB
chair, or ISOC CEO can get rather busy with other things, and may need
coverage from a colleague.  Also, presumably someone who has left one of
those institutions would vacate her his seat.

Eliot
(*) It remains a test, IMHO, for WG and community consensus that
whatever structures are proposed do indeed prevent whatever board is
formed from meddling in the standards process, either directly or
indirectly.

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 May 2018 15:15:57 -0400

>the IAOC accountable for their actions.  The levels of indirection are a

Maybe I'm too close to it but I don't see what the problem is.  The
IAOC's job is pretty simple, to arrange that RFCs are published,
meetings happen, and the tools work.  The budgets are all published
for anyone who cares, which appears to be almost nobody other than
when we have to raise the registration fee.  Now and then we screw
up but we seem to deal with it.  The most recent screwup was the
registration window where the IAOC and our contractor had agreed to
12 weeks but everyone (notably me) forgot and the Montreal window
was too short.  Oops, but I think we fixed it, and we'll certainly
find out for IETF 103 where nearly everyone will need a visa.

>one. ...

I don't get this either.  I agree with you that the Aediles will need
business skills, but most of the people in the nomcom pool work in
industry, many are managers, and at this level it's not all that hard
to figure out, e.g., asking "have you reviewed budgets / overseen contractors
before?"

I still think simpler is better, and if it turns out that more
complexity is needed, we can add it once we understand what the real
problems are.

R's,
John

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 May 2018 12:18:47 -0700

tl:dr; the issue is not how the iasa or whatever is selected.  the issue
is their responsibilities and authorities; and the horribly weak
communication and transparency.  appointing/electing/anointing has been
demonstrated not to solve the basic issues with the mission and methods.

> Some of us remember the IAB pre-Danvers.

your memory is showing signs of age.  danvers was '95.  i think you mean
pre kobe, '92.  to me, the most memorable thing about kobe was not the
poolpah, but not allowing tierno bah, a rather wise west african, into
the room; the ietf was, and still is, too self important and often rude.

> it is IMHO difficult to even inform the community how to hold the IAOC
> accountable for their actions.

accountability is post facto; blame does not carry packets.  imiho, the
problem is getting useful information to the community in a way it can
process constructively, and then getting usable results back given low
s:n (i confess to being part of the n).

> I too am a little nervous about whether your average NOMCOM member
> will be able to discern a good Praetor from a bad one.

ahhh; the special snowflake theory.  if this is the case, should we
allow these unwashed to select critical functions such as the iesg and
the iab?

either believe in the nomcom process or fix it; do not disempower it.

> It might also make sense to consider direct elections using those who
> are NOMCOM-eligible as a base for these roles instead of going through
> the NOMCOM.

this creates a class of citizenship.  remember the poolpah the last
time we had a discussion of nomcom eligibility?  that will pale compared
to the next round.

> them.

this is the competing interests theory.  it is not a good path.

> This also addresses all the key constituencies

and there you have it.  the icann competing constituency model.  i tried
to ameliorate it back in icann formation, and lost to joe.  and look at
the result.

randy

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 May 2018 15:33:32 -0400

> incidentally), so it's not like it's some new thing we've just

Having "voted" for dozens of for-profit boards as a shareholder, the
shareholders do not vote at all, they just "confirm" (or withhold).  
It's a mockery.   Part of the problem is that apparently shareholders are
not allowed to communicate with other shareholders except via the corporation
(at least that's the case under TSX rules).

    > some examples they have seen where this has been a real problem.

Every single for-profit corporation I know of.

-- 
]               Never tell me the odds!                 | ipv6 mesh networks [ 
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works        | network architect  [ 
]     [email-masked]  http://www.sandelman.ca/        |   ruby on rails    [

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 May 2018 15:36:29 -0400

> find the right people to fill that need, but the board itself can.

...

    > there or some compelling argument I have not cited.

Yeah,  I'm not getting why the board can't nominate people via nomcom, and
can't provided feedback.   This also lets the nomcom deal with other tensions
such as gender and geographic balances.

I would also prefer that all members went through the nomcom, with the IAB as
the confirming body (note: the IESG is the current confirming body for IAOC
appointees), and with significant input from the IESG.

I'd like to see nomcom appoint two people for three year terms every year.
An advantage of this is that there is no synchrony with IETF chair, cycle.
The seventh can be appointed by the ISOC board.

I think that two year terms for IAOC have been too short, and assuming two
two year terms for members has limited choice for nomcom too often.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 May 2018 12:48:49 -0700

> Maybe I'm too close to it but I don't see what the problem is.

agree

> The most recent screwup was the registration window where the IAOC and
> our contractor had agreed to 12 weeks but everyone (notably me) forgot
> and the Montreal window was too short.  Oops, but I think we fixed it

aside from that, how was the play ms lincoln?  translation: there were
people seriously affected by this little "oops."  we screwed up.

> IETF 103 where nearly everyone will need a visa.

thai entry is trivial for most nationalities (except african, centralish
americans, and cantral asians, where it is needed in advance), a simple
form on entry.

canada, otoh, is much more of a problem.  aside from our little "oops"
and the onerous visa process, i have now heard from multiple asians who
will not be in montreal because the canadian visa form was just too
much; evidently far more than the american.  our local contact for 103
was going to come to montreal to watch the mechanics behind the scenes
but said to heck with this.

visas are the problem which keeps giving, and need detailed attention
for every meeting.  and it is not likely to get better, mumble mumble.

randy

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 07:50:42 +1200

On 07/05/2018 07:36, Michael Richardson wrote:
> ....
> can't provided feedback.   

Speed. If a board can co-opt a new member, confirmed (or not) at the next meeting
of the confirming body, they get the new expertise immediately.

I agree with your rude comment about for-profit boards. But I really don't
think we would risk that by allowing a couple of co-opted seats. Randy hit the
nail on the head: "the issue is their responsibilities and authorities; and
the horribly weak communication and transparency."

    Brian

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 May 2018 16:12:20 -0400

>of the confirming body, they get the new expertise immediately.

I'm still not understanding what the urgent need is to appoint new
board members at high speed.  This is a board, they can consult anyone
they want if they need specialist advice.  The only reason to add
someone to the board is so that he or she can vote.  Why is that
important?

R's,
John

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 09:01:01 +1200

> someone to the board is so that he or she can vote.  Why is that

Of course, the board can consult whoever they want, although that might
cost money. But the hypothesis was that the board discovers a lack of
expertise among the voting members, and thinks it needs to be fixed
before the next nominating cycle. That seems like a very natural situation
to me. 

    Brian

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 23:04:35 +0200

Hi John and Randy,

> Maybe I'm too close to it but I don't see what the problem is.

In editing draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process, I found it
hard to describe how to raise issues because of the way IAOC members are
appointed.  If we are solving for accountability – and maybe we're not –
either we stick with ex-officio members who can be sent packing, or we
at least have some direct community representation.  And yes, that is an
argument that the seats from the IAB and IESG be ex-officio and not
appointed or nominated.

> to figure out, e.g., asking "have you reviewed budgets / overseen contractors

I would view this as a research question, but we might as well side step
it.  That brings me to Randy's points:

On 06.05.18 21:18, Randy Bush wrote:
> your memory is showing signs of age.  danvers was '95.  

You're right.  My mistake.  I was thinking of Cambridge.  There was the
Kobe Cabal, followed by the Boston Massacre.

But...

> either believe in the nomcom process or fix it; do not disempower it.

I prefer to use the right tool for the job.  The NOMCOM was created with
a particular purpose in mind: prevent capture.  Here capture shouldn't
matter.

> time we had a discussion of nomcom eligibility?  that will pale compared

There already is a class of citizenship.  I'm just leveraging it.  And
just to restate, if there are strong vendor/class fights over membership
to this Board of Praetors, then we've done something wrong.  I agree
with John when he writes:

> The IAOC's job is pretty simple, to arrange that RFCs are published,
> when we have to raise the registration fee. 

But when there's a screwup, if enough people are upset, they should have
a clear avenue for redress, assuming we are solving for that.  BTW there
is something negative about elections: we could end up with people
lobbying.  At the moment we have a different problem; getting enough
people to volunteer for IAOC candidacy.

As to your point about the creation of constituencies, you may be right-
I don't know.   I don't think the group of hosts holds their own
agenda.  Also, representation from the IESG, ISOC, and IAB is important:
ISOC pays the bills, the IESG needs the meetings well organized, and the
IAB needs the RPC and RFC Editor paid.  Anyway, that was my logic.  I
think it may reflect some of the original logic.

Eliot

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 May 2018 17:15:42 -0400

>> ....  This is a board, they can consult anyone they want if they need 
>> specialist advice.  The only reason to add someone to the board is so 
>> that he or she can vote.  Why is that important?

> before the next nominating cycle. That seems like a very natural situation

I have been on a lot of boards I can never remember that situation arising 
at any time on any board.  But we seem to be talking past each other.

We apparently agree that if the board needs advice, it should ask someone 
with expertise on the topic.  You appear to be saying that the expertise 
has to come from someone who can vote on the board.  Why?

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 May 2018 17:38:58 -0400

On Sun, 6 May 2018, Eliot Lear wrote:
> I would view this as a research question, but we might as well side step it.

We agree but it seems equally a research question whether the IAB or the 
IESG or for that matter the ISOC board is good at choosing such people. 
Lacking clues, why not keep things simple and see how it works? The nomcom 
I observed had a process where there were criteria for the jobs, they 
interviewed people with a view to the criteria, and picked people.  When 
there were multiple slots, they picked people with a range of skills. 
Seems about right to me.

> to this Board of Praetors, then we've done something wrong. ...

> a clear avenue for redress, assuming we are solving for that.

This really seems like a stretch.  On the IAOC the only time I am aware of 
anyone with an agenda is a few people who wanted to get on the IAOC to 
lobby for meetings in their countries.  Other than that I am imagining 
utterly implausble things like a plot to appoint my unqualified 
brother-in-law as RSE so he can give me kickbacks.

In the recent screwup people pointed out that we'd screwed up, we figured 
out what went wrong with the registration schedule, we fixed it, and I 
hope we tweaked the process so it'll stay fixed.  I suppose you could 
invent a recall process but if the Aediles are anything like the IAOC, at 
the merest whiff of a recall they'd all say who needs this sh*t and quit.

R's,
John

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 23:56:02 +0100

On 06/05/18 20:36, Michael Richardson wrote:
> 
> I would also prefer that all members went through the nomcom, 

+1

I don't see any reason why nomcom can't handle the additional
appointments. I don't see any real benefit in having the IAB
or IESG or anyone else picking IAOC members or their equivalents
in the new setup.

I'm fine if confirmation if via IESG or IAB or some mixture of
the two.

S.

PS: to save another mail: I'd be very against Eliot's idea that
we give a specific seat to sponsors. Sponsors are great, but I
don't like that idea.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 May 2018 20:19:26 -0400

> someone to the board is so that he or she can vote.  Why is that

And, they can fill a vacancy until the end of that term.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 21:38:54 -0400

Dear colleagues,

On Fri, May 04, 2018 at 04:17:20PM -0700, Eric Rescorla wrote:

> It would help me, at least, if those who are against this could point to some
> examples they have seen where this has been a real problem.

I've been watching the discussion around the idea that the board might
select some members itself.  I agree witk ekr, but I think there is
another issue too.

One thing that people seem not to be taking into account in the
discussion is our current practice, and particularly its limitations.
The nomcoms regularly report a difficult time with the IAOC.  We have
a tiny pool of volunteers, and it doesn't seem to be growing.  The
nomcom is already badly overtaxed, and it isn't plain (at least to me)
that adding more to its plate will give us good results.  Worse, the
tiny pool of volunteers has at least as much risk of the "perpetuation
problem" as any other mechanism that people might think of.  To bring
this home a little, I think I'm on the IAOC now because I was on it
before, because I was IAB chair.  People who knew me in that role
imagined I'd be able to do this, and so here I am.  But that suggests
to me that there's an "insider bias" to the current system.  I'm
actually not sure how one could design a system involving humans that
did not have such a bias, because we want to evaluate people's
suitability on the basis of displayed skill, and skill you've seen in
action is more convincing that skill you read about on paper.

But there is another issue as well.  We are setting up a company.
Companies benefit from some diversity in their oversight.  Yet our
community has a kind of unity that means we have a number of shared
assumptions that are hard for us even to notice.  (This is also why
we're such a hard club to join.)  This is made worse by the small pool
of volunteers.  It would be quite valuable, I think, to have some
voices around who question some of those assumptions.  This is why
many corporate boards have "outside" directors.  (I'm aware that
doesn't work everywhere, but that is no argument that the principle is
a bad one.  A good principle badly executed is still a good
principle.)

I am very far from convinced that people who are experienced with
other nonprofits are going to be willing to go through our nomcom
process.  It works for us in selecting the IESG and IAB (and a couple
IAOC) members, in part because we're drawing from our own community.
_We_ understand why we do things the way we do.  But if a goal is to
get some outside points of view who will question why we make the
administrative decisions we do, then we will need some way to recruit
the necessary people.  Asking them to go through an unfamiliar
process in which they are evaluated by people chosen through a random
number generator is, I think, a way to discourage such recruits.

A fairly normal way that a board might get the outside voices is for
the board to recruit those outside voices diretly.  I think there is a
considerable advantage in being able to recruit such voices, and given
that 2/7 is nowhere close to a majority, it seems worth the risk to me
-- especially if there is some confirmation stage or the seats are
term limited (or both).

I think we should not be too hasty to dismiss the advantages of voices
from outside our own community, and I think we ought to try to ensure
that we are successful in attracting some of that diversity.  This
proposal, for the board to select a couple seats itself, seems to me
to be the best suggestion I've seen so far for how to do that.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 01:43:45 +0000

From what I have seen, the people who have posted "against" self-selected board members are doing it because they share the exact same concern about capture by insiders.

It is interesting that both see this as a problem, but view self-selection as either addressing, or making worse, the problem!

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 21:51:01 -0400

> It is interesting that both see this as a problem, but view self-selection as either addressing, or making worse, the problem!

Well, I don't think that was _quite_ what I was saying.  What I was
saying was that there are multiple things to do to make sure you don't
get only one point of view, and one of the things to do is to make
sure outsiders are somehow brought in.  If there are other ideas for
how to get those outsiders in, I'd be interested to hear them (but I
don't think I've seen such an idea yet).

In particular, I do _not_ think that asking such people to go through
our existing nomcom process is likely to be successful.  It's just too
weird, and we want to bring in people who will see "our ways" that way
and press us on why we do things the way we do.  That doesn't mean we
should change.  But it does mean we ought to be able to explain.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 May 2018 21:59:55 -0400

In article <[email-masked]> you write:
>From what I have seen, the people who have posted "against" self-selected board members are doing it because they share
>the exact same concern about capture by insiders.

If there's confirmation by the IAB or ISOC board, I'm a lot less
worried about self-selection.  To me that's effectively the same thing
as the IAB/ISOC picking the person with a suggestion from the board
members.

R's,
John

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 15:45:40 +1200

John,
> has to come from someone who can vote on the board.  Why?

Well, first I very much like Andrew's message at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/iasa20/FmRY7egeP_UCNLvyZclbTzxOzuw
and I think he makes a stronger case than I do.

My answer to your question (and I've also been on a number of boards
and the like in non-profit contexts) is that if you're trying to tap
expertise in a decision making process, you either pay for it, or you
provide status as a reward. "Board Member, IETF Administration LLC"
does that. It's more motivating than giving good advice for free.

    Brian

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 07:42:15 +0200

Den 04. mai 2018 18:47, skrev Livingood, Jason:
> the last meeting. On board size, I believe we heard that the proposed 5
> trustees was likely too small. In which case, we could go to either 7 or
> 9. To me, 9 seems too large and so then 7 may be just right.

7 is reasonable enough that there's little value in discussing further;
let's just go with that.

With a proposal of 9, I'd go on discussing a bit longer (I think it's
too large).

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 07:53:41 +0200

Den 04. mai 2018 23:23, skrev Richard Barnes:

> Assuming we're talking about NomCom as the selecting body -- at the end
> of the day, this is a random set of volunteers drawn from a pool
> comprising almost exclusively engineers.  As much as I love engineers,
> if the board is looking for members with skills in other domains, why
> would we assume that NomCom is an appropriate group to evaluate who is
> good at those skills? 

So if the preceeding is true:

We have one of two situations:

- The board is able to find a candidate, is able to get that candidate
to stand for the nomcom (or other selection) process, and is able to
convince the nomcom that this is the person with the expertise it needs
(or someone better). No problem, except that it takes a while.

- The board is able to find a candidate, but is either unable to
convince the candidate to go through the nomcom rigmarole or is not able
to convince the nomcom that this (or someone better) is the candidate
that the board needs

I would posit that in the latter case, the selection process has larger
issues that need solving.

In both cases, self-selected seats don't seem to me to be a solution.

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 08:18:09 +0200

Something Eliot said made me think it deserved a new thread....

> a clear avenue for redress, assuming we are solving for that.

I can read this in two ways:

- Someone who makes a decision that's sufficiently wrong deserves
punishment. Being thrown off the IASA board is punishment.

- If a decision that is sufficiently wrong is taken, something needs to
change with the composition of the body that took the decision, so that
it makes better decisions in the future.

The first one seems bogus to me (both halves). The way every board I've
been on has functioned, we discuss until we reach a decision. So it's
hard to impossible to figure out what part of the board was the crucial
one that made sure the decision was made. If we go there, recalling the
whole board seems like the right option - even though it's a nuclear one.
If it's not that bad - the people on the board may have learned.

The second one seems like either "the appointing bodies need some strong
advice", or like "IASA 3.0, please".

(Note: I've been in situations where I imagined that the body I was on
would be better off if it had a procedure where it could *eject* a
member and ask for a new one. Different problem, different solution.)

Harald

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 08:46:25 +0200

Hi Harald,

> punishment. Being thrown off the IASA board is punishment.

Agree.

> it makes better decisions in the future.

Yes.  But...

> If it's not that bad - the people on the board may have learned.

Most people will learn as we move forward.  That includes the
community.  They may learn what they want in Praetors.  My point is
simply that we tell people for other bodies that when they're unhappy
they should go to the NOMCOM and say so.  That is hard in this case
today, because of the IAOC's construction.  Your point is that voting
people out would be indiscriminate.  I'm not so sure.  The point of
meeting minutes is to establish a transparent record.

To sum up my view: whatever this group does, if accountability is
important, it should be simple to explain how that members are to be
held accountable.  I've given one way forward, but it is assuredly not
the only way.  If accountability is not important, then let's move along.

Eliot

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2018 08:04:36 -0400

Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > The nomcoms regularly report a difficult time with the IAOC.

None of the four years I have been involved (as voting member, chair and
past-chair) had a problem with appointing someone to the IAOC.

Certainly nothing compared to Transport AD!

Yes, there are not that many volunteers, but the frustration is usually that
we have to pick only one.  Further, my impression is that few volunteer
because they are happy with the incumbent(s). 

    > to me that there's an "insider bias" to the current system.

Absolutely there is an insider bias.  That's why having the IAOC pick more
insiders is a bad idea.

    > number generator is, I think, a way to discourage such recruits.

I agree: some people would be unwilling to go through such a process, and are
unlikely to have ever been to an IETF meeting, and are also unavailable to be
interviewed at the November meeting.

    > the board to recruit those outside voices diretly.

Yes, usually the board creates a nomination committee itself.

    > I think there is a

    > to be the best suggestion I've seen so far for how to do that.

I want to note that the ISOC appointee could be an outside voice.

I wonder if we could try it.  Could we write things such that the Praedter's
could decide to ask nomcom to fill the two positions on a year-by-year basis?

---

From: Suzanne Woolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 09:29:18 -0400

> On May 7, 2018, at 1:42 AM, Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hall-iasa2-struct/>) following

7 seems right for the proposed size of the task and level of engagement we believe will be needed. Smaller and larger both have failure modes we want to avoid (comments upthread have covered them IMO). 

Suzanne

---

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 14:04:39 +0000

[JL] +1

    
[JL] +1

---

From: "Leslie Daigle" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2018 11:08:01 -0400

+1

Additionally,  the NomCom works best to fill roles with which members 
have some direct experience (either their own work experience, or 
working within the IETF context).  Every NomCom I’ve ever interacted 
with has featured puzzled expressions over “what does the IAB do, 
anyway”, and “what skills do you need the IAOC to have?”.  If you 
don’t understand (viscerally) what you are looking for, it’s hard to 
evaluate whether or not you’ve found it.

Leslie.

On 6 May 2018, at 21:38, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

>> to some

-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Leslie Daigle
Principal, ThinkingCat Enterprises
[email-masked]
-------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 11:07:55 -0400

> Absolutely there is an insider bias.  That's why having the IAOC pick more

But the point of having these things is to pick _outsiders_, not
insiders.  That is, the whole idea is to set up the conditions by
which we can get non-insiders.

> interviewed at the November meeting.

And those are the people I think we should try to target.

> I want to note that the ISOC appointee could be an outside voice.

But need not be, and there are good strong institutional reasons why
ISOC would want an ISOC-insider on the board of this, an organization
of which it (ISOC) is the sole member.  ISOC itself is not exactly a
conventional organization. 

> could decide to ask nomcom to fill the two positions on a year-by-year basis?

I expect we could write things however we want.  But you're still
talking about sending these people through nomcom, and you haven't
offered any argument about why that won't discourage the very
candidates we're trying to attract.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 11:27:25 -0400

I agree strongly with Andrew that having an easier ability to get outside
folks
on to the board is important.  The NomCom process, having been through it
several times and on the NomCom myself, works really well for the IESG and
IAB
where basically the NomCom is selecting folks to have a skill-set that much
of
the NomCom can understand.  I do recall, when on NomCom, being more
concerned about the technical skills/coverage aspect than understanding the
management parts; that was 14 years ago but I do think it is representative
of at least part of the community selected for NomCom.

The idea of self-selection made me uncomfortable, by itself, for all of the
standard
group-think/capture ideas - but if we have a confirmation, whether by the
IAB or
IESG, I think that will strongly help.  The IAB or IESG can listen and
evaluate and
ask good questions and will be more likely to do so with folks not as well
known to
the community.

On a slightly different aspect (and sorry to combine into a single thread),
a suggestion
was made that having ex-officio members would make it easier to hold them
accountable.
I think this is actually the opposite case; it becomes a case of "throwing
out the baby with
the bathwater".  If a person is responsible for, say, 10 different things
and messing up
1-2 of them but doing well on the others, then it is much more likely for
those who value
the other aspects of their work to simply conclude that a change would be
worse.  It also
includes the assumption that all the needed skill-sets will exist at the
same high level in one
person.  Where knowledge of and providing information to requires
ex-officio, by all means,
lets do it - but IMHO absolutely not otherwise.  It overloads folks, makes
it harder for them
to be accountable in an ex officio role, and makes it more likely to be
using a non-primary skill-set.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 13:14:37 -0400

The obvious corrolary to your comment about needing to know what youa re 
looking for is that initially, we will not know what "else" we need.  So 
it seems unlikely that in the initial setup it will make sense to have 
two more people appointed by the board members.

If we want to say that the board is free to appoint no more than two 
additional members at need, and with justification to and confirmation 
by the ISOC board, I can see that.  (Based on the ergument being made, 
it sounds like neither the IAB nor the IESG will be in a position to 
validate the requirement or the selection, based on the reasoning below.)

Yours,
Joel

On 5/7/18 11:08 AM, Leslie Daigle wrote:
> working within the IETF context). Every NomCom I’ve ever interacted with 
> has featured puzzled expressions over “what does the IAB do, anyway”, 
> and “what skills do you need the IAOC to have?”. If you don’t understand 
> (viscerally) what you are looking for, it’s hard to evaluate whether or 
> not you’ve found it.
> 
> Leslie.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Leslie Daigle
>     [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> 
> 
>

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2018 15:57:56 -0400

> which we can get non-insiders.

I'm not convinced that is going to produce the results you want.
I'm am, however, willing to try.

    > candidates we're trying to attract.

I am suggesting that we write the bylaws such that the new board *could* ask
the nomcom to fill the positions in the situation where either:

1) they feel they have enough outsiders.
2) the process of finding outsiders has failed.
3) the community becomes unhappy with the process

My idea is that if the process fails to produce the desired results, that we
could revert to nomcom.

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2018 16:05:14 -0400

Alia Atlas <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > standard group-think/capture ideas - but if we have a confirmation, whether by the
    > IAB or IESG, I think that will strongly help.  The IAB or IESG can listen and
    > evaluate and ask good questions and will be more likely to do so with
    > folks not as well known to the community.

If we want to include a confirmation step, then I think it should be
confirmed by either the nomcom or the ISOC board.

I don't think the IAB or the IESG have the time for this, nor are they
selected for having more specific expertise.  They also don't get general
feedback.  The nomcom already has to figure this out for the members nomcom
appoints, and already deals with issues of gender and geopolitical parity,
and confidentiality.

If the nomcom reviewed the board appointees in the September/October
timeframe, then it would know what else to add in it's selection process.

I suspect that the nomcom appointees will need to go up to the ISOC board
for confirmation (although IAOC appointees go to the IESG, and the ISOC
board confirms IAB members, with the IAOC confirming nobody).  It's a weird
open circle.

I suspect that the new LLC will become the entity that confirms the IAB.

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 17:47:33 -0400

Hi Michael,

> appoints, and already deals with issues of gender and geopolitical parity,

Well, having been on a NomCom, on the IESG, and serving as a liaison, I
actually
disagree on these grounds.

a) NomCom is a random selection of eligible active IETFers, who primarily
have a focus on
particular technology.  The IETF can get lucky in terms of breadth of
expertise, IETF experience,
geography, and so on - but it need not - and the memory between NomCom
years is limited.

b) IESG and IAB are filled with folks who have a broad technical skill set,
a large set of
relationships into their Area and the IETF, and either understand and are
dealing with the
management needs of the IETF or dealing with the external relations to the
IETF.  The IESG
is used to evaluating folks to ask to be WG chairs; IAB deals with lots of
liaisons and evaluating
folks for ISOC Board, Liaison to the ICANN Board and so on.

c) General feedback isn't what is broadly needed for a confirmation step -
but I think what you are
touching on is the transparency of going from the Board selecting a person
to having that person
confirmed.  Currently with NomCom, folks know who is being considered and
can provide feedback
to the NomCom. For a Confirmation step, usually only the confirming body
knows who is being considered.
I think the question of whether and what transparency and mechanisms for
feedback there are to the
Board and confirming body is an interesting aspect.

d) Both the IAB and IESG are well use to dealing with confidential issues.
If they are not adequately
used to considering the variety of diversity issues, then that needs to be
fixed because they are the ones
who - bluntly - appoint folks to grow into the next level of leadership,
well before NomCom gets there. I am
not convinced that we have a serious problem - but having periodic efforts
to ensure this remains the case
or gets better is important.

e) I'm sure you know the joke about "if you want something done, give it to
a busy person".  Evaluating someone
and making a confirmation decision is much easier in a group that meets and
works routinely together.  I am not
in favor of overloading the IESG or IAB in general, but a confirmation or 2
for something that critical affects the
health and ability of the IETF to do standards, that makes good.

> I suspect that the new LLC will become the entity that confirms the IAB.

I seriously hope not - and have not heard that suggested previously! That
is blending too closely the
administrative and the technical.  It is also pulling away from the broader
perspective of the Internet that
the ISOC board can provide.

Regards,
Alila

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 May 2018 19:31:33 -0400

> disagree on these grounds.

My your admission, it was 15 years ago :-)

    > particular technology.

I would have thought so too, and yet, I find that all of the nomcom's had a
wide diversity of hidden talents.   In general, I will malign the nomcom and
say that they are often rather *ill*informed about technologies outside
their speciality, but often very well informed about larger issues.

    > is blending too closely the

The IAB can't confirm the LLC while the LLC confirms the IAB.
That's just too incestuous.

Either it (the LLC and/or IAB) goes further up to the ISOC board, or it goes
back to the community in the form of the nomcom.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 21:06:20 -0400

> I suspect that the new LLC will become the entity that confirms the IAB.

What possible justification do you have for this?

The IAB has a dual charter of being a committee of the IETF _and_ an
advisory body to ISOC.  I think it would be passing insane for this WG
to wander into thickets such as the confirmation of the IAB.  My
reading of the last paragraph of the WG charter explicitly puts this
out of our reach, and I dearly hope it remains there, where it ought
to be.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2018 00:49:37 -0400

Hi,

On Mon, May 07, 2018 at 01:14:37PM -0400, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
> looking for is that initially, we will not know what "else" we need.  So it
> seems unlikely that in the initial setup it will make sense to have two more
> people appointed by the board members.

I think the above is imagining a world in which all the details are
worked out in some sort of perfect lab setting, and then the LLC is
launched into the world wholly formed.

I have never seen a company get going this way when there is an
ongoing line of business, which is our case.  So I think we should
assume that there will be an initial BoD and they will have a lot of
power to set up the next stage, and that the description is actually
just a constraint on what they can do next.

In other words, if the BoD is not perfectly correct according to plans
on day 0, that too is part of the plan.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2018 07:56:59 -0400

> advisory body to ISOC.

My impression is that the IAB was an advisory body to ISOC, because at the
time that relationship was created, there was no IAOC.

Now we are replacing the IAOC with the LLC, so it's not clear me that the IAB
won't also be advising LLC and/or LLC staff.

    > I think it would be passing insane for this WG

I don't see how the ISOC board would remain the obvious confirming body for
the LLC.  I see that as violating the reporting structure and the appeal
structure.

Surely the board of the LLC will be the body that hears appeals of IAB
decisions?

I guess I need to go find the charter in the archives, because it's not
approved, or at least it's not posted yet.  I would think that adjusting
related documents was in scope.

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2018 08:37:34 -0400

Hi Michael,

> On May 8, 2018, at 7:56 AM, Michael Richardson <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

The WG was chartered on April 20: <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/qdRZefWcbQL52uKLr615LFac1Gk <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/qdRZefWcbQL52uKLr615LFac1Gk>>. The charter is available at <https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/iasa2/about/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/iasa2/about/>>. The relevant charter text is:

and IAB appointments, the IRTF, or ISOC's memberships in other organizations."

Alissa

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2018 09:49:38 -0400

> The WG was chartered on April 20:
    > <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/qdRZefWcbQL52uKLr615LFac1Gk
    > <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/qdRZefWcbQL52uKLr615LFac1Gk>>. The
    > charter is available at <https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/iasa2/about/
    > <https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/iasa2/about/>>. The relevant charter
    > text is:

Huh. We have some errant data in the datatracker then at:
     https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/iasa20/about/

(note the "20" vs "2"), so I didn't find things... and I guess that was the
BOF.  Can we leave a forward pointer to the right place in the about, since I
understand we can not rename WG entries (yet).

    > and IAB appointments, the IRTF, or ISOC's memberships in other organizations."

Thank you.
So the intention is that the IAB continue to be confirmed by the ISOC board
(and changing that is out of scope)

But the exact direction of confirming the LLC board is in scope.
As the IASA was not involved in the appeal chain previously, I guess
discussing changing that to be the LLC is also out of scope, and I'll shutup.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2018 17:55:49 -0400

> time that relationship was created, there was no IAOC.

That is not my impression.  The IAB has provided technical advice of many years.  RFC 2850 says:

   The IAB acts as a source of advice and guidance to the Board of
   Trustees and Officers of the Internet Society concerning technical,
   architectural, procedural, and (where appropriate) policy matters
   pertaining to the Internet and its enabling technologies. If
   necessary the IAB may convene panels of knowledgeable people, hold
   hearings, and otherwise pursue the investigation of specific
   questions or topics presented to it by the Internet Society.

Russ

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 14:23:45 +1200

On 08/05/2018 23:56, Michael Richardson wrote:
...
> the LLC.  I see that as violating the reporting structure and the appeal

Agreed, but because the LLC will be a disregarded entity of ISOC and
will be under its wing for tax purposes, it seems likely that ISOC
will require some formal relationship with the LLC Board. The lawyers will
have to advise us on that.
 
> Surely the board of the LLC will be the body that hears appeals of IAB

No. We aren't changing Section 6.5.3 of RFC 2026 afaik.

    Brian