Subject: [ietf-nomcom] Feedback on NomCom I-Ds

From: Bernie Hoeneisen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:48:50 +0100 (CET)

Hi Spencer et al.

I have just read your I-D about the NomCom. Interesting! As a current voting 
member of the NomCom I am well aware of the issues. There is certainly room for 
improvement, of which your address two issues. In the following I comment on 
one of them and add some further change proposal in the area of 
confidentiality.

1) Concerning the ringers / list padding issue

       The list of candidates willing to serve in positions under review
       in the current NomCom cycle is not confidential.  The NomCom will
       publish the list of names of all willing candidates to the
       community, in order to obtain feedback from the community on these
       candidates.  The list of candidates published should not contain
       candidates who have not indicated a willingness to serve in the
       position(s) under review.

I agree that it is a bad idea to force the NomCom to use ringers in
their feedback lists. In fact, we hated to be forced to use ringers
sooooooo much. On top of that we received a substantial amount of community 
complaint because of this.

However, I'd like to express that there are certain cases, where
padding is useful. In particular, if only a small number (1 or 2) of
nominee is running for a post. In such cases the NomCom should have
the option to use to use ringers in order to trigger useful feedback
on the real nominees. Having the option to add ringers also helps a bit with 
the confidentialiy if the community knows there might be padding in the lists.

I suggest to discourage from using padding, but explicitely allow
padding in certain cases. The decision on whether or not to use
padding should be left to the NomCom in office.

2) Concerning trimming the lists

It might be desirable to prevent calling for feedback on certain
nominees, as those might distract from getting useful feedback on
other nominees. This applies for example for highly controversial
nominees, the NomCom would never ever select.  Another problem might
occur with the list of IAB volonteers, i.e. the feedback list of the
IAB might get way too long, if not trimmed beforehands.

3) 3rd paragraph and former NomCom members

       It is consistent with this rule for current nominating committee
       members who have served on prior nominating committees to advise
       the current committee on deliberations and results of the prior
       committee, as necessary and appropriate.

As I understand this, current NomCom members who have served on prior
NomComs are allowed to share information they have as a result of their
membership in prior NomComs.

I suggest to explicitely allow any member of a former NomCom to share
with the current NomCom any information relevant to the current NomCom.
Such kind of information is most useful to current NomComs.

cheers,
  Bernie, voting member of current NomCom