Subject: RE: Why cant the IETF embrace an open Election Process

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:07:42 -0400 (EDT)

> From: "Yaakov Stein" <[email-masked]>

    > I am somewhat surprised that no-one has actually answered the question
    > why DO we use a noncom rather than open elections?

Acually, several people have. Fred Baker recently (13 Sep 2006 04:26:30) made
a post which made a very good analysis of this point, and one of mine
discussed it as well, early in the thread (5 Sep 2006 11:34:43).

There are a variety of reasons, above the one you cited (packing); my personal
favourite is one several people mentioned (less politics), but I think perhaps
the most useful one in practise is another one which I mentioned earlier:

    >> Rather than having everyone spend ten minutes on deciding who to
    >> select, a subset (which the random draw hopefully makes reasonably
    >> representative of the group as a whole) does a more in-depth and
    >> thought-through selection.

	Noel

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From: "Nelson, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:39:25 -0400

Noel Chiappa writes...
 
> ...I think perhaps the most useful one in practise is 
> another one which I mentioned earlier:
> 
>     >> Rather than having everyone spend ten minutes on 
>     >> deciding who to select, a subset (which the random 
>     >> draw hopefully makes reasonably representative of 
>     >> the group as a whole) does a more in-depth and

I agree.

Since this thread has been going done the path of civic governance
models, let me elaborate one that supports the current NOMCOM model.

In my area, many towns govern themselves via Town Meeting, in which all
voters are invited to a deliberative session to pass budgets, ordinances
and the like.  When all goes according to plan, there is an open
exchange of information and a reasoned debate on the issues prior to
each vote.  Many claim this to be the "true democracy".

Other towns have decided that the population has grown too large for
Town Meeting to be practical and effective.  One alternative is
Representative Town Meeting.  The electorate chooses (by election) a
tractable number of representatives to attend the Town Meeting on their
behalf.  These representatives debate the issues and vote them up or
down.

I think NOMCOM is like a Representative Town Meeting, in which the
representatives are chosen by a random selection process, rather than by
election.  The outcome, which supports in-depth consideration and
substantial, informed debate, is much the same.

Quite frankly, I don't see a need to substantially change this model.

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:50:16 -0700

David - the problem is that the members that NOMCOM is supposed to represent
never got to say whether they where happy with someone else essentially
holding a proxy for them.

The Process is flawed in that it forces one to rely on the word of the
parties in the process and that means that any time one disagrees with them,
that this becomes an insult to those individuals. This is not professionally
competent it's grossly negligent in my book and well, its the IETF.

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nelson, David" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 5:39 AM
Subject: RE: Why cant the IETF embrace an open Election Process

Noel Chiappa writes...

I agree.