Subject: On being public (Was: Call for Nominees)

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:25:37 -0500

On 9/12/08 at 9:46 AM -0700, NomCom Chair wrote:

>If you are willing to serve, please nominate yourself.
>If there is someone you think would do a good job, please nominate them.

I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage people to do something 
more open and transparent than we have in the past, without any 
changes to rules or NomCom activity.

As we all know, the NomCom process is confidential. That is, whatever 
one says to the NomCom with regard to nominees cannot be revealed by 
the NomCom. That's a good idea: People need to be frank and honest 
without worrying about jeopardizing personal relationships. However, 
the confidentiality requirement has always also been read to mean 
that the list of nominees must also be kept confidential. That's not 
entirely clear in RFC 3777, but that's always been the practice. (I 
believe the intent was to dissuade any kind of "campaigning", to 
avoid discomfort about "running against" an incumbent or popular 
nominee, as well as avoiding embarrassment for nominees who are not 
chosen.) But this has a terrible side effect: The NomCom is unable to 
get full feedback on nominees, both in the positive and the negative. 
If you are unaware that Joe is up for the Foobar Area Director, you 
may not have the opportunity to say to the NomCom, "Wow! It never 
even occurred to me to think of Joe as a potential Foobar AD. He'd be 
perfect!" Or conversely, "It never occurred to me that anyone 
(including Joe himself) would seriously consider him for Foobar AD. 
He'd be a disaster!"

There are just so many resources the NomCom has at its disposal to 
get good information about nominees. We want folks who could provide 
feedback to take the initiative, but they're really only going to do 
so if they know who has their hat in the ring.

Though I think campaigning should be avoided, I think the other 
issues surrounding revealing the names of nominees are not all that 
problematic:

- We should all get over the notion that any particular nominee "must 
obviously be chosen". It may turn out (perhaps on the *day* that the 
NomCom is making their decision) that our favorite cannot serve 
because they lose all funding in their current position, or change 
jobs and no longer have the ability to serve, or die unexpectedly. 
(And these things have happened.) We should be able to comment on all 
of the candidates on the off chance that they are the NomCom's 
apparent best choice.

- The fact that the NomCom must keep the reasons for *not* choosing 
any particular candidate confidential mitigates the embarrassment of 
not being chosen.

Obviously we can't change 3777 for this NomCom. However, there is 
nothing in 3777 or elsewhere that *requires* any nominee to keep 
their own nomination confidential. So, I'd like to encourage nominees 
to be public. Here's what I have in mind: If you've been nominated, 
post a simple message to the IETF list of the following form:

"My name was submitted to the NomCom for the position of <Foobar AD>, 
and I've told the NomCom I'm willing to be considered. Of course, 
this is no guarantee that if I get selected, I'd still be able to 
serve. Please send them whatever positive or negative feedback you 
have."

End of message. No commentary on why you'd be wonderful (or terrible) 
for the job. Just inviting people to comment.

Thoughts on this?

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102
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From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 08:47:22 -0700

>for the job. Just inviting people to comment.

Excellent suggestion. In the past two days, I have had two people who 
have been active in the IETF for over five years ask when we would 
find out who was nominated. People don't understand that we won't 
ever have the full list posted. In one case, that led to the person 
seriously considering whether he should self-nominate for an AD 
position that they would not have done otherwise.

It is not clear to me that there is much value to the above kind of 
public statement for IAB members, but it would probably also be find 
for the IAOC slot.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:12:29 -0700 (PDT)

I agree with Paul, especially since the APPOINTED candidates are 
completely public and posted for comments from the community. This was 
especially strange for me last year as a sitting member of the nomcom 
and a appointee-candidate for the IAOC. You could say that I helped 
choose my colleague, at least one could read it that way. The reality
is of course a little more complicated ;-)

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:50:25 -0500

Hi, Pete,

> for the job. Just inviting people to comment.

Obviously, I have lots of thoughts on NomCom, but on this specific 
suggestion, I can only say that I would respond to these postings for anyone 
I was remotely equipped to provide feedback for.

And that's probably one reasonable measure of good idea/bad idea - whether 
people will respond.

Thanks,

Spencer

---

From: "Alper Yegin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:48:12 +0300

I agree 100%.

Keeping the candidates secret when the community was supposed to provide
feedback about the candidates never made sense to me. 

If the reasons listed below are the only ones, IMHO the current scheme is
more harmful than beneficial. 

When the candidates are secret, then campaigning becomes the only way to
bring in the support. And of course only the good campaigners take advantage
of that. 

Is embarrassment of not being the chosen one such a big factor that IETF
would lose good candidates? I wonder if this is an IETF thing, or if there
are other similar examples elsewhere, especially with the same
justification.

I think we should have an "open" approach here.

Alper

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Pete Resnick
> Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 6:26 AM
> To: IETF
> Subject: On being public (Was: Call for Nominees)
>

---

From: "Eric Gray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:17:16 -0500

Pete,

	You do have to ask yourself how likely it is that the
observation
"I never thought of X as an AD for Y, but [they] would be perfect" is
to be true.  I imagine that knowing a candidate is both a good idea and
an important indicator of their viabililty as a candidate (assuming one
is actually qualified to make such a judgement - through participation 
on one's own part).  And, if the idea of them being in that position is
not one that naturally occurs to you, there may very well be a reason.
If a person's candidacy has not occurred to a significant number of the
people who are likely to care, then it is probable that there is a good
reason for that as well.

	This is not true for everything (there are occasional
"dark-horse"
candidates in many different contexts), but it is more likely to be true
in the case of IESG members - where "shrinking violets" are notoriously
unlikely to be successful as an AD.

--
Eric Gray
Principal Engineer
Ericsson  

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Pete Resnick
> Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 11:26 PM
> To: IETF

---

From: "TS Glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:32:22 -0700

You are right about disclosure but Its much more than just about candidates. 
The IESG is not the FISA Court and the proceedings of all IETF/IESG/IAB and 
TRUST meetings need to be open as well and logged by an official secretary 
so they like every other thing that happens in the Management of the IETF 
and its IP is transcribed as part of the IETF's Official Record.

Todd Glassey
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alper Yegin" <[email-masked]>
To: "'Pete Resnick'" <[email-masked]>; "'IETF'" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 3:48 PM
Subject: RE: On being public (Was: Call for Nominees)

>> for the job. Just inviting people to comment.

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---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:05:35 -0400

A few things to consider:

Yes, the NOMCOM WG that developed RFC3777 did explicitly discuss issue 
of openness of candidacy, and determine that it was best left as part of 
the confidential information.  There were plenty of pros & cons.  The 
pros of openness as you cite below; the cons included potential for 
campaigning (if not the candidate themselves, people who supported 
them), as well as difficulty in getting people to step forward. We need 
to have some cultural sophistication if we're going to ask Sue to run 
against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG has documents waiting 
for Bob's approval.

Secondly, it's not really useful (to the whole system) if only some 
candidates declare themselves publicly.   If some people agree with your 
exhortation below, other candidates for the same positions will be more 
or less obliged to come out in order to ensure that the NomCom gets 
adequate input on them, too.

My point:  it's not a simple decision, and it really is something the 
IETF community as a whole should come to grips with and have a 
consistent policy for.

(Currently, that policy is in RFC3777).

Leslie.

-- 

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From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:29:53 -0700

Leslie Daigle wrote:
>     We need 

I hope that this observation scares folk as much as it should.  The implication 
that an incumbent AD is to be feared implies that ADs have far too much power.

> candidates declare themselves publicly.  

That's just plain wrong.

If a candidate wishes to encourage openness and encourage a broader base of 
input to Nomcom, they can and should disclose their candidacy.  Nomcom will 
benefit from having better information, for the candidates who choose to 
publicly disclose their candidacy, because more people will know that comments 
on a particular candidate are needed.

No candidate need wait for other candidates to agree to this.

Contrary to your view, it is a very simple decision.

More importantly, it is exactly the sort of decision that can and should be 
individual and has no need to wait for some magic group decision or formal IETF 
policy -- a decision that we've solidly demonstrated will not get made.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
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From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:42:46 -0400

Dear Dave;

> that an incumbent AD is to be feared implies that ADs have far too  

My experience of the world is that some people will fear other people  
(and, more particularly, will
fear some particular other people). Some people are shy. Some are  
mistrustful. Some are insecure.
Some, I dare say it, may even have bad blood with some other IETFers.  
This is true in general, and
it only gets worse if there is a feeling that the other person has  
responsibility over your work.
(Note that B may be S's former boss, or a potential boss if a merger  
happens, or S may be
seeking employment at B's institution, etc.)

S may fear these things even if B isn't an AD (or, indeed, even if S  
is one), and so I don't see that
it bears on the question of AD power.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:09:52 -0400

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 09:29:53AM -0700, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> If a candidate wishes to encourage openness and encourage a broader
> base of input to Nomcom, they can and should disclose their
> candidacy.  Nomcom will benefit from having better information, for
> the candidates who choose to publicly disclose their candidacy,
> because more people will know that comments on a particular
> candidate are needed.

I had exactly the opposite reaction to Leslie Daigle's remark.  If
people start declaring, then I expect that over time, people who
declare will be more likely to be selected than people who don't.
This is because the Nomcom will get more feedback about the
"declareds" than about the "undeclareds".  I imagine that Nomcom
members will naturally tend to prefer those candidates about whom they
have the most information. 

So the practice of declaring by even a significant minority will
naturally tend to mean that all aspirants have to declare, or give up
their aspirations.

I don't know whether this would be a good or bad thing, but I don't
think we should dismiss the observation that changing the rules, even
informally, changes the rules for everyone.

A

-- 
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+1 503 667 4564 x104
http://www.commandprompt.com/
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From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:34:50 -0500

On 9/15/08 at 12:05 PM -0400, Leslie Daigle wrote:

>The pros of openness as you cite below; the cons included potential 
>for campaigning (if not the candidate themselves, people who 
>supported them), as well as difficulty in getting people to step 
>forward. We need to have some cultural sophistication if we're going 
>to ask Sue to run against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG 
>has documents waiting for Bob's approval.

I agree that it needs some cultural sophistication. However, I think 
(even in the current state of less-openness) that if Sue is 
uninclined to put her name in because she worries about Bob's 
approval of her documents, Sue should be saying that to the NomCom 
and the NomCom should toss Bob out on his ear. Bob himself should be 
out there, encouraging Sue (and others) to put their names in, saying 
things like, "Sue, you never know if I'm going to be run over by a 
bus or lose my job. And it would be good experience for you to go 
through the nominations process for when I step down. Get your name 
in!" We should foster the cultural sophistication as much as possible.

>candidates declare themselves publicly. If some people agree with 
>your exhortation below, other candidates for the same positions will 
>be more or less obliged to come out in order to ensure that the 
>NomCom gets adequate input on them, too.

The problem is, we currently have a state which is worse: A few 
people are open about their candidacy (there is nothing in the rules 
that stops that now), and they may get more feedback. Incumbents 
always get lots of feedback. But then we have a large bunch of people 
who (out of some notion of humility or feelings of not wanting to 
insult incumbents) don't get their names public and don't get the 
same kind of feedback. What I've suggested is designed to get people 
to level the field a bit more.

>IETF community as a whole should come to grips with and have a 

I agree that it's something we should document. I'm not convinced 
that it is something we shouldn't start doing now.

On 9/15/08 at 1:09 PM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

>think we should dismiss the observation that changing the rules, 
>even informally, changes the rules for everyone.

Remember, there's no rule change here. RFC 3777 does not forbid 
anyone except for the NomCom from discussing nominees openly. I am 
simply encouraging everyone to do this in a reasonable and level way.

pr

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:59:59 +0100

Pete, thanks for forcing this issue.

>serve. Please send them whatever positive or negative feedback you 
I know that most people who were around for long enough would guess the 
list of candidates in
their area of interest anyway, and I don't believe that hiding the fact 
that you were nominated
would serve any purpose, so here we go:

My name was submitted to the NomCom for the position of Application AD,
and I've told the NomCom I'm willing to be considered. Of course,
this is not a guarantee that I get selected by Nomcom, or if I get selected,
I'd still be able to serve. Please send them whatever negative or positive
feedback you have.

Regards,
Alexey

P.S. I am surely hope that people don't get intimidated by my 
disclosure. I am also hoping that people don't consider such disclosure 
to be campaigning.

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:09:09 -0500

>have the most information.

That said, and I don't believe there is a no con answer, I fear the 
campaigning that might ensue. It might gather enough steam that it 
does affect an outcome.

This is a real concern to many, including me.

---

From: "Alper Yegin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:34:18 +0300

> against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG has documents waiting

I think Bob would already know, in practice. So, I wonder if it makes a
difference whether this is a public knowledge, or a private knowledge.

Alper

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:38:01 -0600

> against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG has documents waiting 

If trust levels are that low, I think we have bigger problems.

/psa

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:42:48 -0400

>that an incumbent AD is to be feared implies that ADs have far too much power.

This isn't only about AD power, it's about perception of conflict of interest.  Let's say the AD does bounce the documents, refuses to charter a WG, or refuses to let Sue act as WG chair - mainly because the AD thinks the documents are poorly structured, the WG is a bad idea technically, or Sue would be incompetent as a WG chair.  Sue, since she's announced her candidacy, complains that the AD has been mean to her because she was running against him.  

This might be a specious argument, but there are enough conspiracy theorists hanging about the IETF to make the issue not about how good Sue or her products are, but about whether or not the AD is abusing his/her power against a political opponent.  Without Sue's public candidacy, the argument would hopefully tend to stay closer to the technical side of things.  And the Nomcom would still be able to consider whether or not there might be an AD abuse of power without getting the political conflict of interest mix-in confusion.

>Contrary to your view, it is a very simple decision.

Contrary to your view it is a very complex decision.

There are a number of reasons for an all or nothing approach and where all agree to the terms:

1) The nomcom selects (and the CB confirms) a candidate who did not make their candidacy public.  I would expect that at least a few folks (Dave!) would complain loudly about this, even though there was no formal requirement.  I would prefer the Nomcom not feel this pressure unless all candidates were required to submit publicly.

2) The nomcom initiates a second round of solicitations, even though a number of candidates have made their candidacy public.  The reasons for doing this might be a desire for more candidates, a desire for better candidates, etc.  It might still end up selecting the non-public candidates, but would find it harder to select the public ones (at least to my point of view).  Also, the amount of second guessing the Nomcom would encounter would make their deliberations a bit more difficult.

3) A public candidate is rejected for reasons which would have probably also disqualified the non-public candidate, but the non-public candidate is selected because the data about this disqualification wasn't shared with the Nomcom.

4) A public candidate is selected because no one on the nomcom knew him/her, but they got lots of "select him" emails - also from people they didn't know.  A better, but non-public candidate was considered, but not selected in the face of the large number of emails for this one candidate.  Quantity triumphs over quality.

So its really not a fair and level playing ground.  Either all should do it or none.

Note that there are arguments that go the other way - but most of those could somewhat be cured by the non-public candidate making things public.  I'm not arguing that making candidacy public is the way to go - and in fact I see more problems that not with going that way, but I am arguing that a voluntary approach such as Pete is recommending is worse than either of the two alternatives.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:52:35 -0400

--On Monday, 15 September, 2008 12:38 -0600 Peter Saint-Andre
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Leslie Daigle wrote:
> 
>> We need 
>> to have some cultural sophistication if we're going to ask
>> Sue to run  against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG

Trust levels are almost certainly that low and, unfortunately,
occasionally justified (i.e., not just Sue's paranoid
fantasies).  I'm not aware of any IESG members who would take
offense and retaliate against someone who permitted her name to
be placed in nomination against them, but we have certainly seen
instances of IESG retaliation, or threatened retaliation,
against people whose positions are critical of the IESG and seen
them in the fairly recent past.

I believe that people have identified behavior in some IESG
members that is equally inappropriate in the past to the Nomcom,
only to see those people returned to their positions.    That
suggests to me that, in at least some cases, we have not
exhibited the level of cultural sophistication that Leslie
believes to be necessary.

And I agree that it identifies larger problems.

   john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:55:11 -0400

+1

--On Monday, 15 September, 2008 14:42 -0400 Michael StJohns
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>>> Sue to run  against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's
>>> WG has documents waiting  for Bob's approval.
>> 
>> I hope that this observation scares folk as much as it
>> should.  The implication  that an incumbent AD is to be
>> feared implies that ADs have far too much power.
> 
> This isn't only about AD power, it's about perception of
> conflict of interest.  Let's say the AD does bounce the
> documents, refuses to charter a WG, or refuses to let Sue act
> as WG chair - mainly because the AD thinks the documents are
> poorly structured, the WG is a bad idea technically, or Sue
> would be incompetent as a WG chair.  Sue, since she's
> announced her candidacy, complains that the AD has been mean
> to her because she was running against him.  
> 
> This might be a specious argument, but there are enough
> conspiracy theorists hanging about the IETF to make the issue
> not about how good Sue or her products are, but about whether
> or not the AD is abusing his/her power against a political
> opponent.  Without Sue's public candidacy, the argument would
> hopefully tend to stay closer to the technical side of things.
> And the Nomcom would still be able to consider whether or not
> there might be an AD abuse of power without getting the
> political conflict of interest mix-in confusion.
> 
> 
> 
>>> Secondly, it's not really useful (to the whole system) if
>>> only some  candidates declare themselves publicly.  
>> 
>> That's just plain wrong.
>> 
>> If a candidate wishes to encourage openness and encourage a
>> broader base of  input to Nomcom, they can and should
>> disclose their candidacy.  Nomcom will  benefit from having
>> better information, for the candidates who choose to 
>> publicly disclose their candidacy, because more people will
>> know that comments  on a particular candidate are needed.
>> 
> 1) The nomcom selects (and the CB confirms) a candidate who
> did not make their candidacy public.  I would expect that at
> least a few folks (Dave!) would complain loudly about this,
> even though there was no formal requirement.  I would prefer
> the Nomcom not feel this pressure unless all candidates were
> required to submit publicly.
> 
> 2) The nomcom initiates a second round of solicitations, even
> though a number of candidates have made their candidacy
> public.  The reasons for doing this might be a desire for more
> candidates, a desire for better candidates, etc.  It might
> still end up selecting the non-public candidates, but would
> find it harder to select the public ones (at least to my point
> of view).  Also, the amount of second guessing the Nomcom
> would encounter would make their deliberations a bit more
> difficult.
> 
> 3) A public candidate is rejected for reasons which would have
> probably also disqualified the non-public candidate, but the
> non-public candidate is selected because the data about this
> disqualification wasn't shared with the Nomcom.
> 
> 4) A public candidate is selected because no one on the nomcom
> knew him/her, but they got lots of "select him" emails - also
> from people they didn't know.  A better, but non-public
> candidate was considered, but not selected in the face of the
> large number of emails for this one candidate.  Quantity
> triumphs over quality.
> 
> Note that there are arguments that go the other way - but most
> of those could somewhat be cured by the non-public candidate
> making things public.  I'm not arguing that making candidacy
> public is the way to go - and in fact I see more problems that
> not with going that way, but I am arguing that a voluntary
> approach such as Pete is recommending is worse than either of
> the two alternatives.
> 
>> More importantly, it is exactly the sort of decision that can
>> and should be  individual and has no need to wait for some
>> magic group decision or formal IETF  policy -- a decision
>> that we've solidly demonstrated will not get made.
>> 
>> d/
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>>   Dave Crocker

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:59:50 -0500

On 9/15/08 at 2:42 PM -0400, Michael StJohns wrote:

>Note that there are arguments that go the other way - but most of 
>those could somewhat be cured by the non-public candidate making 
>things public.  I'm not arguing that making candidacy public is the 
>way to go - and in fact I see more problems that not with going that 
>way, but I am arguing that a voluntary approach such as Pete is 
>recommending is worse than either of the two alternatives.

I will repeat that the current state of affairs is neither "all" nor 
"none". RFC 3777 has no rule in this regard; it is currently 
voluntary. And some people have always disclosed. So I'm simply 
suggesting that we voluntarily get closer to "all" and start 
encouraging the "cultural sophistication" Leslie talked about.

pr

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:02:13 -0400

> against incumbent Bob openly, given that Sue's WG has documents  

Dear Leslie;

Given the large number of cultures of the IETF participants, I think  
that
asking for cultural sophistication is asking for a lot.

Regards
Marshall

> your

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:11:07 -0700

Mike,

Michael StJohns wrote:
> This isn't only about AD power, it's about perception of conflict of
> interest.  
...
> This might be a specious argument, but there are enough conspiracy theorists
...

This entire line of thinking gets scarier and scarier.  If it has any validity 
as concern, then we already have a very deep problem.  Candidacy often is 
already known among some of the IETF community, including among incumbents and 
other candidates.  So the conflict of interest problem is already present... if 
your point is valid.

Having candidacies be more publicly declared might change the statistics, but it 
won't change the basic reality.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:11:40 -0700

I find it quite bizarre that someone can make that particular argument and think that it argues against transparency rather than for it.
 
The problem with closed processes is that they lead to unfortunate situations of this kind. 
 
If you have a situation where there are serious questions about the integrity of an AD than you had better forget the technical issues entirely and discuss those first because integrity is a lot more important that technical knowledge.
 
In fact I would rate technical knowledge as being third in importance at best. Competence comes ahead of technical capability as well.

________________________________

From: [email-masked] on behalf of Michael StJohns
Sent: Mon 9/15/2008 2:42 PM
To: [email-masked]; IETF
Subject: Re: On being public (Was: Call for Nominees)

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:23:10 -0400

On 9/15/08 3:11 PM, "Dave CROCKER" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> other candidates.  So the conflict of interest problem is already present...
> if your point is valid.

I think there's a problem, but I don't know how deep.  The
thing that strikes about your message is that some people
already know, some people don't.  I.e. there's an insider/
outsider division, and that tends (strongly!) to undermine
transparency.

I'm not crazy about announcing nominations because I
really don't like the idea of IETF electoral campaigns (egads),
but I do think there's a general problem of the organization
not having adapted to its current size and to the problems
that size brings.  The fact that there's some guy running
around threatening litigation over all kinds of procedural
stuff shouldn't necessarily cause undue worry about lawsuits
but I do think that it should raise the question of what
a security considerations section for a document describing
IETF structure would look like.  We're not all Alice and Bob
here anymore.

Melinda

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:10:37 -0700

It probably behooves us from time to time to consider the fact that the Internet is now the principal global communication medium. And the IETF has a degree of control over one of the (many) driving wheels.
 
When people talk about 'conspiracy theorists' they tend to forget that there are actual conspiracies.
 
Looking from the inside out the IETF may look completely innocuous. But it does not necessarily look the same from the outside in. Some time ago David Rockerfeller decided to form a dinning club cum policy discussion shop to bring together important people to talk with each other. They didn't think anything of the idea but its been the source of many a conspiracy theory. Its called the Trilateral Commission.
 
The source of the Trilateral Commission conspiracy theories is not hard to see: Some people refuse to believe that the world can work the way it does without someone controlling it.
 
[And of course they are right, at our monthly meetings of the New World Order we discuss the really important issues such as whether women's hem lines should be going up or down and what the new plot lines are going to be for our Britney Spears/ Rosie O'Donnell soaps.]
 
Well guess what, there are now people who think the same about the Internet. They simply cannot believe that such a system can exist without some form of central control and they want to track that control point down and control it themselves.

 

From: [email-masked] on behalf of Melinda Shore
Sent: Mon 9/15/2008 3:23 PM
To: Dave Crocker; Michael StJohns
Cc: IETF
Subject: Re: Incumbent conflict of interest

Melinda

---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:29:36 -0400

Exactly.  Nicely articulated.

Leslie.

--

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:31:12 -0400

Dave 

I said "perceived" conflict of interest.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least a half dozen or so participants (hereinafter "ranters") that are so convinced of their own infallibility, that the only way they can rationalize being turned down for something (document submission, a change of a specific word in a specific paragraph, WG chair, etc) is that someone is out to get them.   Giving them more ammunition to make such claims (e.g. obviously X is out to get me because I'm running against him) seems to me to be somewhat of a bad idea.

Couple this with the dozen or so participants who have loudly and repeatedly stated their belief in the evilness of various ADs both with and without objective evidence and even I might start getting confused about whether the original ranter is ranting or is making a point I should consider.   If I'm a nomcom member who hasn't been paying attention to past rants (because they're on a WG mailing list for example), I might be tempted to impute fire where the smoke is.

I believe over the years our ADs have been pretty free of conflict of interest - but the perception of such conflict of interest has at times taken on a life of its own. 

Mike

At 03:11 PM 9/15/2008, Dave CROCKER wrote:
>This entire line of thinking gets scarier and scarier.  If it has any validity as concern, then we already have a very deep problem.  Candidacy often is already known among some of the IETF community, including among incumbents and other candidates.  So the conflict of interest problem is already present... if your point is valid.
>
>Having candidacies be more publicly declared might change the statistics, but it won't change the basic reality.
>
>d/
>-- 
>
>  Dave Crocker

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From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:35:05 -0400

+1 on the analysis.

I'm personally in favour of attaining more openness in the process IF we 
can identify and address the real negatives (as a thoughtful process, in 
advance).

Leslie.

--

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:59:38 -0700 (PDT)

> I find it quite bizarre that someone can make that particular argument and
> think that it argues against transparency rather than for it.

+1

				Ned

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:44:45 -0700

We have made changes of this nature in the past.
 
For example, last time this issue came up the solution that was defacto adopted was to impose term limits. I don't necessarily think term limits are the best solution but there was a definite probem of long term incumbency in certain particular cases.
 
This tended to be more of an issue on the IESG than the IAB for the simple reason that it is very hard to argue against a particular course of action if the case against is being made by the eight year incumbent XXX Area AD.
 
Another point to consider here is that over the past six years or so some of the directorates have become much more influential than before and there is a big difference between being told that your protocol is mindlessly incompetent by the security area directorate than by a security area director.

The IETF constitution is going to change over time. Since the formal methods for changing the IETF structures have become inoperative, the informal methods have taken over.

From: [email-masked] on behalf of Leslie Daigle
Sent: Mon 9/15/2008 4:35 PM
To: Michael StJohns
Cc: [email-masked]; IETF
Subject: Re: On being public (Was: Call for Nominees)

+1 on the analysis.

Leslie.

--