Subject: draft-moonesamy-recall-rev-01: Number of Signatures Required

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 12:19:49 +1000

Hi SM,

Without going into the other aspects of this draft (I'm watching with interest), Section 2.3 caught my eye:

>    [RFC7437] requires at least 20 signatories for a recall petition with
>    no more than two of the signatories having the same primary
>    affiliation.  That sets a very high barrier for a recall petition
>    even though the recall petition requires a, justification, an
>    investigation by a Recall Committee and a 3/4 majority of the members
>    of the Recall Committee who vote on the recall decision.  This
>    document also proposes to decrease the number of signatures required
>    to avoid making it impractical to invoke the first step of the recall
>    procedures.

Sorry if I missed a previous discussion, but this strikes me as an interesting change to couple to a proposed increase in the number of people eligible to sign a recall petition.

Given that the number of people who attend IETF meetings -- both physically and remotely -- varies quite a bit, and since we now can track the size of both populations, I'd expect this number to be expressed as a percentage of the total eligible population (however the above discussion goes).

Looking at the attendance of the last five IETFs*, it appears that about 777 people are nomcom eligible, so it would currently take a bit more than 2.5% of that community to initiate a recall. 

If remote participation is also counted, about 1083 would currently be qualified; your proposed 10 signatories is 0.92% of that community.

What's the right number**? I'm not sure, but I'll make a few observations.

It seems to me that the number of signatories required helps to ensure that the recall represents a significant portion of the community, so as not to waste the noncom's time. I also see it as a way to manage secondary effects; e.g., so that people aren't dissuaded from putting their hands up for nomcom, lest they be committing to a series of frivolous recall efforts. 

More importantly, perhaps, I think we also need to ask ourselves whether we want our leadership concerned about the possibility of a recall -- even if a failed one -- from a small, determined set of people. I imagine there are upsides and downsides to that.

To me, allowing 1% of the community to initiate such an action seems like a really low bar for disruption, not at all a "very high barrier". Looking elsewhere:
  * Various Swiss cantons seem to run between 2% and 13% of the electorate <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_election#Switzerland>
  *  In the UK, it takes 10% <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015>

Cheers,

* This is estimated by scraping the attendance tables for the last five IETFs, removing affiliation (since it might change) but keeping country (less likely to change, but still possible), case-normalising and doing some command line sorting and filtering. No doubt mistakes were made (if anything, these numbers are probably low, thanks to false negatives), and I'm sure this isn't how the actual eligibility is determined. But it's good enough for estimating, I think.

** I really do think it should be a percentage.

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/

---

From: tom petch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 09:25:50 +0000

<inline tp>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Nottingham" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2019 3:19 AM

Hi SM,

Without going into the other aspects of this draft (I'm watching with

>    to avoid making it impractical to invoke the first step of the
recall

Sorry if I missed a previous discussion, but this strikes me as an
interesting change to couple to a proposed increase in the number of
people eligible to sign a recall petition.

Given that the number of people who attend IETF meetings -- both
physically and remotely -- varies quite a bit, and since we now can
track the size of both populations, I'd expect this number to be
expressed as a percentage of the total eligible population (however the
above discussion goes).

Looking at the attendance of the last five IETFs*, it appears that about
777 people are nomcom eligible, so it would currently take a bit more
than 2.5% of that community to initiate a recall.

If remote participation is also counted, about 1083 would currently be
qualified; your proposed 10 signatories is 0.92% of that community.

What's the right number**? I'm not sure, but I'll make a few
observations.

It seems to me that the number of signatories required helps to ensure
that the recall represents a significant portion of the community, so as
not to waste the noncom's time. I also see it as a way to manage
secondary effects; e.g., so that people aren't dissuaded from putting
their hands up for nomcom, lest they be committing to a series of
frivolous recall efforts.

More importantly, perhaps, I think we also need to ask ourselves whether
we want our leadership concerned about the possibility of a recall --
even if a failed one -- from a small, determined set of people. I
imagine there are upsides and downsides to that.

To me, allowing 1% of the community to initiate such an action seems
like a really low bar for disruption, not at all a "very high barrier".
Looking elsewhere:
  * Various Swiss cantons seem to run between 2% and 13% of the
electorate <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_election#Switzerland>
  *  In the UK, it takes 10%
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015>

<tp>

Mark

When one of our key protocols was up for revision, there was a binary
choice, do this or do that; 23 people expressed an opinion, 12 one way,
11 the other and the chairs declared consensus for the 12 and that is
baked into the protocol.  Someone who would know pointed out that there
were over 1000 people subscribed to the mailing list so that aspect of
the protocol had been decided by about 1% of the population so I see 1%
in favour as being the way the IETF works; and I suspect that it will
take more get up and go for people to express support for a recall
petition than it will to support a choice in a protocol so 1% is quite a
high bar to me.

Tom Petch

Cheers,

* This is estimated by scraping the attendance tables for the last five
IETFs, removing affiliation (since it might change) but keeping country
(less likely to change, but still possible), case-normalising and doing
some command line sorting and filtering. No doubt mistakes were made (if
anything, these numbers are probably low, thanks to false negatives),
and I'm sure this isn't how the actual eligibility is determined. But
it's good enough for estimating, I think.

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 04:15:39 -0700

Hi Mark,
At 07:19 PM 21-04-2019, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>Without going into the other aspects of this draft (I'm watching 
>with interest), Section 2.3 caught my eye:

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read the draft.

>expressed as a percentage of the total eligible population (however 
>the above discussion goes).
>
>Looking at the attendance of the last five IETFs*, it appears that 
>about 777 people are nomcom eligible, so it would currently take a 
>bit more than 2.5% of that community to initiate a recall.
>
>If remote participation is also counted, about 1083 would currently 
>be qualified; your proposed 10 signatories is 0.92% of that community.
>

This is an interesting question.  An IETF election is unusual as it 
is not based on members who are eligible to vote.  There is, as you 
mentioned, attendees who are nomcom eligible.  To keep things easy, 
let's assume that the number is 777.  The number of qualified voters 
was as follows:

   2014  139
   2015  186
   2016  128
   2017  203
   2018  177

Not all of them can be qualified signatories as there is the 
affiliation restriction.  The number of unique affiliations is around 
90.  The number in Section 3.1 is roughly 10% of that.

>It seems to me that the number of signatories required helps to 
>ensure that the recall represents a significant portion of the 
>community, so as not to waste the noncom's time. I also see it as a 
>way to manage secondary effects; e.g., so that people aren't 
>dissuaded from putting their hands up for nomcom, lest they be 
>committing to a series of frivolous recall efforts.

I agree that the number of signatories should be a significant 
portion of the community or else a disagreement on a decision, e.g. 
you and I disagree on this draft, could be used to initiate a recall 
petition.   I understand your point about frivolous recall 
petitions.  It is possible for any participant to file an 
appeal.  That appeal could, in my opinion or yours, be 
frivolous.  The body responsible for making the decision would still 
have to judge the case on its merits.  There are more people, in 
comparison with a recall committee, involved the decision-making.  Is 
an appeal a waste of IESG time?

I didn't receive any comment in which someone stated that he or she 
would not be interested in being part of a recall committee.  If 
attendees in actual fact, as opposed to what is said, "participate as 
individuals", they could volunteer for at least one recall committee 
as it is less work than for a nomination committee.  It will look 
suspicious if there are affiliations which appear for the nomination 
committee do not appear for a recall committee.

>More importantly, perhaps, I think we also need to ask ourselves 
>whether we want our leadership concerned about the possibility of a 
>recall -- even if a failed one -- from a small, determined set of 
>people. I imagine there are upsides and downsides to that.

Yes.

>like a really low bar for disruption, not at all a "very high 
>barrier". Looking elsewhere:

There is a report at 
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05089/SN05089.pdf 
The following might be of interest to subscribers from the United 
States of America: 
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674330092  Those 
models are not applicable to the IETF given that the latter is not a 
democracy.  The random representation, as used within the IETF, is 
not representative of what is described as the "IETF community".

The threshold, e.g. you mentioned using a percentage, is related to 
the level of activity in an entity.  The level of activity for formal 
IETF decision-making is very low.  A high threshold turns the process 
into something there is there to make the IETF look good instead of a 
process which is accessible.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 08:25:09 +1200

10 or 20?

Please remember that the threshold for the normal appeals process,
which can involve up the following in extra work:
    WG Chairs, AD, IESG, IAB and ISOC Board
is 1 person, who doesn't even have to be an active participant.

Has the IETF been drowned by frivolous appeals? No.

Am I worried about a rush of frivolous recall petitions with SM's
proposed change? No.

Consider that for remote participants, contacting 9 other people
and persuading them to sign a recall petition is a non-trivial
task, comparable in difficulty to walking around at an IETF meeting
and finding 19 such people.

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 17:45:32 -0400

--On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 08:25 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> 10 or 20?
> 
> Please remember that the threshold for the normal appeals
> process, which can involve up the following in extra work:

Also remember that, between the publication of RFC 2027 in
October 1996 and RFC 3777 in June 2004, the number of
petitioners required to initiate a recall was one, with no
restriction on the prior participation, affiliations, etc., of
that person.  The number of frivolous (or, for that matter,
non-frivolous) appeal efforts that got as far as forming a
recall committee during that period was, um, zero.

> Am I worried about a rush of frivolous recall petitions with
> SM's proposed change? No.
> 
> Consider that for remote participants, contacting 9 other
> people and persuading them to sign a recall petition is a
> non-trivial task, comparable in difficulty to walking around
> at an IETF meeting and finding 19 such people.

Agreed.    Note too that the current, 20 signature, process has
shown two things.  One is that there have still been no appeals
(frivolous or not) that have gone through as far as the
formation of a recall committee.  The other is a demonstration
of a specific, non-hypothetical case in which a mechanism for
removing key leadership figures could be needed to keep things
working.

Actually, I found another one of Mark's comments even more
problematic:

--On Monday, April 22, 2019 12:19 +1000 Mark Nottingham
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> More importantly, perhaps, I think we also need to ask
> ourselves whether we want our leadership concerned about the
> possibility of a recall -- even if a failed one -- from a
> small, determined set of people. I imagine there are upsides
> and downsides to that.

First of all, the one case of near-recall (petitions ready,
process ready to roll) we've had clearly identified a situation
in which the community needed to have some mechanism to remove
an incumbent leader without, e.g., sitting around and waiting
for the next Nomcom cycle.  Whether "the leadership" was
concerned about that or not, the possibility wasn't enough to
prevent the problem that put the process in motion.  More
importantly, perhaps, let me turn your question around and ask
whether you think it would be a good idea to have our leadership
operate completely without accountability from whenever they are
selected by the Nomcom until their terms are up?   I don't think
that a recall mechanism is ideal, but the Nomcom process
probably isn't ideal either and I'd hope that anyone proposing a
reduction in individual accountability would be thinking about
appropriate substitutes.

And, just my opinion, but high thresholds may be appropriate to
large bodies, e.g., legislatures or parliaments, where the
impact of one bad, out-of-control, or retired-in-place actor is
fairly low (even thought the offender's constituents may feel
otherwise).  When one has a very small leadership team and no
other accountability mechanisms, it is far more important that
the recall mechanism be effective, usable, and perceived as
fair.  There, too, it is worth remembering the IETF's history
where a small leadership group got seriously out of synch with
the community and turned out to be completely unaccountable, a
problem that could be solved only by tearing down our entire
organizational, leadership, and operational structures and
starting over.

best,
   john

best,
   john

    john

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 17:03:28 -0500

> recall committee during that period was, um, zero.

Presumably there could be a light-weight mechanism for making a quick
decision as to whether a recall petition is frivolous.  E.g., the IAB
and IESG (minus the subject of the recall petition) could determine if
the petition is frivolous, with adverse decisions appealable to the IETF
Chair.  Something like that.

Nico
--

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 18:39:37 -0400

Regardless of how many (or few) signatures are required, I really don't 
think it makes sense any more to use meeting attendance (physical or 
virtual) as a criterion for who can sign a petition [*].   I think it 
should be some measure of how much a person actually has invested in 
helping IETF do work, say by writing or reviewing documents, chairing a 
WG, serving on a directorate, IESG, IAB, etc.   Those are the people who 
are in the best position to evaluate a recall petition.   IETF should 
pay more attention to doers than goers.

Maybe we should only require 3 such people, but let them be people who 
do work.

Keith

[*] I'd make a similar argument for nomcom eligibility.

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 15:56:39 -0700

On 4/22/2019 3:39 PM, Keith Moore wrote:

> Regardless of how many (or few) signatures are required, I really
> don't think it makes sense any more to use meeting attendance
> (physical or virtual) as a criterion for who can sign a petition
> [*].   I think it should be some measure of how much a person actually
> has invested in helping IETF do work, say by writing or reviewing
> documents, chairing a WG, serving on a directorate, IESG, IAB, etc.  
> Those are the people who are in the best position to evaluate a recall
> petition.   IETF should pay more attention to doers than goers.
>

Keith, you are almost making an argument for seniority, as in "pick
people who are senior enough to have chaired a WG, be nominated to join
a directorate, served in the IESG or IAB." I have no doubt that you will
find people there who are committed to the IETF, but we might have a
problem if only the IETF elite participates in the nomcom or is allowed
to sign petitions against other members of the elite.

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 19:02:09 -0400

> to sign petitions against other members of the elite.

It's a valid point (and it occurred to me).   But I'm not advocating 
making being a "doer" a barrier to "doing" things in IETF, only for 
things like recall petitions and nomcoms.   And you don't have to be 
"elite" at all to have submitted a WG internet-draft; you only have to 
have written up an idea and gotten some people to buy into it.   In 
other words, there should be some ways that non-senior "doers" can qualify.

The alternative is to risk having people with little or no experience in 
IETF, making judgments about whether (say) an AD has done his/her job 
well.   That makes no sense to me.

Keith

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:30:12 -0700

Hi Nico,
>Chair.  Something like that.

Please see the message from John at 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/oSzCaUXmrPkavX_L3CPP9bsY_vc 
The light-weight mechanism would introduce other issues, e.g. whether 
the decision-makers are free from outside control.  A way to avoid 
that is not to have any linkage between recall and appeal processes.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 11:13:33 +1000

Hey SM,

> On 22 Apr 2019, at 9:15 pm, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Mark,
> This is an interesting question.  An IETF election is unusual as it is not based on members who are eligible to vote.  There is, as you mentioned, attendees who are nomcom eligible.  To keep things easy, let's assume that the number is 777.  The number of qualified voters was as follows:
> 
>  2014  139
>  2015  186
>  2016  128
>  2017  203
>  2018  177
> 
> Not all of them can be qualified signatories as there is the affiliation restriction.  The number of unique affiliations is around 90.  The number in Section 3.1 is roughly 10% of that.

I'm not sure I follow. The 777 number is those who AFAICT are nomcom-eligible *now* -- i.e., after IETF104; you don't divide them up amongst the last five years. How did you arrive at the numbers above?

> I agree that the number of signatories should be a significant portion of the community or else a disagreement on a decision, e.g. you and I disagree on this draft, could be used to initiate a recall petition.   I understand your point about frivolous recall petitions.  It is possible for any participant to file an appeal.  That appeal could, in my opinion or yours, be frivolous.  The body responsible for making the decision would still have to judge the case on its merits.  There are more people, in comparison with a recall committee, involved the decision-making.  Is an appeal a waste of IESG time?
> 
> I didn't receive any comment in which someone stated that he or she would not be interested in being part of a recall committee.  If attendees in actual fact, as opposed to what is said, "participate as individuals", they could volunteer for at least one recall committee as it is less work than for a nomination committee.  It will look suspicious if there are affiliations which appear for the nomination committee do not appear for a recall committee.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say above; could you please restate it?

> There is a report at http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05089/SN05089.pdf The following might be of interest to subscribers from the United States of America: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674330092  Those models are not applicable to the IETF given that the latter is not a democracy.  The random representation, as used within the IETF, is not representative of what is described as the "IETF community".
> 
> The threshold, e.g. you mentioned using a percentage, is related to the level of activity in an entity.  The level of activity for formal IETF decision-making is very low.  A high threshold turns the process into something there is there to make the IETF look good instead of a process which is accessible.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 21:37:43 -0400

Hi John,

> On 22 Apr 2019, at 17:45, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

+1.

My recollection was that we set the threshold to avoid process DOS attacks.  I don’t see why a percentage would be necessary to avoid such an attack.  Moreover, in my opinion, we have had several people who at least deserved to have a recall review, and yet it didn’t happen.  Each caused a serious problem for the IESG and the community.  I won’t speak to the merits of this draft at this time, but I do think we have the current balance wrong.

Eliot

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 11:43:02 +1000

John,

> On 23 Apr 2019, at 7:45 am, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> selected by the Nomcom until their terms are up?

Your question seems rhetorical (and somewhat argumentative), but to remove doubt, I'll answer - firmly, no.

> I don't think

If you reread my message, you'll see I wasn't proposing a reduction in individual accountability; I was trying to establish the extent of the increase in accountability (because even if we keep things at 20 signatures, at least by the maths it's an increase, although good arguments have been put forth that the nature of remote participation means it's less so than at first glance), and its potential impact.

> fair.

I don't disagree.

>  There, too, it is worth remembering the IETF's history

I think that in that case, the difference between 10, 20 or even 50 would be immaterial; this community is well-connected.

But that goes to the heart of the question -- how do you determine what is in "synch with the community"?

Cheers,

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 11:43:13 +1000

Hi Brian,

> On 23 Apr 2019, at 6:25 am, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 10 or 20?
> 

That's somewhat convincing. 

> and finding 19 such people.

I'd imagine that such a recall petition wouldn't be all-remote, but a mix of remote and in-person participants, but yes.

My initial discomfort with decreasing the number of signatories on a recall petition may have been caused by my perception of it as a mechanism to ensure some level of input quality, since Section 7.5 of RFC7437 gives almost no guidance to the recall committee, in contrast to the fairly detailed guidance we give NOMCOMs regarding selection of our leadership. 

Speculating, I suppose a lot would depend on the recall committee chair; they could choose to run a process that involves input across the community, or they could just focus on the loudest complaints.

Is it worth giving some guidance there?

Cheers,

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 00:56:13 -0700

Hi Mark,
At 06:13 PM 22-04-2019, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>I'm not sure I follow. The 777 number is those who AFAICT are 
>nomcom-eligible *now* -- i.e., after IETF104; you don't divide them 
>up amongst the last five years. How did you arrive at the numbers above?

Those were the number of attendees who volunteered to be part of a 
nomination committee over the last few years, e.g. 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/LM1iaWQWO5sHDOgl8mgx_Wy3kCQ

>I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say above; could you 

It is not possible to assess the following argument: a person would 
not be involved in a recall petition because it may affect the 
reputation of his/her company.  Nobody said that it is something 
he/she is concerned about, i.e. there isn't any evidence to support 
the argument.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 10:15:57 -0400

--On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 11:43 +1000 Mark Nottingham
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> 
> My initial discomfort with decreasing the number of
> signatories on a recall petition may have been caused by my
> perception of it as a mechanism to ensure some level of input
> quality, since Section 7.5 of RFC7437 gives almost no guidance
> to the recall committee, in contrast to the fairly detailed
> guidance we give NOMCOMs regarding selection of our
> leadership. 

First of all, as I think others (and my now long-ago note that
SM pointed to in a note yesterday) have pointed out, the change
in the procedures from "anyone can initiate" to the current
requirement of 20 nomcom-eligible individuals was a DoS attack
prevention mechanism.  The newer and more restrictive procedure
was, fwiw, a mechanism for preventing a type of attack on the
process that we speculated was possible but that we had never
seen, even with no protection at all other than (possibly-bogus)
identification of the petitioner.  With or without the change,
there is/was nothing in the recall petitioning process that has
anything to do with quality... any more than there are input
quality protection mechanisms in nominating candidates for IETF
leadership positions.  That is actually another way to attack
the IETF procedurally and consume community resources that takes
less time and effort than faking names for a recall petition:
create a few hundred bogus identities in the datatracker system
(wouldn't take a determined attacker long and there are now many
domains in which one can create cheap or free email addresses),
find the right place in the Nomcom cycle, and then have them
start nominating each other, and real identities chosen at
random, for enough positions so that the Nomcom has to deal with
a hundred or two candidates for each of a large range of
positions.   While the Nomcom might be able to dismiss a
potential candidate who didn't respond to questionnaire
requests, excluding someone without, e.g., scheduling interviews
and otherwise pretending to take the candidacy seriously would
be unprecedented and probably lead to appeals and other forms of
noise.

We haven't had that happen either and I think the point is that
making the recall petitioning process harder (or even leaving it
as hard as it is) provides no additional protection against
attacks, if only because potential attackers have a range of
equally or more effective mechanisms available at the same or
lower cost.  What it does do is to attack the claim and
perception that the IETF leadership is actually accountable to
the community.
 
> Speculating, I suppose a lot would depend on the recall
> committee chair; they could choose to run a process that
> involves input across the community, or they could just focus
> on the loudest complaints.

Again, the draft in question only addresses the petitioning
process.  We don't have a standing recall committee
(deliberately and for good reason, although that would be one
way to cut down on the very long time an actual recall would
take).   If you think the recall committee process needs reform,
I look forward to a draft, but I note that your concern above
also applies to the Nomcom -- they could really try to get to
the bottom of claims of poor or inappropriate behavior or they
could believe what they hear from the loudest people or most
numerous group.    I hope we can assume that they strike a
reasonable balance (although anyone who has been around the IETF
long enough probably considers one or two choices that were made
over the years to have been dubious). I don't see any reason to
assume that a recall committee would be a lot worse.
>...

best,
  john