Subject: RSOC membership

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 12:04:42 -0700

As the IAB noted in its last call for volunteers to serve on the RSOC
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/-9XsyFQsp-4fybaKssEttVINCQE>,
RFC 6635 does not mandate a specific process or cadence for IAB
appointments to the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC).  During the last
refresh, the IAB chose to run its standard process for other programs,
which involves calling for volunteers and requesting sitting members to put
their names forward again if they were still interested in serving.  At the
time of that call, the RSOC members appointed by the IAB were: Adam Roach,
Joel Halpern, Bob Hinden, Nevil Brownlee, Sarah Banks, and Tony Hansen.
After the call for volunteers, the IAB solicited feedback on the candidates
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/nV7FdDwn_pKbnRMInRrLMjKeIuE>
and then conducted interviews.  On the basis of that process, the IAB then
approved a new membership roster of Adam Roach, Peter St. Andre, Sarah
Banks, and Tony Hansen.  While the total number of appointed members went
down, three of the four were previous members with service dating back 2-5
years each. In part because of departures from the IAB, the two IAB members
changed, with Christian Huitema replacing Martin Thomson in September 2018
and Mark Nottingham taking over from Robert Sparks in March 2019.

While the IAB believes that the process used last time was appropriate
under the terms of RFC 6635, we understand from community discussion that
there are concerns that this process might in future result in an RSOC
membership that lacks the continuity required under section 3.1 of RFC
6635.  In order to address this concern, we propose to implement an IAB
policy that will give staggered three-year terms to the RSOC members and
thus ensure that no more than one third of the membership will be up for
renewal at any one time. This is similar to the process used for
appointments to the ISOC board and, like the ISOC board process, would
allow for members to stand again.  Because the existing RSOC was not seated
with that expectation, the IAB would both need to grow the total number of
appointees to at least six and work out how the existing members would
track to the different years. If the community agrees to this proposal, we
would consult with the RSOC on those details.

Because RFC 6635 is silent on this part of the process, we believe we can
consider such a procedure change without it requiring a change in the
document.  Because the IASA2 process has been updating the references to
the IAOC to reference the IETF LLC, there is also a draft of RFC6635bis
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc6635bis/>.  An
alternative would be to broaden its scope to include this change.

The IAB solicits feedback on this procedural change and the best approach
to achieving it if it is acceptable to the community, either by replying to
this message or to [email-masked].

The IAB does not mean by making this proposal to rule out other changes to
the RSOC or the RFC Editor  model. It does seem, however, to be an
incremental update that can be done now to make improvements in the
existing procedures while larger issues are discussed.

Regards,

Ted Hardie

for the IAB

---

From: "Scott O. Bradner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 15:32:44 -0400

thanks to Ted & Alissa - these letters were (actually) helpful in clearing up some lingering questions - they 
are somewhat ‘it was not us’ in tone but that appears to be the case.

now we need to hear from the RSOC in regards to at least two outstanding questions

1/ why did the RSOC decide to a/ rebid the RSE contract 2 years early & b/ decide to tell the world about it a further 
    2 years earlier

2/ did the RSOC consider that the move could be seen as a termination notice

 there have been some limited responses to 1a & maybe 1b but nothing that rang true as explaining the root causes, at least to me

if the RSOC was dissatisfied with Heather’s job performance & wants to say that the root cause was a 
personnel issue and thus not discussible in public so be it - but such a response will not stop the 
speculation that the cause was related to the genesis of the RFC++ BoF (in spite of what Alissa wrote)

but even such an assertion (that was a personnel issue) does not answer question 2

I’m sure that others will have their own question for the RSOC but the above are mine

Scott

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 13:12:19 -0700

Hi Scott,

The following is a personal opinion, not the view of the IAB.

On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 12:34 PM Scott O. Bradner <[email-masked]> wrote:

> 1/ why did the RSOC decide to a/ rebid the RSE contract 2 years early & b/
> decide to tell the world about it a further
>     2 years earlier
>
>  there have been some limited responses to 1a & maybe 1b but nothing that
> rang true as explaining the root causes, at least to me
>
>
As I tried to lay out in the message which started the RSE Model thread, I
think there is an underlying structural problem in RFC 6635.  It presents
two different views of the RSE and those views have some inherent
conflicts.  One of those views is of a senior technical contributor to the
community who is expected to both manage the evolution of the series and
represent the value of the RFC series to others.  The other view is of a
contractor whose role is defined in a set of contracts and extensions and
who is overseen by a set of unpaid volunteers.  As Mike St. Johns noted,
being a contractor does not mean being a low-level employee; you can have
contractors who are subject matter experts and quite well-valued
contributors to a community effort.  But even for those subject matter
experts, there are communications which are addressed to them as a
contractor.

What that means is that this role inherently has two styles communication;
that of peers talking to a peer and that of an organization talking to a
contractor.  Linguists would talk about those styles as "registers" and the
act of moving between them as "register switching".

I think this particular case was one of a failed register switch.  The RSOC
had a message to deliver that was, essentially, good job, we'd like to
renew the contract.  Had they delivered that and stopped, it seems unlikely
that we would be where we are right now.  But they went on and delivered a
second message, about their intent to work on concerns about the RFP
process that Heather and others raised.  That message was, at least as far
as I can tell, meant in the other register:  peers talking to a peer about
an issue which she had raised.  Had they delivered it in a different
context where that register was clear, the situation might be different.
But by combining them into a single message, the result was that the
communication was taken by Heather to be addressed to her as a contractor,
not as a peer.  In that context, it came across very negatively, and it is
not just Heather who perceived it that way.  Several senior members of the
community have said to me, essentially, "As a contractor, if I had received
that message, I'd take it as a vote of no-confidence too."  What's been
striking has been that each person who has said that to me started with "As
a contractor" or something similar.  That's part of why I believe that this
is essentially a register switching problem.

It would be easy to chalk that up to a simple error on the part of the
RSOC, but I honestly think I might have made a similar mistake in their
shoes.  Almost all the RSOC's interaction with the RSE are on a peer
basis.  Switching out of it to contractor mode was not the norm, and
lapsing into that peer mode again quickly seems like an almost inevitable
result.   That's partly why I think we will eventually need a structural
resolution rather than simply starting over again with a new RSE.  It would
be great if we could resolve that before the next RSE contract is let, but
I think it will take time and that we will instead need to have the next
RSE be part of that discussion.

> I'll note, as I have before, that personnel discussion are generally
judged by outcomes, since the details are not available.  In this case, the
field of outcomes included that of re-bidding at once, and I note that they
did not choose that outcome.

I’m sure that others will have their own question for the RSOC but the
> above are mine
regards,

Ted

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 15:51:10 -0500

On Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 03:32:44PM -0400, Scott O. Bradner wrote:
> 1/ why did the RSOC decide to a/ rebid the RSE contract 2 years early
>    & b/ decide to tell the world about it a further 2 years earlier

Sarah Banks wrote a post that explained some of this.  It was enough
that I can see how RSOC might *not* have thought that the RSE would take
early bidding the way she did.  Perhaps it was all a big failure to
communicate rather than RSOC's failure to understand that it was
essentially telling the RSE to get lost -- perhaps it was even a failure
on the RSE's part rather than RSOC's.

Now, I don't really know the full story, and was on vacation during this
entire dust-up, so before I comment further I'll have to re-read that
post by Sarah B. and any others by RSOC and IAB members.  The point of
_this_ post is that Sarah B.'s post seems to have gotten lost in the
noise.

Nico
--

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2019 13:59:33 -0700

> I think there is an underlying structural problem in RFC 6635.  It
> presents two different views of the RSE and those views have some
> inherent conflicts.  One of those views is of a senior technical
> contributor to the community who is expected to both manage the
> evolution of the series and represent the value of the RFC series to
> others.  The other view is of a contractor whose role is defined in a
> set of contracts and extensions and who is overseen by a set of unpaid
> volunteers.

these are not in conflict, though they seem to be able to cause some
confusion in the iab and rsoc.

sometimes we have to pay senior professionals.  to do so, we often
have contracts.  this does not make them fungible or less professional
and deserving of serious respect.

randy

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 14:06:34 -0700

> and deserving of serious respect.

I agree, and I thought my reference to Mike St. John's similar point made
that clear.  Sorry that it was not.

regards,

Ted

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 22:50:39 +0100

Hiya,

I'm also not speaking for the IAB, as you'll see when I
don't quite agree with Ted:-)

> experts, there are communications which are addressed to them as a

I do think there may be structural problems with how 6635
matches today's reality, but I'm not sure the above is one.
I fully agree with you that those different aspects (editor
vs. contractor, volunteer vs. staff) of the RSE/RSOC
relationship are exactly the kinds of thing that can easily
create tensions and possibilities for mis-communication.
But I'm not convinced that's such a structural problem with
6635.

What seems to me a more structural issue with 6635 is that
it makes the RSE responsible for the performance of the
RPC and I'm not sure if that's still a good plan that has
a good mapping to reality. However, I don't know enough
about the current reality. (So by "not sure" I really do
mean "uncertain," and not that I'm fully convinced of the
opposite thing:-)

I'd be interested in what Heather and others involved have
to say on that topic and more generally on how 6635 maps
to today's reality. (I'd be as interested in that being
discussed here, on rfc-interest, or off-list if that were
needed, though of course noting that I'm asking about
how the RFC matches reality and not about any personnel
matters so hopefully on-list should work for some list.)

Lastly, as Ted said in a different mail, I doubt the
community can sort out such issues before an RSE RFP
process would be done, so if people had opinions on
when, how or if we should engage in topics like that,
it'd be good to hear those opinions.

IOW, while these are important long term RFC series
topics to discuss, it's not clear to me that we could
reach consensus on any resulting changes in time for
them to affect the planned RFP process.

So I'm not sure (same meaning again:-) if we'd be better
to try tackle these issues now while folks are thinking
about the general topic, or later, when it could be done
without the possible time pressure of an RFP process and
hopefully after people's understandable concerns about
the current undesirable situation have been assuaged.

Cheers,
S.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 18:14:45 -0400

Hi,

As usual, I'm employed by ISOC but not speaking for it.

> 1/ why did the RSOC decide to a/ rebid the RSE contract 2 years early & b/ decide to tell the world about it a further 

Of all the things that I have found puzzling in this discussion, the
persistence of this description is the one I find strangest.

First, as I understand it, the RSOC is not in a position to "decide"
anything.  In any case, the discussion around IASA 2 made it pretty
clear that there were many moving parts in the RSE relationship, and
that it was going to need to get straightened out.  In such a context,
it is not surprising that we'd expect a revised structure and,
therefore, a revised basis for the contractual arrangement once that
revision was developed.  Yet it is not developed _yet_.

Now, speaking as someone who has a contract that might or might not be
renewed in 2 years' time, I find it _extremely helpful_ to know about
that possibility.  It's an elementary part of good planning to know
when contract events are likely to happen.

So, without any special knowledge and just relying on what is public
and what I know of other discussions around the IETF (again, from
public lists), it seems to me that the RSOC made the only plausible
recommendation under the circumstances: renew the contract now, for a
2 year term.  But moreover, in the interests of transparency, make
sure that everyone understands that there probably will be some new
working basis in a couple years, and that a re-bid would be
appropriate then.  That doesn't make this "early" or a "termination"
or anything like that.  It's just standard good-will practice.  (Also,
given all the accusations of lack of transparency, I find it somewhat
ironic that one main problem was a surfeit of transparency.)

Now, of course, I don't know what was on the mind of the RSOC, and I
think it would be an exceptionally bad precedent for us to start
discussing these sorts of issues on a public list or with anyone not
involved in the contractual chain.  But it seems to me the entire story
is possibly explained in an utterly ordinary way, and that one main
lesson is that complex supervisory arrangements lead to convoluted
communications paths that increase the chances of misunderstanding.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 18:27:22 -0400

The aspect of this that I found confusing, and that I suspect others 
found even worse, is the claim that the RSOC decided to recommend a 
rebid two years early as a means to address the low response to the last 
bid.

I am sorry, but having been involved in the bidding processes,that 
response seems a very confusing response to the problem.

When presented with an explanation that one is not able to understand, 
it seems fairly natural for all parties receiving the message to 
speculate that something different was meant.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 20:30:38 -0400

> on the RSE's part rather than RSOC's.

What I haven't seen for an explanation was why did the rebid *have* to
happen in 2021.  The answer of "it's was too soon to do it in 2019" is
the best that we've heard from Sarah.  What I don't understand is why
couldn't be 2023?  What was so urgent, what was so terribly defective,
with the reprevious RFP bidding process that we have to do the re-bid
in 2021 and it couldn't wate for 2023?

The only answer when that question was raised, was the following from
Sarah:

    I’m trying to understand why the RSOC is being belittled like
    this. Help me understand. We don’t need an excuse.

Which to my mind, is non-responsive, if not downright defensive.
There also seems to be an strong belief that the RSOC is not obliged
to tell the community anything: "we don't need an excuse".

Perhaps there was some secret personnel reason that couldn't be
disclosed, and so that might be a reason why some of RSOC's decisions
have to be shrouded in secrecy.  However, I read Ted Hardie's e-mail
as saying that he didn't believe that to be the case.

In which case, inquiring minds really do want to know --- what was
causing people to believe this *had* to be done in 2021 versus 2023?
And how long would the bid process the RSOC was imaging would take?
Was it such that the RSOC had to make a recommendation in 2019 so that
the rebid process could be done by 2021?

				- Ted

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2019 20:24:45 -0500

> in 2021 and it couldn't wate for 2023?

Also, if Heather's previous utterances about risk led RSOC to want to
re-bid early, why did RSOC not ask/alert Heather first?

> Which to my mind, is non-responsive, if not downright defensive.

Yes.  I understand RSOC members being defensive...  This looks like a
big screwup.  But there's no need.  It happened, now be transparent.

> to tell the community anything: "we don't need an excuse".

Indeed.  Even if that is ostensibly the case, this entire thread shows
it's difficult to hold to that in _actuality_.

RSOC has members, and those members' reputations are on the line.  But
as you say, there can be confidential personnel reasons to keep
personnel decisions private.  If there had been one in this case, then I
would have expected RSOC to keep that confidential.  However, it seems
very much like there was no such reason.

> as saying that he didn't believe that to be the case.

And Sarah's email too.

> the rebid process could be done by 2021?

Sarah's email provided a plausible reason.  I don't understand why that
was not communicated to Heather.

I can still imagine that the problem here was Heather not being given a
reason and her responding as she did when she might have responded
completely differently had she been told.

Bear in mind I'm not fully up to date with this _massive_ thread.  I'm
going to need an index for it...

Nico
--

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2019 09:20:46 -0400

> As usual, I'm employed by ISOC but not speaking for it.

Hi Andrew -

It's pretty hard to not take the above with a grain of salt. You're not 
just an ISOC employee, but the president and CEO and as such have a lot 
of sway over the funding ISOC provides to the IETF. I can't imagine the 
I*  and community not giving your statements more weight than they might 
another generic IETF participant just because you say you're speaking 
for yourself.  It feels somewhat passive/aggressive too but that may 
just be me.

I can't remember Lynn or Cathy making a "not speaking for" statement in 
the time they were in your job, but this is the third from you in last 
day or so.  I wondering if it's really appropriate for you to do so 
given the relationships between the two organizations and your position?

Later, Mike

---

From: Job Snijders <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2019 15:25:48 +0200

Dear Mike,

On Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 09:20:46AM -0400, Michael StJohns wrote:
> It's pretty hard to not take the above with a grain of salt. You're not just
> an ISOC employee, but the president and CEO and as such have a lot of sway
> over the funding ISOC provides to the IETF. I can't imagine the I*  and
> community not giving your statements more weight than they might another
> generic IETF participant just because you say you're speaking for yourself. 
> It feels somewhat passive/aggressive too but that may just be me.
> 
> I can't remember Lynn or Cathy making a "not speaking for" statement in the
> time they were in your job, but this is the third from you in last day or
> so.  I wondering if it's really appropriate for you to do so given the
> relationships between the two organizations and your position?

I'd like to ask you for clarification on the above, do you mean to say
that the self-declaration is unnecessary, or that Andrew should refrain
from participating in a discussion three times a day?

Kind regards,

Job

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2019 09:32:35 -0400

> from participating in a discussion three times a day?

I mean that it's impossible for Andrew to separate himself from 
President/CEO of ISOC and as such he probably shouldn't be posting 
emails which wouldn't be appropriate if they came from the President/CEO.

Later, Mike

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2019 10:23:21 -0400

Hi Mike,

For the record, I'm not exactly sure which hat I'm wearing at the
moment, but this message does contain a reference to an Internet
Society policy.

On Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 09:20:46AM -0400, Michael StJohns wrote:
> over the funding ISOC provides to the IETF.

Ok.  So, there are two possibilities:

1.  I continue to participate as an individual sometimes, in which
case I make the above disclaimer.  (See below for why.)

2.  I don't participate as an individual.

Are you advocating (2)?  I can see an argument for it, but it's not
entirely in keeping with the IETF traditions.  (Of course, those
traditions are not timeless, and there might be good reasons to change
them.)

> so.

It was one of the "new rules" we adopted for Internet Society staff.
I announced them in March:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/Ugu6O_5tCnNzTUmVzIuhNFKPzbE.
I'm not surprised that Lynn or Kathy didn't make such statements,
since they weren't operating under those rules.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2019 11:48:49 -0400

> moment, but this message does contain a reference to an Internet
That's fine.
> 2.  I don't participate as an individual.

There's sort of a 2' where you can participate as an individual in 
technical matters, but you refrain from posting to the various types of 
existential and behavioral discussion we've had recently, because it's a 
*lot* easier differentiating Andrew the CEO from Andrew the IC in the 
technical situation.   My preference is for 2, but I could live with 2'

Basically, you as CEO hold a lot of our purse strings, and also appoint 
the Nomcom chair and manage the ISOC's part of the appeals process.  
Posting something that makes one side or the other on a discussion 
perceive that you're not an honest broker for a balanced view would tend 
to reduce your moral authority and possibly the legitimacy of some of 
the decisions, or so I would think.  Not saying we're there yet, but 
it's better to avoid the problem than have to come up with a cure 
later.  As of this point you might have to recuse yourself from any of 
the subjects on which you've commented if they become part of an appeals 
process.

If it were me, I'd assume that for the next two years (or until contract 
termination), posting as an individual is probably not actually posting 
as an individual and constrain my postings appropriately.

> since they weren't operating under those rules.

Nope - that wasn't it.  I feel confident that Lynn would have tagged 
something she said with this if she needed differentiation, but she 
mostly stayed out of the internals of what we were.  I would assume that 
Cathy, not being brought up in the community, probably didn't say 
anything that would have been inappropriate for the CEO/President to say.

In any event, I've had my say and hopefully you understand the reasons.  
We're in a new era where for the first time the ISOC president was once 
in the trenches of the IETF. That's going to have some growing pains and 
probably some new more explicit boundaries.

Later, Mike

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2019 12:22:01 -0400

Andrew,

I've not commented on a few of your postings because I felt a
bit awkward about the dual role issues, but that is my problem,
not yours or ISOC's.  However, two observations about this
particular exchange.

(1) While I don't know how much the disclaimers help, your
expertise in some specific areas, including at least one in
which the IETF seems to have a serious expertise shortage, is
such that it would be, IMO, short-sighted (and even dumb) for
the IETF to exclude that expertise and input because of whatever
day job you happen to hold.  I am surprised you have the time to
follow IETF work closely enough to comment usefully.  The
surprise is, however, a pleasant one and I, for one, appreciate
your making the effort even (or especially) when your reasoning
or opinion and mine differ.  I also think the disclaimer is
desirable even while I'm skeptical about how effective it is.

(2) Your predecessors were unlikely to comment on IETF technical
and near-technical issues nor to be taken seriously if they did.
The reasons for that are independent of specific ISOC policy
changes and their context and even of debates about IETF
traditions.   Your history includes making significant technical
contributions in multiple areas, chairing an important technical
WG or two, serving on the IAB and as its Chair, etc.  None of
your predecessors had any of that history in their background,
so this is a new situation for both ISOC and the IETF.  Are
safeguards against your abusing that status, or specific
remedies if you do, needed?  I'd rather not spend significant
IETF (or, for that matter, ISOC) time on that question unless
there is evidence of a problem -- evidence that goes beyond a
general concern that you may not be able to keep roles entirely
separate when you comment.  However, without knowing the details
of your contract, I suspect that the ISOC BoT has better
mechanisms for addressing, and dealing quickly with, any really
abusive behavior that might appear than IETF participants have
vis-a-vis its leadership.

best,
    john

--On Thursday, July 4, 2019 10:23 -0400 Andrew Sullivan
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
> 
> For the record, I'm not exactly sure which hat I'm wearing at
> the moment, but this message does contain a reference to an
> Internet Society policy.
> 
>> It's pretty hard to not take the above with a grain of salt.
>> You're not just an ISOC employee, but the president and CEO
>> and as such have a lot of sway over the funding ISOC provides
>> to the IETF.
> 
> 1.  I continue to participate as an individual sometimes, in
> which case I make the above disclaimer.  (See below for why.)
> 
> Are you advocating (2)?  I can see an argument for it, but
> it's not entirely in keeping with the IETF traditions.  (Of
> course, those traditions are not timeless, and there might be
> good reasons to change them.)
> 
>> I can't remember Lynn or Cathy making a "not speaking for"
>> statement in the time they were in your job, but this is the
>> third from you in last day or so.
> 
> It was one of the "new rules" we adopted for Internet Society
> staff. I announced them in March:
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/Ugu6O_5tCnNzTUmVzIu
> hNFKPzbE. I'm not surprised that Lynn or Kathy didn't make
> such statements, since they weren't operating under those
> rules.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A

---

From: Victor Kuarsingh <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2019 12:56:31 -0400

Andrew,

( Not speaking as the Nomcom Chair )

I suspect there will be many opinions on this, however I will share mine in
this particular case.

(1). I think within the IETF, we have, in general, had the "hat on" and
"hat off" posture in many interactions with various folks in various
circumstances.  I don't doubt that sometimes it may be particularly hard to
not wear "a hat", but I think as someone who has participated with both a
"hat on" and "hat off" posture, I think it can be done.  I think the more
senior someone is, the more they need to take care that the "hat off" is
really a "hat off" (I don't think it's an insurmountable obstacle).

(2). You have a long history with the IETF as a contributor, Working Group
Chair, IAB member and an IAOC member.  I would be disheartened to see folks
with all that organizational experience within the IETF unable to share
thoughts as in individual based on a job that person may have at the moment
(realizing that the ISOC President poses additional challenges).

(3).  I think your circumstance, given your a history with your IETF
engagement, before you were President of ISOC, creates some differentiation
from past Presidents whom may not have shared that level of participation
as a direct contributor within the IETF.  Additionally, the rules and
structure updates does make a large difference as well.

(4). I would like to see people with experience, and valuable input, to be
able to share that input with the community in a respectful way as to help
ensure we have the widest set of input (of which value can be gained).  As
long as folks do not abuse it, I don't see anything wrong.  To add, if we
have folks in leadership positions abusing participation rules or acting
unethically, I suspect there is a different conversation to be had.

regards,

Victor K

On Thu, Jul 4, 2019 at 10:24 AM Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> just
> the

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2019 20:48:57 +0000

Dear colleagues,

I'm writing in my capacity as President and CEO of the Internet
Society.

> There's sort of a 2' where you can participate as an individual in technical
> matters, but you refrain from posting to the various types of existential
> and behavioral discussion we've had recently, because it's a *lot* easier
> differentiating Andrew the CEO from Andrew the IC in the technical
> situation.   My preference is for 2, but I could live with 2'

Sorry, Mike, for the laggy response, but I thought I'd see whether
there were any more other responses after the US long weekend.

My view is that it is not possible to perform the clean separation you
propose with 2', since it's not clear to me where any expertise I may
ever have had might be more useful.  My most recent relevant
experiences at the IETF seem to me to do with the details of how we
operate as a group as much as with wire details, and since we don't
really have different processes for dealing with one of these or the
other it's not even clear to me when we might jump the track from one
"kind" of issue to the other.  So I think 2' would have to boil down
to 2 anyway.  But I am not convinced that 2 is the right answer:
 
> Basically, you as CEO hold a lot of our purse strings, and also appoint the
> Nomcom chair and manage the ISOC's part of the appeals process.

It is true that I (and I alone) appoint the nomcom chair, and would
appoint the chair of any recall committee if we ever ran that process
through.  I do not hold the purse strings, however: the IETF LLC is
funded in part by allocations that are made by the Internet Society
Board of Trustees, and I do not have a vote in such decisions (though
I cheerfully concede that I likely have some influence).  The only
role I have in any appeal that might make it to the ISOC BoT, as far
as I can tell, is basically secretarial: "The President of the
Internet Society shall acknowledge such an appeal within two weeks,
and shall at the time of acknowledgment advise the petitioner of the
expected duration of the Trustees' review of the appeal."

> moral authority and possibly the legitimacy of some of the decisions, or so
> I would think.

Given the above responsibilities, it's hard for me to know which
legitimacy might be affected.

> problem than have to come up with a cure later.  As of this point you might
> have to recuse yourself from any of the subjects on which you've commented
> if they become part of an appeals process.

Since I cannot vote on any appeal, I also cannot recuse myself from
voting.

> termination), posting as an individual is probably not actually posting as
> an individual and constrain my postings appropriately.

Given the other comments I received on this topic, both on- and
off-list, I respectfully thank you for this advice, but have decided
to pursue a policy more in keeping with the one I posted last March.
That is, when I think there is something I have to offer, which I
expect to be rare, then I will offer it as an individual under the
prevailing Internet Society policy on the matter.  If there is a
policy to announce (like this), I will do so in my ISOC role.  I
believe that this explicit attention to which hat someone is wearing
has served our community well historically, and it is something many
of us find we have to do more or less often.  I'd prefer not to create
very different expectations for someone in this or that role.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
[email-masked]
+1 517 885 3587

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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2019 00:33:21 +0300

FWIW, I would very much like to hear from Andrew when he has things to say. As well as hear from others, of course, like Mike for instance.

If there’s any kind of (substance, style or role) issue in anyone’s comments in any specific discussion, we can debate it at that point. And at times have :-)

It is even possible that in some cases such debates have caused us to learn something and improve our subsequent discussions. Or that we improved how we react to discussions. Of course, I think there’s room still for getting to even more productive and polite discourse at the IETF. But I very much would like to have an IETF where we a priori welcome all relevant discussion. And we certainly shouldn’t be blocking someone because they have a hat, like Andrew often has :-) 

Jari

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2019 10:56:58 +1200

Writing as (long time) ex-Chair of the ISOC Board, I have one little comment:

> Since I cannot vote on any appeal, I also cannot recuse myself from

True; and if the Board so wished, they could go into executive session
and ask the President/CEO to leave the discussion, if they felt there
was any reason to do so. That's an advantage of having a Chair of the
Board who is not the President/CEO.

Writing as just me:

> FWIW, I would very much like to hear from Andrew when he has things to say. As well as hear from others, of course, like Mike for instance.

I fully agree.

    Brian

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2019 20:18:36 -0400

> very different expectations for someone in this or that role.

Thanks for the response.  Mike