Re: [APPS-REVIEW] NOMCOM Reviews

[John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com>]

Eric,

I have to agree with Alexey, only more strongly.  The Nomcom is,
by custom if not explicit rules, entitled to ask for anything
IETF-related it wants and, subject to confidentiality rules, to
get it.  If anyone thinks that is unclear, please discuss it
with Spencer and the 3777 revision committee.

More important, it seems to me that asking specific people to
volunteer to offer advice to the Nomcom runs the risk of
distorting the process.  Joel has issued the usual, pro forma,
open invitation for anyone in the community to do that.  But the
design of the system permits the Nomcom to seek whatever advice
and comments it thinks it wants from anyone from whom it thinks
it wants it, and to discriminate about who it asks and who it
pays attention to in any way it wants to.  In my capacity as a
former political scientist who used to study election and
selection processes, I deplore the shift from "Nomcom has and
gathers knowledge and perspective" to "Nomcom turns into a
collector of polls that can then be counted and scored": the
system is just not designed to work that way and, if used that
way, will produce failures (and, IMO, has done so for some
roles).

If the Nomcom decides that you are worth asking for an opinion,
they should ask you.  If they want to ask your advice about who
else should be asked, that is a reasonable question that you
should decide how to answer.  But they should then evaluate your
answer, rather than blindly sending out questionnaires.  And, if
they need email addresses, either you should supply them or they
should get them from the Secretariat.

FWIW, I also believe that there has been a tendency toward
every-longer questionnaires and evaluation forms in the last few
years.  I think that is generally a bad idea for reasons easily
inferred from the above.  But it has one extra consequence:
especially for someone who may be asked about candidates for
more than one area, the length of time that proper responses
take may introduce a bias between those who are busy (presumably
with critical-path IETF work) and those who have too much time
on their hands, also creating an unfortunate type of
prioritization that is not under Nomcom control.   A different
way to say that is that the Nomcom, if it wants good
information, should be looking for a scalpel, not a shotgun.

     john

--On Tuesday, 21 October, 2008 07:11 -0400 Eric Burger
<eburger at standardstrack.com> wrote:

> Because NOMCOM doesn't have everyone's e-mail addresses, and
> the list owner was hesitant to just hand over your e-mail
> address for the purposes of NOMCOM when you gave it to me for
> the purposes of Apps-Review.
> 
> On Oct 21, 2008, at 7:07 AM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:
> 
>> Eric Burger wrote:
>> 
>>> Folks -
>>> 
>>> The IETF needs our help. It is NOMCOM time, and NOMCOM needs
>>>  input.  This is not a call for volunteers ("everyone take
>>> one step   back").  Rather, all you need to do is fill in
>>> some painless web   pages about  some of the nominees and
>>> some drones, so you may not   really know who  the nominees
>>> are.
>> 
>> While this is a very sensible request, I am confused. Why
>> doesn't   Nomcom send out direct requests to *all* people on
>> the apps review   team - the list is public?
>> 
>> Last year's Nomcom sent out requests to all people who chair
>> and/or   edit documents in Apps. I personally think it worked
>> last time.
>> 
>>> Being on the Apps-Review team is a sign of your superior  
>>> Applications  knowledge and knowledge of the IETF process.
>>> Please   help the IETF get  even better.  Send a note to
>>> Joel or nomcom at ietf.org  if you can help  out. It only takes
>>>  a few minutes (as opposed to a   2-year hard labor
>>> sentence if you were on the nominated side) to   help.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Eric
>> 
>> 
> 




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