wdiff rfc8318.original rfc8318.txt

IESG
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Dawkins
Internet-Draft
Request for Comments: 8318 Wonder Hamster
BCP: 10 January 2018
Updates: 7437 (if approved) September 2, 2017
Intended status:
Category: Best Current Practice
Expires: March 6, 2018
ISSN: 2070-1721

IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process:
IAOC Advisor for the Nominating Committee
draft-dawkins-iesg-nomcom-advisor-iaoc-03.txt

Abstract

This specification formalizes an ad hoc practice used to provide
advice to the IETF Nominating Committee (NomCom) about the operations
of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee. Committee (IAOC).

This document updates RFC 7437.

Status of This Memo

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This Internet-Draft will expire on March 6, 2018.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8318.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Discussion Venue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Background on 'IAOC Liaisons' to Nominating Committees . . . 2
4.
3. BCP Text Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4.1.
3.1. Change to Section 4.3, 4.3 of RFC 7437, 'Structure' . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5.
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6.
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8.
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Appendix A. Discussion Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4
A.1. Why is this Is This Role an Advisor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4
A.2. Why is this Is This Role not Not a Liaison? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A.3. Why is this Is This Role not required Not Required to be Be a Sitting IAOC
Member? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6
A.4. Why Does the Nominating Committee Request an IAOC
Advisor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1. Introduction

This specification formalizes an ad hoc practice used to provide
advice to the IETF Nominating Committee (NomCom) about the operations
of the
IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) IAOC (described in [RFC4071]).

This document updates [RFC7437].

2. Discussion Venue

Please direct questions and comments

Proposed future changes to the IETF Discussion mailing
list, at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf.

Please note that background on discussion points that have come up
previously BCP 10 should be discussed on the public
IETF Nomcom NomCom discussion mailing list, at
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom, during review is
provided in Appendix A.

3.
<https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom>.

2. Background on 'IAOC Liaisons' to Nominating Committees

When RFC 7437 [RFC7437] was approved, it explicitly charged the
Nominating Committee
nominating committee with selecting and reviewing certain members of
the IAOC. However, [RFC7437] did not provide for the IAOC to send a
liaison to the Nominating Committee. nominating committee.

This was not thought to be an obstacle, obstacle because [RFC7437] allowed any
committee member to propose a liaison from the IAOC:

Any committee member may propose the addition of a liaison from
other unrepresented organizations to participate in some or all of
the deliberations of the committee. The addition must be approved
by the committee according to its established voting mechanism.
Liaisons participate as representatives of their respective
organizations.

Beginning in 2010, the IAOC provided a liaison to each Nominating
Committee. nominating
committee. In 2016, the IAOC did not provide a liaison because the
Nominating Committee
nominating committee was not appointing an IAOC member. The previous
Nominating Committee
nominating committee had filled a mid-term vacancy, using vacancy (using the process
described in Section 3.5. of [RFC7437], [RFC7437]) by appointing an IAOC member
for a term longer than two years. In 2017, the NomCom was selecting
an IAOC member, but the opportunity to request a liaison from the
IAOC was overlooked, because because this practice wasn't part of the
documented process in [RFC7437].

This specification adds the previously ad hoc role to [RFC7437], [RFC7437] so
that future Nominating Committees nominating committees will be less likely to overlook it.

Although past ad hoc practice has characterized this role as a
"liaison", this specification labels the role as an "advisor". The
rationale for this change in nomenclature is provided in
Appendix A.1.

3. BCP Text Changes

This section provides the updated BCP text for [RFC7437].

For each OLD text selection, NEW text is provided that replaces the
OLD text in [RFC7437].

4.1.

3.1. Change to Section 4.3, 4.3 of RFC 7437, 'Structure'

OLD

Any committee member may propose the addition of an advisor to
participate in some or all of the deliberations of the committee.
The addition must be approved by the committee according to its
established voting mechanism. Advisors participate as
individuals.

NEW

Committee members are encouraged to propose the addition of an
advisor who is knowledgeable about the operations of the IAOC,
whether or not that Nominating Committee nominating committee is reviewing an IAOC
position. The Nominating Committee nominating committee may choose to ask the IAOC to
suggest an advisor who is knowledgeable about IAOC operations, operations but
may select any advisor they vote to approve.

4. Security Considerations

This document updates an IETF process BCP and has no direct Internet
security implications.

5. IANA Considerations

This document makes no requests of IANA, and the RFC Editor can
safely remove this section during publication.

7. Acknowledgements

Thanks to Adrian Farrel, Alissa Cooper, Andy Malis, Alvaro Retana,
Joel Halpern, John Klensin, Leslie Daigle, Michael Richardson, Robert
Sparks, Russ Housley, S. Moonesamy, Scott Bradner, Stephen Farrell,
and Ted Hardie for providing feedback on early versions of this
document.

Joel Halpern (2009/2010 past Chair/advisor) and Michael Richardson
(2014-2015 Chair) are especially appreciated, because only a few
people can provide a Nominating Committee Chair's perspective on how
useful representation from the IAOC has been in practice.

8. no IANA actions.

6. Normative References

[RFC4071] Austein, R., Ed. and B. Wijnen, Ed., "Structure of the
IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA)", BCP 101,
RFC 4071, DOI 10.17487/RFC4071, April 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4071>.

[RFC7437] Kucherawy, M., Ed., "IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection,
Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the
Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 7437,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7437, January 2015, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7437>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7437>.

Appendix A. Discussion Points

This section preserves discussions and explanations that came up
during document discussions. Ordinarily, this section might be
deleted during the evaluation process, but some questions came up
repeatedly and consistently,
repeatedly, so the editor plans to leave has included them for anyone who also
shares those questions.

A.1. Why is this Is This Role an Advisor?

The editor of this document briefly considered proposing a new and
IAOC-specific role to [RFC7437], [RFC7437] but considered such a proposal to be
complex. Anticipating every corner case in IETF process BCPs is
challenging and error-prone, prone to error, and as this specification was being
written, the IETF Chair was sponsoring a design team reviewing all
aspects of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA), so (IASA).
Therefore, the structure and membership of the IAOC itself could
change in the near future. Instead, the specification describes how
the Nominating
Committee nominating committee requests advisors, building advisors and builds on mature text
that has survived many Nominating Committee nominating committee cycles.

After choosing to reuse existing roles defined in [RFC7437], the
definition of Advisor "advisor" in Section 4.9 of [RFC7437] seemed
appropriate.

An advisor is responsible for such duties as specified by the
invitation that resulted in the appointment.

Advisors do not vote on the selection of candidates.

The position described in this specification could be filled by an
advisor who would be a non-voting member of the Nominating Committee, nominating committee,
who is knowledgeable about the operations of the IAOC, with and who has
duties that could evolve over time as the IAOC itself evolves.

The only difference between this advisor that requires an update to
[RFC7437] and
[RFC7437], and any other advisor is that committee members are
explicitly encouraged to suggest that this advisor be appointed, appointed as
described in this specification. The text updating [RFC7437] is
found in Section 4. 3.

A.2. Why is this Is This Role not Not a Liaison?

Discussions on the IETF-Nomcom IETF NomCom mailing list led to the recognition
that "liaison" was not the best description of this role.

The role of liaison defined in [RFC7437], Section 4.7 of [RFC7437] places some
significant obligations on liaisons that aren't beyond what is necessary for
Nominating Committee
someone to ask answer questions and get answers from the nominating committee about the IAOC
that come up in deliberations.
IAOC. These obligations include the following:

o Liaisons are responsible for ensuring the nominating committee in
general and the Chair in particular execute their assigned duties
in the best interests interest of the IETF community.

o Liaisons from the IESG, IAB, and Internet Society Board of
Trustees (if one was is appointed) are expected to review the
operation and executing execution process of the nominating committee and to
report any concerns or issues to the Chair of the nominating
committee immediately. If they can not cannot resolve the issue between
themselves, liaisons must report it according to the dispute
resolution process stated elsewhere in this document.

o Liaisons may have other nominating committee responsibilities as
required by their respective organizations or requested by the
nominating committee, except that committee; such responsibilities may not conflict with
any other provisions of this document.

Finally, as mentioned in [RFC7437],Section 4.6, Section 4.6 of [RFC7437], all of the
liaisons are included in the pool of people who are eligible to be
selected as a replacement for a Chair.

There are a variety of ordinary circumstances that may arise from
time to time that could result in a Chair being unavailable to
oversee the activities of the committee. The Chair, in
consultation with the Internet Society President, may appoint a
substitute from a pool comprised of the liaisons currently serving
on the committee and the prior year's Chair or designee.

Note: During discussion of this specification, we noted that any
liaison would be part of the pool of potential substitute
Nominating Committee chairs. nominating
committee Chairs. It wasn't clear to the people in the discussion that making participants
whether there was an intentional decision to make liaisons who are voted onto
the Nominating nominating committee eligible to be substitute Chairs is intentional. Chairs. That
potential change is out of scope for this specification, specification but may be a
conversation worth having separately.

All of these obligations are important, but there are always at least
two full liaisons from the confirming bodies that are already
responsible for those responsibilities. It is simply not necessary
to make the job of helping Nominating Committee the nominating committee understand the
role and operational practices of the IAOC more demanding than it
must be.

So, requiring the IAOC to name a formal liaison to the Nominating
Committee nominating
committee isn't justified.

A.3. Why is this Is This Role not required Not Required to be Be a Sitting IAOC Member?

In addition to the reasons given in Section Appendix A.2, the requirement
that the IAB and IESG liaisons to the Nominating
Committee nominating committee be sitting
members of the organizations they represent, whose positions are not
being reviewed by this Nominating Committee, nominating committee, is especially
challenging for the IAOC.

Because so many

Many IAOC positions are filled by members who are already members of
IETF leadership who and are subject to review by the
Nominating Committee, nominating
committee. This means that limiting an IAOC liaison to one of the
sitting members would mean that in some years, years the only individuals
eligible to serve as liaison for the person who was nominating committee would be
sitting members of the IAOC that a) were appointed by the previous Nominating Committee
nominating committee and are not being reviewed by this Nominating Committee, and the person who was current nominating
committee, or b) were appointed by the IAB or IESG and are not being
reviewed by the IAB/IESG, would be eligible
sitting members of the IAOC who could serve as a liaison for the
Nominating Committee. current IAB or IESG. "Eligible" does not also mean
"willing and able to serve", so it is not impossible possible that in some years, an IAOC might
find itself with no sitting member to send as advisor. advisor in some years.

Although all IAOC liaisons to the Nominating Committee nominating committee have served as
sitting members of the IAOC, given 10 years of IAOC operation, this
specification assumes that other members of the community have
sufficent experience to provide guidance if the IAOC chooses to
suggest such a person. If any given IAOC thought that was important,
they could certainly continue to suggest sitting members, but if no
sitting member was willing and able to serve, the IAOC would be free
to do the next best thing, thing and would likely be the best qualiified qualified
group to decide who to send.

A.4. Why Does the Nominating Committee Request an IAOC Advisor?

This specification could have described the mechanism in one of two
ways.
ways:

o The the IAOC could simply provide the name of the advisor to the
Nominating Committee,
nominating committee, or

o The Nominating Committee the nominating committee could request the name of an advisor from
the IAOC.

Either choice could work. The reason that this specification chose
to have the Nominating Committee nominating committee make the first move is that this is
more similar to the way other advisors to the Nominating Committee nominating committee
are selected, except that the Nominating Committee nominating committee is asking the IAOC
for a suggestion before inviting the advisor to join the Nominating
Committee. nominating
committee.

The suggestion is, in fact fact, a suggestion, and suggestion; the Nominating Committee nominating committee
still votes to invite this advisor, advisor as they would vote to invite any
advisor, as described in [RFC7437], Section 4.3. 4.3 of [RFC7437].

Acknowledgements

The input provided by Joel Halpern (2008-2009 nominating committee
Chair) and Michael Richardson (2014-2015 nominating committee Chair)
is especially appreciated because only a few people can provide a
nominating committee Chair's perspective on how useful representation
from the IAOC has been in practice.

Author's Address

Spencer Dawkins
Wonder Hamster Internetworking LLC

Email: spencerdawkins.ietf@gmail.com