INTERNET-DRAFT S. Moonesamy, Ed. Updates: 3777 (if approved) Intended Status: Best Current Practice Expires: February 5, 2012 August 4, 2012 The Nominating Committee Process: Selection of volunteers draft-moonesamy-nomcom-selection-01 Abstract RFC 3777 specifies the process by which members of the Internet Architecture Board, Internet Engineering Steering Group and IETF Administrative Oversight Committee are selected, confirmed, and recalled. This document updates RFC 3777 to increase the number of volunteers who are eligible to serve on NomCom and to increase the selection of volunteers having different primary affiliations. It also makes some updates to include the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html Copyright and License Notice Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 1] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Updated Text from RFC 3777 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4 IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 2] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 1 Introduction RFC 3777 [RFC3777] specifies the process by which members of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) are selected, confirmed, and recalled. The Nominating Committee Selection is the process by which volunteers who will serve on the committee (NomCom) are recognized. A random selection of volunteers is used to ensure that the selection is unbiased [RFC3797]. One of the rules for eligibility to serve on NomCom is that volunteers must have attended at least three of the last five IETF meetings in order to volunteer. Previously, a large number of meetings were held in North America. There has been a change in the selection of meeting venues in 2012 as there is a willingness to consider locations outside North America. Volunteers familiar with the IETF processes and procedures end up not being eligible to serve on NomCom if they cannot attend the third of the last five last IETF meetings. Over the last few years a small number of large sponsors for IETF participants have provided a disproportionate number of NomCom volunteers. Since 2010 there has been several occurrences where two volunteers with the same primary affiliation were selected for the nominating committee. This document updates RFC 3777 [RFC3777] to increase the number of volunteers who are eligible to serve on NomCom and to increase the selection of volunteers having different primary affiliations. It also makes some updates to include the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee. 2. Updated Text from RFC 3777 RFC 3777 [RFC3777], Section 1, "Introduction", Paragraph 11, is replaced as follows: Member Recall: This is the process by which the behavior of a sitting member of the IESG, IAB or IAOC may be questioned, perhaps resulting in the removal of the sitting member. Section 2, "Definitions", Paragraph 5 and 6, are replaced as follows: nominee: A person who is being or has been considered for one or more open positions of the IESG, IAB or IAOC. sitting member: A person who is currently serving a term of membership in the IESG, IAB, IAOC or ISOC Board of Trustees. S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 3] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 Section 3, "General", Paragraph 10 and 11, are replaced as follows: The principal functions of the nominating committee are to review each open IESG, IAB and IAOC position and to either nominate its incumbent or a superior candidate. Although there is no term limit for serving in any IESG, IAB or IAOC position, the nominating committee may use length of service as one of its criteria for evaluating an incumbent. Section 3, "General", Bullet 7, is replaced as follows: Unless otherwise specified, the advice and consent model is used throughout the process. This model is characterized as follows. 1. The IETF Executive Director informs the nominating committee of the IESG, IAB and IAOC positions to be reviewed. The IESG, IAB and IAOC are responsible for providing summary of the expertise desired of the candidates selected for their respective open positions to the Executive Director. The summaries are provided to the nominating committee for its consideration. 2. The nominating committee selects candidates based on its understanding of the IETF community's consensus of the qualifications required and advises each confirming body of its respective candidates. 3. The confirming bodies review their respective candidates, they may at their discretion communicate with the nominating committee, and then consent to some, all, or none of the candidates. The sitting IESG members review IAOC candidates. The sitting IAB members review the IESG candidates. The Internet Society Board of Trustees reviews the IAB candidates. The confirming bodies conduct their review using all information and any means acceptable to them, including but not limited to the supporting information provided by the nominating committee, information known personally to members of the confirming bodies and shared within the confirming body, the results of interactions within the confirming bodies, and the confirming bodies interpretation of what is in the best S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 4] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 interests of the IETF community. If all of the candidates are confirmed, the job of the nominating committee with respect to those open positions is complete. If some or none of the candidates submitted to a confirming body are confirmed, the confirming body should communicate with the nominating committee both to explain the reason why all the candidates were not confirmed and to understand the nominating committee's rationale for its candidates. The confirming body may reject individual candidates, in which case the nominating committee must select alternate candidates for the rejected candidates. Any additional time required by the nominating committee should not exceed its maximum time allotment. 4. A confirming body decides whether it confirms each candidate using a confirmation decision rule chosen by the confirming body. If a confirming body has no specific confirmation decision rule, then confirming a given candidate should require at least one-half of the confirming body's sitting members to agree to that confirmation. The decision may be made by conducting a formal vote, by asserting consensus based on informal exchanges (e.g., email), or by any other mechanism that is used to conduct the normal business of the confirming body. Regardless of which decision rule the confirming body uses, any candidate that is not confirmed under that rule is considered to be rejected. The confirming body must make its decision within a reasonable time frame. The results from the confirming body must be reported promptly to the nominating committee. Section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", Rule 7, is replaced as follows: Liaisons are responsible for ensuring the nominating committee in general and the Chair in particular execute their assigned duties in the best interests of the IETF community. S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 5] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 Liaisons are expected to represent the views of their respective organizations during the deliberations of the committee. They should provide information as requested or when they believe it would be helpful to the committee. Liaisons from the IESG, IAB and IAOC are expected to provide information to the nominating committee regarding the operation, responsibility, and composition of their respective bodies. Liaisons are expected to convey questions from the committee to their respective organizations and responses to those questions to the committee, as requested by the committee. Liaisons from the IESG, IAB, IAOC, and Internet Society Board of Trustees (if one was appointed) are expected to review the operation and executing process of the nominating committee and to report any concerns or issues to the Chair of the nominating committee immediately. If they can not resolve the issue between themselves, liaisons must report it according to the dispute resolution process stated elsewhere in this document. Liaisons from confirming bodies are expected to assist the committee in preparing the testimony it is required to provide with its candidates. Liaisons may have other nominating committee responsibilities as required by their respective organizations or requested by the nominating committee, except that such responsibilities may not conflict with any other provisions of this document. Liaisons do not vote on the selection of candidates. Section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", Rule 8, is replaced as follows: The sitting IAB, IESG and IAOC members each appoint a liaison from their current membership, someone who is not sitting in an open position, to serve on the nominating committee. Section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", Rule 14, is replaced as follows: Members of the IETF community must have attended at least three of the last six IETF meetings in order to volunteer. The six meetings are the six most recent meetings that ended prior to the date on which the solicitation for nominating committee volunteers was submitted for distribution to the IETF community. S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 6] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 The IETF Secretariat is responsible for confirming that volunteers have met the attendance requirement. Volunteers must provide their full name, email address, and primary company or organization affiliation (if any) when volunteering. Volunteers are expected to be familiar with the IETF processes and procedures, which are readily learned by active participation in a working group and especially by serving as a document editor or working group chair. Section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", Rule 15, is replaced as follows: Sitting members may not volunteer to serve on the nominating committee. Section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", Rule 16, is replaced as follows: The Chair announces both the list of the pool of volunteers from which the 10 voting volunteers will be randomly selected and the method with which the selection will be completed. The announcement should be made at least 1 week prior to the date on which the random selection will occur. The pool of volunteers must be enumerated or otherwise indicated according to the needs of the selection method to be used. The announcement must specify the data that will be used as input to the selection method. The method must depend on random data whose value is not known or available until the date on which the random selection will occur. It must be possible to independently verify that the selection method used is both fair and unbiased. A method is fair if each eligible volunteer is equally likely to be selected. A method is unbiased if no one can influence its outcome in favor of a specific outcome. It must be possible to repeat the selection method, either through iteration or by restarting in such a way as to remain fair and unbiased. This is necessary to replace selected volunteers should they become unavailable after selection. The selection method must produce an ordered list of volunteers. S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 7] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 One possible selection method is described in RFC 3797 [RFC3797]. Section 4, "Nominating Committee Selection", Rule 17, is replaced as follows: "The Chair randomly selects the ten voting volunteers from the pool of names of volunteers and announces the members of the nominating committee. No more than one volunteer with the same primary affiliation may be selected for the nominating committee. The Chair reviews the primary affiliation of each volunteer selected by the method in turn. If the primary affiliation for a volunteer is the same as previously selected volunteer, that volunteer is removed from consideration and the method is repeated to identify the next eligible volunteer. There must be at least two announcements of all members of the nominating committee. The first announcement should occur as soon after the random selection as is reasonable for the Chair. The community must have at least one week during which any member may challenge the results of the random selection. The challenge must be made in writing (email is acceptable) to the Chair. The Chair has 48 hours to review the challenge and offer a resolution to the member. If the resolution is not accepted by the member, that member may report the challenge according to the dispute resolution process stated elsewhere in this document. If a selected volunteer, upon reading the announcement with the list of selected volunteers, finds that two or more other volunteers have the same affiliation, then the volunteer should notify the Chair who will determine the appropriate action. During at least the one week challenge period the Chair must contact each of the members and confirm their willingness and availability to serve. The Chair should make every reasonable effort to contact each member. * If the Chair is unable to contact a liaison the problem is referred to the respective organization to resolve. The Chair should allow a reasonable amount of time for the organization to resolve the problem and then may proceed without the liaison. * If the Chair is unable to contact an advisor the Chair may S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 8] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 elect to proceed without the advisor, except for the prior year's Chair for whom the Chair must consult with the Internet Society President as stated elsewhere in this document. * If the Chair is unable to contact a voting volunteer the Chair must repeat the random selection process in order to replace the unavailable volunteer. There should be at least one day between the announcement of the iteration and the selection process. After at least one week and confirming that 10 voting volunteers are ready to serve, the Chair makes the second announcement of the members of the nominating committee, which officially begins the term of the nominating committee. S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 9] Internet-Draft NomCom Selection August 4, 2012 3 Security Considerations The document makes changes to the IETF process. These changes will not affect the security of the Internet. The IETF community depends on the honor and integrity of the participants to make the process work. Instead of defining "affiliation" this document encourages the volunteers not to cause any perception that their sponsors are "gaming" the system. 4 IANA Considerations This document does not require IANA to take any action. 5. Acknowledgements Most of text in this document is from RFC 3777 edited by James M. Galvin. Andrew G. Malis suggested loosening Rule 14 to six previous meetings as it is more likely for a volunteer to be familiar with the people that currently contribute to the IETF. 6 References 6.1 Normative References [RFC3777] Galvin, J., Ed., "IAB and IESG Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 3777, June 2004. 6.2 Informative References [RFC3797] Eastlake 3rd, D., "Publicly Verifiable Nominations Committee (NomCom) Random Selection", RFC 3797, June 2004. Authors' Addresses S. Moonesamy (editor) 76, Ylang Ylang Avenue Quatres Bornes Mauritius Email: sm+ietf@elandsys.com S. Moonesamy Expires February 5, 2013 [Page 10]