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Additional Criteria for Nominating Committee Eligibility
draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8989.
Authors Brian E. Carpenter , Stephen Farrell
Last updated 2020-10-13
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Stream WG state (None)
Document shepherd Bron Gondwana
IESG IESG state Became RFC 8989 (Experimental)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Alissa Cooper
Send notices to Bron Gondwana <brong@fastmailteam.com>
draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06
Network Working Group                                     B.E. Carpenter
Internet-Draft                                         Univ. of Auckland
Intended status: Experimental                                 S. Farrell
Expires: 16 April 2021                            Trinity College Dublin
                                                         13 October 2020

        Additional Criteria for Nominating Committee Eligibility
                 draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06

Abstract

   This document defines a process experiment under RFC 3933 that
   temporarily updates the criteria for qualifying volunteers to
   participate in the IETF Nominating Committee.  It therefore also
   updates the criteria for qualifying signatories to a community recall
   petition.  The purpose is to make the criteria more flexible in view
   of increasing remote participation in the IETF and a reduction in
   face-to-face meetings.  The experiment is of fixed duration and will
   apply to one, or at most two, Nominating Committee cycles.  This
   document temporarily varies the rules in RFC 8713.

Discussion Venues

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the ad hoc mailing list
   (eligibility-discuss@ietf.org), which is archived at
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/eligibility-discuss/
   (https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/eligibility-discuss/).

   Source for this draft can be found at https://github.com/sftcd/elig
   (https://github.com/sftcd/elig).

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 April 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Term and Evaluation of the Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Criteria  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.1.  Clarifying Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Omitted Criteria  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Appendix A.  Available data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Appendix B.  Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     B.1.  Draft-05 to -06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     B.2.  Draft-04 to -05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     B.3.  Draft-03 to -04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     B.4.  Draft-02 to -03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     B.5.  Draft-01 to -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     B.6.  Draft-00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8

1.  Introduction

   According to [RFC8713], the IETF Nominating Committee is populated
   from a pool of volunteers with a specified record of attendance at
   IETF plenary meetings, assumed when that document was approved to be
   face-to-face meetings.  In view of the cancellation of the IETF 107,
   108, 109 and 110 face-to-face meetings, the risk of future
   cancellations, the probability of less frequent face-to-face meetings
   in future in support of sustainability, and a general increase in
   remote participation, this document defines a process experiment

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   [RFC3933] of fixed duration (described in Section 2) to use modified
   and additional criteria to qualify volunteers.

   Also according to [RFC8713], the qualification for signing a
   community petition for the recall of certain IETF office-holders is
   that same as for the Nominating Committee.  This document does not
   change that.

2.  Term and Evaluation of the Experiment

   The cancellation of the in-person IETF 107 through 110 meetings means
   that the current criteria are in any case seriously perturbed for the
   next two years.  The experiment therefore needs to start as soon as
   possible.  However, the experiment did not apply to the selection of
   the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee, which was performed according to
   [RFC8788].

   The experiment will initially cover the IETF Nominating Committee
   cycle starting in 2021.  As soon as the 2021-2022 Nominating
   Committee is seated, the IESG must consult the current and previous
   Nominating Committee chairs and publish a report on the results of
   the experiment.  Points to be considered are whether the experiment
   has produced a sufficiently large and diverse pool of individuals,
   and whether enough of those individuals have volunteered to produce a
   representative Nominating Committee with good knowledge of the IETF.

   The IESG must then also begin a community discussion of whether to:

   1.  Amend [RFC8713] in time for the 2022 Nominating Committee cycle;
       or

   2.  Prolong the current experiment for a second year; or

   3.  Run a different experiment for the next nominating cycle; or

   4.  Revert to [RFC8713].

   The IESG will determine and announce the consensus of this discussion
   in good time for the 2022 Nominating Committee cycle to commence.

3.  Goals

   The goals of the modified and additional criteria are as follows:

   *  Mitigate the issue of active remote (or rarely in-person)
      participants being disenfranchised in the NomCom and recall
      processes.

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   *  Prepare for an era in which face-to-face plenary meetings are less
      frequent (thus extending the issue to many, perhaps a majority, of
      participants).

   *  Ensure that those eligible are true "participants" with enough
      current understanding of IETF practices and people to make
      informed decisions.

   *  The criteria must be algorithmic so that the Secretariat can check
      them mechanically against available data.

4.  Criteria

   There will be several alternative paths to qualification, replacing
   the single criterion in section 4.14 of [RFC8713].  Any one of the
   paths is sufficient, unless the person is otherwise disqualified
   under section 4.15 of [RFC8713]:

   *  Path 1: The person has registered for and attended 3 out of the
      last 5 IETF meetings.  For meetings held entirely online, online
      registration and attendance counts as attendance.  For the
      2021-2022 Nominating Committee, the meetings concerned will be
      IETF 106, 107, 108, 109, and 110.

   *  Path 2: Has been a WG Chair or Secretary within the last 3 years.

   *  Path 3: Has been a listed author of at least 2 IETF stream RFCs
      within the last 5 years.  An Internet-Draft that has been approved
      by the IESG and is in the RFC Editor queue counts.

   Notes:

   *  Path 1 corresponds approximately to [RFC8713], modified as per
      [RFC8788].

   *  Path 3 extends to 5 years because it commonly takes 3 or 4 years
      for new documents to be approved in the IETF stream, so 3 years
      would be too short a sampling period.

4.1.  Clarifying Detail

   Path 1 does not qualify people who register and attend face-to-face
   meetings remotely.  That is, it does not qualify remote attendees at
   IETF 106, because that meeting took place prior to any question of
   cancelling meetings, so the rules of [RFC8713] apply.

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   If the IESG prolongs this experiment for a second year, as allowed by
   Section 2, the IESG will also clarify how Path 1 applies to IETF 111,
   112 and 113.

5.  Omitted Criteria

   Certain criteria were rejected as not truly indicating effective IETF
   participation, or as being unlikely to significantly expand the
   volunteer pool.  These included authorship of individual or WG-
   adopted Internet-Drafts, sending email to IETF lists, reviewing
   drafts, acting as a BOF Chair, and acting in an external role for the
   IETF (liaisons etc.).

   One path, service in the IESG or IAB within the last 5 years, was
   found to have no benefit since historical data show that such people
   always appear to be qualified by another path.

   Since the criteria must be measurable by the Secretariat, no
   qualitative evaluation of an individual's contributions is
   considered.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.

7.  Security Considerations

   This document should not affect the security of the Internet.

8.  Acknowledgements

   Useful comments were received from Alissa Cooper, Adrian Farrel, Bron
   Gondwana, John Klensin, Warren Kumari, Eric Rescorla, Michael
   Richardson, Rich Salz, and Martin Thomson.

   The data analysis was mainly done by Robert Sparks.

9.  Normative References

   [RFC3933]  Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
              Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, DOI 10.17487/RFC3933,
              November 2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3933>.

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   [RFC8713]  Kucherawy, M., Ed., Hinden, R., Ed., and J. Livingood,
              Ed., "IAB, IESG, IETF Trust, and IETF LLC Selection,
              Confirmation, and Recall Process: Operation of the IETF
              Nominating and Recall Committees", BCP 10, RFC 8713,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8713, February 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8713>.

   [RFC8788]  Leiba, B., "Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating
              Committee", BCP 10, RFC 8788, DOI 10.17487/RFC8788, May
              2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8788>.

Appendix A.  Available data

   An analysis of how some of the above criteria would affect the number
   of NomCom-qualified participants if applied in August 2020 has been
   performed.  The results are presented below in Venn diagrams as
   Figure 1 to Figure 4.  Note that the numbers shown differ slightly
   from manual counts due to database mismatches, and the results were
   not derived at the normal time of the year for NomCom formation.  The
   remote attendee lists for IETF 107 and 108 were used, although not
   yet available on the IETF web site.

   A specific difficulty is that the databases involved inevitably
   contain a few inconsistencies such as duplicate entries, differing
   versions of a person's name, and impersonal authors.  (For example,
   "IAB" qualifies under Path 3, and one actual volunteer artificially
   appears not to qualify.)  This underlines that automatically
   generated lists of eligible and qualified people will always require
   manual checking.

   The first two diagrams illustrate how the new paths (2 and 3) affect
   eligibility numbers compared to the meeting participation path (1).
   Figure 1 gives the raw numbers, and Figure 2 removes those
   disqualified according to RFC 8713.  The actual 2020 volunteer pool
   is shown too.

   Figure 3 and Figure 4 illustrate how the new paths (2 and 3) interact
   with each other, also before and after disqualifications.  The
   discarded path via IESG and IAB service is also shown, as path "I".

Diagrams will be at
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06.html

             Figure 1: All paths, before disqualification

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Diagrams will be at
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06.html

             Figure 2: All paths, after disqualification

Diagrams will be at
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06.html

             Figure 3: New paths, before disqualification

Diagrams will be at
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-carpenter-eligibility-expand-06.html

             Figure 4: New paths, after disqualification

Appendix B.  Change Log

   This section is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

B.1.  Draft-05 to -06

   *  Allowed for IETF 110 decision

   *  Resolved open issue

   *  Removed "future work" section

   *  Editorial improvements

B.2.  Draft-04 to -05

   *  Adjusted criteria according to comments received

   *  Removed previous path 3

   *  Renumbered paths

   *  Updated diagrams

   *  Editorial improvements

B.3.  Draft-03 to -04

   *  Adjusted criteria according to comments received

   *  Shortened period to one year (initially)

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   *  Renumbered paths

   *  Updated diagrams

   *  Editorial improvements

B.4.  Draft-02 to -03

   *  Adjusted criteria according to comments received

   *  Added data

B.5.  Draft-01 to -02

   *  Made this an RFC 3933 process experiment

   *  Eliminated path based on directorate reviews, used to be: "Has
      submitted at least 6 reviews as a member of an official IETF
      review team within the last 3 years."

   *  Other comments from IETF107 virtual gendispatch meeting handled

B.6.  Draft-00 to -01

   *  Added author

Authors' Addresses

   Brian E. Carpenter
   The University of Auckland
   School of Computer Science
   PB 92019
   Auckland 1142
   New Zealand

   Email: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com

   Stephen Farrell
   Trinity College Dublin
   College Green
   Dublin
   Ireland

   Email: stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie

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