RFC 8318

IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: IAOC Advisor for the Nominating Committee

📅 published January 2018, from ietf

RFC 8318: IAB, IESG, and IAOC Selection, Confirmation, and Recall Process: IAOC Advisor for the Nominating Committee 💖

okay so bestie, here's the deets 🎀

  • Number: RFC 8318
  • Author: S. Dawkins, Wonder Hamster 🐹
  • Category: Best Current Practice (it's BCP 10 🌈)
  • Date: January 2018 📅
  • Updates: RFC 7437 🔁
  • Obsoletes: none listed
  • ISSN: 2070-1721 ✨
  • Stream: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 🦋

Abstract ✨

okay so this spec makes official something the IETF had been doing unofficially 💅 It's about giving advice to the IETF Nominating Committee (NomCom) about how the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) runs. Lowkey iconic that they finally wrote it down 📝

This document updates RFC 7437. 🔁

Status of This Memo 🫶

This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice. 🌸

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841. 💜

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8318. 🦋

Copyright (c) 2018 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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
2.  Background on 'IAOC Liaisons' to Nominating Committees  . . .   3
3.  BCP Text Changes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
  3.1.  Change to Section 4.3 of RFC 7437, 'Structure'  . . . . .   4
4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
6.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
Appendix A.  Discussion Points  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
  A.1.  Why Is This Role an Advisor?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
  A.2.  Why Is This Role Not a Liaison? . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
  A.3.  Why Is This Role Not Required to Be a Sitting IAOC
        Member? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
  A.4.  Why Does the Nominating Committee Request an IAOC
        Advisor?  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1. Introduction 🎀

okay so this spec puts the IAOC's nominating committee liaison role into the rulebook, aka it formalizes an ad hoc practice used to advise the NomCom about how the IAOC (described in [RFC4071]) operates. 🧚

This document updates [RFC7437]. 🔁

Future changes to BCP 10 should be discussed on the public IETF NomCom discussion mailing list, at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nomcom. 💌

2. Background on 'IAOC Liaisons' to Nominating Committees 🌸

so when RFC 7437 [RFC7437] got approved, it explicitly gave the nominating committee the job of selecting and reviewing certain IAOC members. 💅 But it did NOT include a way for the IAOC to send a liaison to the nominating committee. 🙈

Nobody thought this was a problem, bc [RFC7437] let any committee member propose a liaison from the IAOC. Here's the exact text, bestie:

   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.

The timeline is kinda messy 😭 Starting in 2010, the IAOC gave each nominating committee a liaison. In 2016 it didn't, because that NomCom wasn't appointing an IAOC member. The previous NomCom had filled a mid-term vacancy (using the process in Section 3.5. of [RFC7437]) by appointing an IAOC member for a term longer than two years. Then in 2017, the NomCom was picking an IAOC member, but nobody remembered to request an IAOC liaison, because that practice wasn't in the documented process in [RFC7437]. Oops 🙃

So this spec adds the previously ad hoc role to [RFC7437], so future nominating committees are less likely to forget about it. ✨

Lowkey the biggest plot twist: even though past practice called this role a "liaison," this spec calls it an "advisor" 🦋 The reasons are in Appendix A.1. 💖

3. BCP Text Changes 💜

This section gives the updated BCP text for [RFC7437]. 📝

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

3.1. Change to Section 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:

   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.

   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 is reviewing an IAOC
   position.  The nominating committee may choose to ask the IAOC to
   suggest an advisor who is knowledgeable about IAOC 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 has no IANA actions. ✨

6. Normative References 📚

Appendix A. Discussion Points 🎀

okay so this section keeps the discussions and explanations from the document discussions 💬 The editor usually would delete this in evaluation, but some questions kept coming up, so they stayed in for anyone with the same questions. 🫶

A.1. Why Is This Role an Advisor? 🦋

The editor briefly thought about proposing a new IAOC-specific role to [RFC7437], but decided it was too complex. Predicting every corner case in IETF process BCPs is hard and error-prone 😵‍💫 Also, while this spec was being written, the IETF Chair was sponsoring a design team reviewing all aspects of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA), so the IAOC's structure and membership could change soon. So instead, the spec describes how the nominating committee requests advisors and builds on mature text that has survived many nominating committee cycles. 💅

After deciding to reuse existing roles defined in [RFC7437], the definition of "advisor" in Section 4.9 of [RFC7437] seemed right:

   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 in this spec could be filled by an advisor who is a non-voting member of the nominating committee, knows the IAOC's operations well, and has duties that could change over time as the IAOC changes. 🌸

The only thing that makes this advisor different from any other advisor, and so needs an update to [RFC7437], is that committee members are explicitly encouraged to suggest that this advisor be appointed as described in this specification. The text updating [RFC7437] is in Section 3. ✨

A.2. Why Is This Role Not a Liaison? 💅

Okay so, discussions on the IETF NomCom mailing list led to the realization that "liaison" wasn't the best word for this role 🤔✨

The role of liaison defined in Section 4.7 of [RFC7437] comes with some pretty big obligations, way more than what someone needs to answer the nominating committee's questions about the IAOC 😭 These include the following:

  • Liaisons are responsible for ensuring the nominating committee in general and the Chair in particular execute their assigned duties in the best interest of the IETF community. 🫶
  • Liaisons from the IESG, IAB, and Internet Society Board of Trustees (if one is appointed) are expected to review the operation and execution process of the nominating committee and to report any concerns or issues to the Chair of the nominating committee immediately. If they cannot resolve the issue between themselves, liaisons must report it according to the dispute resolution process stated elsewhere in this document. 🔥
  • Liaisons may have other nominating committee responsibilities as required by their respective organizations or requested by the nominating committee; such responsibilities may not conflict with any other provisions of this document. 💜

Finally, as mentioned in 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. It wasn't clear to the discussion participants whether there was an intentional decision to make liaisons voted onto the nominating committee eligible to be substitute Chairs. That potential change is out of scope for this 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 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 isn't justified. Nope, not doing that. 🙅‍♀️

A.3. Why Is This Role Not Required to Be a Sitting IAOC Member? 🌷

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

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

Although all IAOC liaisons to the 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 sufficient 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 and would likely be the best 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:

  • the IAOC could simply provide the name of the advisor to the nominating committee, or
  • 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 make the first move is that this is more similar to the way other advisors to the nominating committee are selected, except that the nominating committee is asking the IAOC for a suggestion before inviting the advisor to join the nominating committee. ✨

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

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 draft versions of this document. You all are iconic. 🌈👑

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

📦 where this page comes from