2020 NomCom eligibility: Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee
Emergency interpretation of Nominating Committee eligibility rules when IETF 107 was cancelled.
Leiba, B., "Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee", RFC 8788, DOI 10.17487/RFC8788, May 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8788>.
@misc{rfc8788,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 8788,
howpublished = {RFC 8788},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC8788},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8788},
author = {B. Leiba},
title = {{Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee}},
pagetotal = 5,
year = 2020,
month = may,
} RFC text
Contents
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) B. Leiba
Request for Comments: 8788 FutureWei Technologies
BCP: 10 May 2020
Category: Best Current Practice
ISSN: 2070-1721
Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee
Abstract
The 2020-2021 Nominating Committee (NomCom) is to be formed between
the IETF 107 and IETF 108 meetings, and the issue of eligibility of
who can serve on that NomCom needs clarification. This document
provides a one-time interpretation of the eligibility rules that is
required for the exceptional situation of the cancellation of the in-
person IETF 107 meeting. This document only affects the seating of
the 2020-2021 NomCom and any rules or processes that relate to NomCom
eligibility before IETF 108; it does not set a precedent to be
applied in the future.
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/rfc8788.
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. Background
3. Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee
4. IANA Considerations
5. Security Considerations
6. References
6.1. Normative References
6.2. Informative References
Author's Address
1. Introduction
The COVID-19 outbreak, which at the time of this writing was declared
a global pandemic [PANDEMIC], has resulted in the cancellation of the
in-person IETF 107 meeting [CANCEL107]. This resulted in its
conversion to a virtual meeting with a limited agenda and remote
participation only [VIRTUAL107].
The 2020-2021 Nominating Committee (NomCom) is to be formed between
the IETF 107 and IETF 108 meetings, and the issue of eligibility of
who can serve on that NomCom needs clarification: a one-time
interpretation of the eligibility rules is required for this
particular exceptional situation. That interpretation will apply to
the seating of that NomCom and to any rules or processes that relate
to NomCom eligibility before the scheduled time for IETF 108.
2. Background
Section 4.14 of [RFC8713] (BCP 10) includes these requirements for
eligibility:
| Members of the IETF community must have attended at least three of
| the last five IETF meetings in order to volunteer.
|
| The five meetings are the five most recent meetings that ended
| prior to the date on which the solicitation for NomCom volunteers
| was submitted for distribution to the IETF community.
On 13 March 2020, a message was posted to the IETF discussion list
[SOLICITINPUT] suggesting two possible interpretations and asking for
community input that might include suggesting other interpretations.
Discussion over the subsequent two weeks centered around three:
1. Do not count IETF 107 at all, for the purpose of NomCom
eligibility, as BCP 10 clearly refers to in-person meetings only.
NomCom eligibility would, therefore, be based on attendance at
IETFs 102 through 106.
2. Do not have anyone lose eligibility because of IETF 107, but do
count someone as having attended 107, for the purpose of NomCom
eligibility, if that person attended the IETF 107 virtual meeting
(signed the electronic blue sheet). People could thus gain
eligibility from IETF 107, but could not lose eligibility from
it, and eligibility would be based on attendance at IETFs 102
through 107.
3. Count virtual attendance at IETF 107 and consider IETF 107 as one
of the last five meetings, so that NomCom eligibility would be
based on attendance at IETFs 103 through 107.
In judging rough consensus, the IESG has considered the arguments and
levels of support for and against each option. The arguments largely
involved issues of fairness to newer participants, acceptance of more
participants in the volunteer pool, and greatest adherence to the
spirit of the rules defined in BCP 10, which is the community-
consensus basis we are working from.
On 25 March 2020, a message was posted to the IETF discussion list
[COMMENTDEADLINE] asking for final comments by 30 April 2020. This
documents the outcome of that discussion with the choice of
interpretation 1, above.
3. Eligibility for the 2020-2021 Nominating Committee
The following text modifies, for the 2020-2021 NomCom cycle only, the
first two paragraphs (quoted above) of Section 4.14 of [RFC8713] (BCP
10) as follows:
Members of the IETF community must have attended at least three of
the last five in-person IETF meetings in order to volunteer.
The five meetings are the five most recent in-person meetings that
ended prior to the date on which the solicitation for NomCom
volunteers was submitted for distribution to the IETF community.
Because no IETF 107 in-person meeting was held, for the 2020-2021
Nominating Committee, those five meetings are IETFs 102, 103, 104,
105, and 106.
This update is an emergency interpretation of the intent of BCP 10
for this current exceptional situation only. It applies only to the
2020-2021 NomCom, which is expected to be seated prior to IETF 108,
and to any rules or processes that relate to NomCom eligibility
before IETF 108. It will explicitly not apply to any future NomCom
and does not set precedent: an update to BCP 10 will be necessary to
address future eligibility, as there will be time for proper
community work on such an update (see [ELIGIBILITYDISCUSS]). That
update could change any part of the BCP 10 process, including
anything specified in this document.
4. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
5. Security Considerations
This document is purely procedural; there are no related security
considerations.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[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>.
6.2. Informative References
[CANCEL107]
The IESG and the IRTF Chair, "Subject: IETF 107 Vancouver
In-Person Meeting Cancelled", message to the IETF
announcement list, 10 March 2020,
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/
XenAlx4Nw6Jmg69QpXRUOwbzsXY>.
[COMMENTDEADLINE]
The IESG, "Subject: Re: NomCom eligibility & IETF 107",
message to the IETF discussion list, 13 March 2020,
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/
cc3rdjSTz8Vrzps8Ci6fi-VIDq8/>.
[ELIGIBILITYDISCUSS]
IETF, "Mailing list to discuss revision to IETF
eligibility procedures",
<https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/eligibility-
discuss>.
[PANDEMIC] Adhanom Ghebreyesus, T., "WHO Director-General's opening
remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19", March 2020,
<https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-
general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-
19---11-march-2020>.
[SOLICITINPUT]
The IESG, "NomCom eligibility & IETF 107", message to the
IETF discussion list, March 2020,
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/
uBt8FeKeN4CRl7YTDMoy6m8leS0/>.
[VIRTUAL107]
IETF Secretariat, "Important Information for IETF 107
Virtual", message to the IETF announcement list, March
2020, <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-
announce/cVDlJ4fVJIkfakBysTfsFchERCs/>.
Author's Address
Barry Leiba
FutureWei Technologies
Phone: +1 914 433 2749
Email: barryleiba@computer.org
URI: http://internetmessagingtechnology.org/
AI ELI5
On this page
§1Introduction
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the in-person IETF 107 meeting. The meeting was converted to a virtual-only event with limited agenda and remote participation. This created an unexpected challenge: the Nominating Committee for 2020-2021 was to be formed between IETF 107 and IETF 108, but the standard eligibility rules—which require attending at least three of the last five IETF meetings—were now ambiguous given that one meeting was only virtual.
RFC 8788 provides a one-time clarification for this exceptional situation, applying only to the 2020-2021 NomCom cycle and not setting any precedent for future committees.
A big meeting got cancelled. The IETF needed to pick its leaders. The rule about who could help pick them became unclear. This document gives a one-time answer.
§2Three Proposed Interpretations
The IETF community discussed three ways to interpret the eligibility rules. Option 1: Do not count IETF 107 at all for eligibility, treating it as if it did not happen. Eligibility would be based on the five in-person meetings prior to it (IETFs 102 through 106). Option 2: Count virtual attendance at IETF 107 (by signing the electronic blue sheet) as meeting the eligibility criteria, so people could gain eligibility but not lose it. Option 3: Treat virtual attendance at IETF 107 the same as in-person attendance, counting IETF 107 normally so eligibility would be based on IETFs 103 through 107.
The IESG evaluated these options based on fairness to newer participants, expansion of the volunteer pool, and adherence to the spirit of the community consensus rules in BCP 10.
Three ideas were proposed: ignore the cancelled meeting, let virtual people count, or count virtual as equal to in-person. The IETF leadership picked the first option.
§3Decision and Scope
The IESG chose Option 1: IETF 107 does not count toward eligibility for the 2020-2021 NomCom. The eligibility rule is modified to require attendance at three of the five most recent in-person IETF meetings, explicitly named as IETFs 102, 103, 104, 105, and 106. This interpretation applies only to the 2020-2021 NomCom and to any processes relating to NomCom eligibility before IETF 108. It does not apply to any future Nominating Committee and does not set a precedent. The IETF community committed to addressing future eligibility issues through proper revision to BCP 10 rather than relying on emergency interpretations.
They chose to ignore IETF 107 entirely. Eligibility was based on the previous five in-person meetings. This one-time rule did not apply to future elections. A real update to the rules would handle future situations.