[arin-discuss] Advisory Council Position Petitions?

[Jay Hennigan]

John Curran wrote:
> On Sep 24, 2009, at 2:09 PM, Jay Hennigan wrote:
>> In other organizations with which I've been associated, the NomCom  
>> typically acts more like a recruitment body that twists arms until  
>> it can get at least one warm body to volunteer for each office.  The  
>> problems are generally too few candidates, not too many.
> 
> That's the way its traditionally been ARIN as well.
> 
>> What about transparency?  If some candidates are rejected by the  
>> NomCom, should there be a public notice given that, "Candidate X  
>> applied but was not nominated because his qualifications failed to  
>> meet criterion Y"?
> 
> That would mean that the nominees and NomCom would be restricted to  
> publicly disclosable information in their dialogue (i.e. the NomCom  
> couldn't consider confidential information provided to clarify ability  
> to commit time to the role, or how the candidate might resolve  
> potential conflict of interests, etc).

Should candidate selection based on criteria such as ability to commit 
time to the role, or how the candidate might resolve potential conflict 
of interests be the choice of the NomCom, or the choice of the voters? 
I'd prefer that the voters would be the logical choice.

As a mild example, if a candidate's answer to the confidential question, 
"How would you resolve this conflict of interest" was, "By giving $5,000 
to every member of the NomCom if I get on the ballot", there might be a 
problem.

Is the NomCom's assessment of a candidate's qualifications based on 
private data better than the community's based on public data?  If so, 
then why bother with elections?

>> How can the community judge arbitrariness if the reasons for  
>> rejection of a specific candidate aren't disclosed?
> 
> 
> Acknowledged; if the community is going to judge the NomCom's  
> assessment, it needs access to the same information as the NomCom.

And that isn't the case now.  The process lacks transparency.  And it 
adds an extra step.  Judging the NomCom shouldn't be the community's 
job.  The community should be assessing the candidates.  And by this I 
mean all of the qualified candidates on an equal footing, not the 
blessed vs. the unblessed.

>> IMNSHO, I'd prefer that the NomCom just verified that candidates  
>> meet the qualifications to run based on published criteria and  
>> disclose the reasons for any rejections.
> 
> That function (verification of credentials) doesn't actually even  
> require a NomCom, as staff does that work with oversight by myself and  
> counsel if needed.

So do that then.  Let the NomCom act as a recruitment body twisting arms 
for positions where no candidates come forward, and let staff verify 
credentials where candidates volunteer (or double-check a verification 
done by the NomCom).

Any other method leaves candidates who apply and want the job but are 
turned aside by the NomCom tainted.  "What do they know that I don't? 
They would have allowed this candidate onto the ballot unless there is 
something very wrong that they're not disclosing.  This must be a bad 
person if s/he has to petition and the other candidates were approved."

-- 
Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay at impulse.net
Impulse Internet Service  -  http://www.impulse.net/
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