[Community-Discuss] Reform Nomcomm - was Announcement for Final Candidate Slate for Open Seat on AFRINIC Governance Committee

[Mark Elkins]

I've been involved with NomCom for a goodly number of years. The "Black 
Box" approach worked for me when I was involved. I think in all that 
time, only two nominations were dismissed. One because the person had no 
desire to stand - they were nominated kinda out of the blue.
The other was similar - and I believe was part of either a prank or good 
intentions in a wrong way.

It might also be a mis-understanding of what Guidelines are. A Guideline 
is simply that - a line that guides. You can choose to ignore it and 
sometimes that can be the wiser choice. Others may deem a guideline as 
something that must be followed. I'd call that a Rule, not a Guideline.

I'm  standing for the position of Policy development Co-Chair and was 
asked a number of things that I would deem appropriate for a Board Seat 
but not particularly necessary at all for PDWG Co-Chair - hence my 
observation.

One member of the NomCom is also a Board Member and should be reporting 
back to the Board any key decisions that NomCom make (well - I used to 
do that).

On 2019/06/05 16:29, Frank Habicht wrote:
> Hi Walu and all,
>
> The NomCom report shared with the invitation includes _some_ info.
> - It received 11 nominations.
> - one was withdrawn
> - 8 are remaining
>
> that means to me that 2 were "filtered".
>
> I requested them to disclose how many nominations *for each seat* were
> received.
> When this gets answered we will see for which seats there was filtering.
>
> I agree we shouldn't have this black box.
> I agree NomCom should explain why nominees were "kicked out".
> I believe the members voting should be provided with the information
> that is now used to reject nominees and then be allowed to make their
> own choice.
>
> Regards,
> Frank
>
>
> On 05/06/2019 09:34, John Walu wrote:
>> I believe the deeper question is WHY is there an increasingly smaller
>> candidate slate of those volunteering to serve on Afrinic board, year in
>> year out.
>>
>> Two possible answers:
>> A) Good candidates are avoiding the perceived 'challenging' board
>> /management /community relationships that continue to persist. So nomcom
>> hands are tied and cannot manufacture candidates.
>>
>> OR
>> B) There are actually many good candidates applying  BUT the Nomcom
>> 'Black-box' processes is kicking them out and reducing them to 1 or 2
>> nominees.
>>
>> To drill down to the correct answer, I think the Nomcom process needs to
>> be reformed.
>>
>> I still do not understand the benefit of having a black box process in
>> the nomination committee where the community has no clue about how many
>> candidates applied, how many got knocked out and why. IF national
>> Presidential election systems are so open about this, why is that it has
>> to remain hidden for Afrinic?
>>
>> And I say this as someone who has once served on Nomcomm as well as
>> someone who has once been rejected by some previous Nomcomm (I want to
>> believe it is within my right to share personal information/experience
>> as this is not covered under NDA, but I stand to be corrected ;-)
>>
>> At a minimum, we should request that as Nomcom publishes the candidate
>> slate, they should also show a tally (without the names) of how many
>> candidates applied, how many got kicked out, why they were kicked out
>> and how many successfully went thro.
>>
>> I believe this information can shed some light on the deeper question
>> above of whether indeed we have fewer applicants or our black-box
>> nommcom process is simply kicking them out in order to eventually
>> present a single candidate.
>>
>> walu.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 4, 2019 at 3:47 PM Noah <noah at neo.co.tz
>> <mailto:noah at neo.co.tz>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>      On Tue, 4 Jun 2019, 15:15 Sander Steffann, <sander at steffann.nl
>>      <mailto:sander at steffann.nl>> wrote:
>>
>>          Hi Noah,
>>
>>          > Read the bylaws especially section 13.8
>>
>>          When there is no candidate then the current director will be
>>          re-appointed.
>>
>>
>>      You missed the word "eligible" candidate!
>>
>>      Nomcom has since slated eligible candidate and candidates with
>>      different slates having one or more candidate and candidates nominated.
>>
>>          Appointed != Elected.
>>
>>
>>      There are upcoming elections scheduled where we members will be
>>      casting votes for various candidates.
>>
>>
>>
>>          >> No election -> no Directors
>>          >
>>          > Board can appoint.
>>
>>          True. My statement was exaggerated. My apologies.
>>
>>          An appointed board does not have a mandate from the members
>>          though, and for a bottom-up community ending up with more
>>          appointed than elected board members would not be good.
>>
>>
>>      We have elections coming up soon and we intend to elect otherwise
>>      the board would have to appoint or reappoint as its within its powers.
>>
>>
>>
>>          Cheers,
>>          Sander
>>
>>
>>      Noah
>>
>>
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>>
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-- 
Mark James ELKINS  -  Posix Systems - (South) Africa
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