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

[Owen DeLong]

Personally, I think that we should simply eliminate the geographic restrictions on board seats and have a single AfriNIC board elected from qualified candidates from within the region, regardless of where in the region they come from.

Owen


> On Jun 16, 2019, at 4:39 AM, Dewole Ajao <dewole at forum.org.ng> wrote:
> 
> Since we are on the topic of "reforming" NomCom, I wonder why our bylaws state that candidates for appointment to NomCom shall *not* be domiciled in a region where an open seat is being contested. I think a person resident within a region is more likely to know and have access to suitably qualified candidates and we should remove this restriction as we try to improve the nomination.  
> 
> If the sole intention of this restriction was to prevent favoritism/bias, I think adding transparency to the process will quite easily expose such. Or is anyone aware of other justifications for having that restriction in place?
> 
> Dewole.
> 
> On 6/16/2019 11:54 AM, John Walu wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 1:31 PM Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> In general, I agree with you. I will, however, note that it is possible that there are situations where “why” should be redacted to protect the confidentiality and dignity of the applicant who was rejected. For example, if the nominating committee had rejected a  candidate because he is under indictment and under disciplinary review in his day job for misconduct, I don’t think that nomcom should be the ones to publicly disclose those details.
>> >>>
>> @Owen  
>> 
>> Its true, we must protect the applicant's privacy.  However, we must also enhance the Nomcom's transparency.  Imagine a situation where Nomcomm disqualifies candidates because they allegedly did not respond to some email. It is quite difficult really to really prove beyond reasonable it at all such an email was ever sent.  It is even harder to prove that it was successfully delivered to the intended recipient.
>> 
>> In such a case, Nomcom should publicly say Candidate X was disqualified because they did not respond to an email. (that in itself will discourage and expose a Nomcom that  is heavily biased towards knocking out, rather than recruiting board members;-)
>> 
>> Perhaps a middle ground that would protect the candidate's privacy while enhancing Nomcom Transparency and accountability would be to seek consent or objection from Candidates - at the point of application - if they would object to the reasons behind their rejection being publicly reported.
>> 
>> That way we avoid giving a blank cheque to Nomcom who may make decisions knowing very well that they need NOT explain themselves to anyone (lack of accountability). 
>> 
>> So lets design and give Nomcomm a  Standard Reporting Template to enhance their transparency.  They will remain independent and autonomous in the functionality, but they should owe the community an understanding on how they worked hard to raise good candidates for AfriNIC.  
>> 
>> The report from Nomcomm with respect to the PDWG election is a good start and can be refined and adapted for future Nomcomms.
>> 
>> walu.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 1:31 PM Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > On Jun 4, 2019, at 11:34 PM, John Walu <walu.john at gmail.com <mailto:walu.john at gmail.com>> 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. 
>> 
>> In general, I agree with you. I will, however, note that it is possible that there are situations where “why” should be redacted to protect the confidentiality and dignity of the applicant who was rejected. For example, if the nominating committee had rejected a  candidate because he is under indictment and under disciplinary review in his day job for misconduct, I don’t think that nomcom should be the ones to publicly disclose those details.
>> 
>> > 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.
>> 
>> My suspicion is that to some degree, both are occurring.
>> 
>> Owen
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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