[rpd] Eligibility Criteria for PDWG chairs

[Owen DeLong]

> On Mar 29, 2021, at 1:48 AM, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net> wrote:

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> El 29/3/21 4:39, "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> escribió:

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>> On Mar 27, 2021, at 1:04 AM, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net <mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>> wrote:

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>> HI Owen,

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>> Agree with your inputs on C and D. Regarding the co-chairs training, I know it has been for previous co-chairs, so I expect the same for new ones.

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>> Now, the difficult part. While I agree that there is already a criterion in 3.3, the Board already “set policy” on this previously via a NomCom for many years. This is, in my opinion, in violation of the PDP and the bylaws, because the Board *NEVER* followed the bylaws in asking the endorsement of that via the PDP (which is the only acceptable way to ask for endorsement).

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> Past violations do not excuse new ones. The NomCom has not, to the best of my knowledge vetted candidates for PDWG co-chairs, at least not at the vast majority of meetings where I’ve been present for the co-chair election.

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> è    We don’t know, because “only” nominated AND accepted candidates have been included (I believe) in the web page of the NomCom.

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> If the board tampered with the process in the past, they should stop doing that. We certainly shouldn’t be inventing new violations and then executing on them. We should, instead, return to the existing policy until it is legitimately changed.


PDWG Co-chairs at the majority of meetings I attended were nominated from the floor in full view of the community, so yes, we do know.
 

> è    The problem is that we need *now* a wayout so we can then define a clear elections procedure via the PDP. If we don’t “bypass” the bottleneck of the selection of the co-chairs now, we don’t move on.


Yes, but we shouldn’t do that in a way that is blatantly incompatible with the mechanism that is currently defined in section 3.3. We should not be adopting new procedures or criteria on an ad hoc basis.


>> However, in fact of the actual situation, making sure that we can progress, and considering the previous precedents, I think this time the Board can do a proper usage of the bylaws, and set the Criteria and then ask for the endorsement in the next meeting. Even if it is not endorsed, the decision will be still valid according to the bylaws.

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> I disagree. I think the board should follow the existing criteria, nominations should be wide open to any member of the WG to nominate any member of the WG to serve during the nomination period and all nominees who do not decline their nomination should be placed on the ballot.

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> Then we need an open voting, not a “consensus” and no restrictions at all.


As others have pointed out, we must as a group select co-chairs. The mechanism for selection is not set in the CPM or the bylaws, so the group is free to define the process whether that’s election, consensus, a game of poker, coin tosses, or whatever other mechanism we wish to come up with.

Personally, I favor an election, but I do not strongly oppose consensus if the number of candidates we get in an open and fair call for nominations is sufficiently limited.

But we definitely need an open voting and an open nominations process. The “criteria” documented by Madhvi are a perfectly fine list of topics for members of the PDWG to consider in selecting co-chairs, but they cannot be used as requirements to exclude candidates at this time. If they are subsequently adopted to amend section 3.3, then we can apply any criteria we want, but that must work its way through the process before it is applied to an election.

Owen


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