Re: Comments on Composition and Comportment of the IETF Nominating Committee draft

Mallory:

> 
>>> 
>>> It would be worth interrogating the role of community feedback. Obviously this is a unique element and guidance for most hiring processes won’t have much to say about it. If we worry about discrimination in nomcom decision making we should probably worry about it in candidate feedback too. So what would be the fair mitigation? Giving a candidate the chance to rebut a potentially discriminatory feedback comment? Or not mentioning the comment during the interview at all, and giving the nomcom discretion to consider feedback in its own right to supplement its decision?
>> 
>> Confidential community feedback to the NomCom is a vital part of the process.  
> 
> Sure. But, is this process… working? There is no data. 

In my view, this is an important part of the process, and of course, there cannot be data without voiding the confidentiality.

> 
> (Other than abysmal gender representation.)
> 
> Why not conduct the interviews in a standard way and take in feedback as supplemental. Without troubling the existence of feedback, which the document doesn’t do by the way, I’m here to question whether interviews and feedback as two parts of The Process necessarily be intertwined. Literature says interviews should be standard across candidates. 

In my experience that is what is happening.  That is, candidate-specific questions are rare, but they provide information that NomCom voting members want to make the "hiring" decisions.  I have seen this handled in a very respectful and professional manner.

I've made my point.  I'm going to stop now and let other people that have served on NomCom speak.

Russ