Re: [hrpc] HRPC recharter

[Eliot Lear <[e-mail]>]

Hi Andrew,

As you may recall, I've had similar concerns to the ones you have 
previously raised.  I do think the current draft charter makes things 
better, not worse.  Please see below.

On 04.01.23 22:59, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>
> First, while I initially thought I understood the purpose of the 
> change, I guess I wonder whether the expansion of the scope keeps the 
> RG properly inside an IRTF area of work.  RFC 2014 says, "The IRTF 
> focuses on longer term research issues related to the Internet," and 
> also, "These groups work on topics related to Internet protocols, 
> applications, architecture and technology." It seems to me at least 
> possible that "policy" is not actually included in that scope, and 
> that attempting to include it has a faint air of circularity about it: 
> drawing (or at least implying) a conclusion about the purported 
> subject of the research rather than doing research necessary to show 
> the conclusion.

Certainly an open ended discussion of human rights policy outside the 
scope of Internet protocol and service development is not what RFC 2014 
had in mind.  However, there is, at least in my mind, no doubt that 
protocols and policies *can be* highly intertwined (cf SHAKEN and 
STIR).  Clearly this must have been what you folk on the IAB had in mind 
when you created this group in the first place, no?

> Finally, there is some discussion within the thread that I think may 
> explain where some of this tension is coming from.  I believe that the 
> RG has often functioned as much as a rallying point for a rough set of 
> positions about the Internet, and the advocacy of those positions.

This is my perception as well, and it was the basis for my earlier 
suggestion about using the word "explore".  Also, I have, as you have 
seen, been concerned about this group addressing only *some* human 
rights and not *all* human rights. Certainly we have seen detail on only 
some human rights, such as freedom of association.  The tension between 
human rights is one that is the hardest aspect of all of this, to me as 
an engineer. The limitation of scope in the previous charter all but 
assured advocating and assumed positions.  That is why I view the 
proposed new charter as a *vast* improvement.

Nevertheless, if I understand the lay of the land correctly, nobody is 
arguing that this group should have a political advocacy function. 
Therefore, perhaps some guardrails seem in order to insure that is the 
case.  One or two more suggestions to avoid that here:

OLD:

>   * Policy and academic papers, for in-depth analysis and discussion
>     of the values embedded in the Internet architecture.
>
NEW:

>   * Academic papers, for in-depth analysis and discussion of the
>     values embedded in the Internet architecture and their policy
>     implications, as well as the impact of policy on protocol development.
>
"Policy papers" is often used for papers that are shills for advocacy.  
Let's not invite those here.  But both input and output need to consider 
policy implications.

One could also imagine a blanket statement that "Advocacy of particular 
positions is out of scope for this RG."  Any of that should go on 
elsewhere, like in your $dayjob organization.  It's also important that 
the group always keep a focus on what question is being explored.  Some 
formality there might help.  That brings us to this:


> But it is obscure to me what the research question is in such cases.

Strictly speaking, the RG charter needn't define a research question; it 
can leave that up to the individual researchers themselves.  I would 
argue that is the way RGs should generally operate.  Thus the breadth 
over which you express concern is something I view as a feature and not 
a bug, and indeed the limited scope caused me problems, as I mentioned 
above.   The charter needs to provide a focal area of interest, and 
researchers need to be willing to show up and participate.

This having been said, changing the name of the group without changing 
the acronym would probably cause confusion among those who thought they 
knew what the acronym meant.  We should be careful about that.

Regards,

Eliot