Re: how to contact the IETF

Andrew Sullivan <ajs@shinkuro.com> Tue, 10 February 2009 12:20 UTC

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Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:20:39 -0500
From: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@shinkuro.com>
To: ietf@ietf.org
Subject: Re: how to contact the IETF
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References: <mailman.81.1234221068.5094.ietf@ietf.org> <789dbae90902091529t2b419cf5jc87bb7fb65564c5@mail.gmail.com> <20090209234503.GN376@mip.polyamory.org>
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On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 06:45:03PM -0500, Ofer Inbar wrote:

> IETF decisions don't get made by counting votes, as you know.
> There's no value in having lots and lots of people write to say
> essentially the same thing - it just annoys list members, but
> doesn't actually contribute to the discussion.

I'm not sure I agree with that claim.  It's true that decisions are
not made by counting votes.  Decisions _are_ supposed to be made,
during consensus call, by weighing the arguments and the apparent
support for the document.

The document is in last call, and the discussion is taking place on
this list.  The cost of that is that, if a large number of people are
opposed to publication of a document all for the same reason, they all
have to post basically the same argument in order for their opinion to
count.  Those responsible for determining consensus may, of course,
take into account the level of technical understanding apparent in the
posted messages when weighing them.

The cost of being a loosely-organized group of individuals, working by
mailing list, is that sometimes we have to put up with volumes of mail
due to contentious topics on the list.  If we don't like that, we need
to change IETF rules so that we have club membership and better
screening of participants for qualification.  I won't speculate on
whether that would represent an improvement over the way the IETF has
worked so far.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@shinkuro.com
Shinkuro, Inc.