Re: [IAOC] Proposed IAOC Administrative Procedures

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Wednesday, June 02, 2010 20:11 -0700 Doug Barton
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 06/02/10 10:50, Bob Hinden wrote:
>...
>> Regarding the minutes, what can I say except mea maxima
>> culpa.  We have fallen behind and will try hard to get caught
>> up between now and Maastricht.
> 
> Bob,
> 
> I think it's probably safe to assume that your actual goal in
> this effort was to promote transparency. Given that as a goal,
> one wonders if there are any activities in that category that
> should have a higher priority than producing thorough and up
> to date minutes, which the community has repeatedly asked for,
> and which you have promised to produce.
> 
> Put another way, given that there are only so many hours in
> the day I have a hard time imagining why you would choose to
> spend some of them working on this document instead of working
> on the minutes. Of course, if there was some overwhelming
> demand from the community for an administrative procedures
> document that I'm not aware of, I'd appreciate a pointer so
> that I can get up to speed.

Perhaps modulo Doug's closing touch of humor, exactly.  

One subject on which BCP 101 --and, as Joel points out, the
discussions leading up to the IASA-- is the IAOC's absolute
obligation to transparency, including especially timely and
informative minutes.  There isn't any provision for "get
everything else the IAOC thinks is important done first and then
either get around to the minutes or be really apologetic about
their absence".  Absent an emergency that you are willing to
explain to the community (in a timely way) as requiring a
deviation from the rules, the IAOC's first obligation is to
transparency.

I believe that means that the community should not (and cannot)
be expected to evaluate proposed administrative procedures in
the absence of supporting minutes.  "No minutes" or "minutes not
up-to-date" means that the current IAOC administrative
procedures are failing and that any proposed new procedures are
irrelevant unless they identify the transparency problems
(including slow minutes) and propose solutions that will work.
The observation that we've been here before, that timely minutes
were promised and the community was told that procedures had
been changed to be sure they got produced, and that we are back
with a lag of a few months just reinforces that point.

If the IAOC were to conclude that timely minutes are an
unrealistic expectation, then please come to the community --as
provided for in BCP 101-- and make an alternate proposal.  But,
otherwise, please treat transparency, including timely minutes,
as your first obligation, much higher in your priorities than
tuning administrative procedures.

    john