Re: Request for feedback - IESG thoughts about new work proposals

[Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>]

Eliot Lear <[e-mail]> wrote:
    > The role of the IAB could also use a dusting off here. For instance, should
    > one have to wait for a bof to get a shepherd out of the IAB? Should the IAB
    > members themselves have to perform that role or could they perhaps make use
    > of program members or other members of the community to assist?

To respond to this specific question.

I was really pleasantly surprised when I first observed the IAB shepherds at
work.  They were awesome: patient and constructive and really really useful.
They removed a whole lot of potential flame wars that would have been about
process, but would have sounded like technical objections to a newcomer.

Why were they able to do this?  Because the shepherds:
  1) had been WG chairs.
  2) had started new work.
  3) had written documents and experienced the entire process
  4) had visible marks of authority, lending weight to a newcomer unfamiliar
       with our internal symbols of merit(ocracy).
  5) maturity to be able to put their own views/feelings aside and mediate
     among differing interests

It's unlikely that someone can become an IAB member without (1),(2),(3).
So, the IAB badge important for (4) is the communities' agreement that you
have 1-3.   There are many other people who have 1-3, including, of course,
former IAB members.

[I've purposely said nothing about (5), and anyway I added the point when
re-reading my email]

Some years ago, Klensin had half-humourously proposed the grey-beard club
(offering prostetic beards to those the lacking the right balance of hormones
to grow facial hair).  While the name might be improved upon, the essential
concept, and the idea of staffing in essentially the way Klensin proposed is
good.

So my answer is that the IAB has to continue to do this themselves.  That it
can leverage former IAB members once it finds a way to make them externally
recognizable (a badge of some kind), and/or Klensin's club becomes official.

--
Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>, Sandelman Software Works
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