Re: Re: [mpowr] Mailing List Management

Folks,

>  The bottom line, it seems to me, is that we need to function, as 
>  Dave Crocker has been pointing out (I hope I've correctly understood 
>  him), as a collaborative community.  No amount of rule-making is 
>  going to cause either a sense of collaboration or a sense of 
>  community to happen.  If we can't keep (or recover) that sense, then 
>  we need a rather different set of rules and structures, to the point 
>  that debates about mailing list participation is a waste of time.  
>  Within such a community, it seems quite rational to me to tell WG 
>  Chairs that they have lead responsibility for WG progress.  If 
>  something or someone is interfering with that progress --including 
>  disruptions on mailing lists-- then they should be encouraged to 
>  stop it and, if necessary, pushed out of the way.  Should the AD be 
>  fully informed about such an action?  Of course.  Should it be 
>  appealable?  Even more obviously.  But the right way to deal with 
>  problems of these sorts _within a community_ is to catch them 
>  earlier and push back (which, IMO, should include involving the 
>  whole WG in a "shunning" process when that seems useful), not to try 
>  to solve them by creating ever-more-rigid and complex procedures.
>  
>  Fewer formal procedures, more exercise of good sense, more 
>  unambiguous negative reinforcement for failure to exercise good 
>  sense....

I am quite happy with all of the above text and more than willing to 
accept attribution of any of it to me, whether I previously said it or 
not...

Here's a small amount I will offer as a response to the above content:

The IETF has succeeded because it has us an extraordinarily open and 
collaborative process, to develop timely solutions for requirements 
shared by a community eager to obtain thos solutions.  The IETF has 
notably employed highly flexible and subjective mechanisms to achieve 
this, in the belief that it needed only enough mechanism to permit an 
effort to function, and that more mechanism than was needed serves as a 
hindrance, not a help.  

"Rough Consensus" means that there is strong community support for a 
decision.  If there is strong community support, then little formality 
is needed.  If there is no strong community support, then substantial 
formality provides only veneer of legitimacy, not its reality .  

If there is strong community support, there is collaboration.

d/
--
Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://brandenburg.com>

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