Re: [Mtgvenue] issue #3: Too many mandatory

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

See also Ted's response to this, with which I agree, but I want to
make another point.

On Wed, Apr 05, 2017 at 05:18:15PM -0400, Warren Kumari wrote:

> I think that us creating strong rules like: "If X, then no meeting can
> be held here" without letting those same people apply some judgement
> and / or an exception process.

[…]

> ... and the fact that we have meeting selection *people* (and not
> mindless machines) is why I don't like mandatory to be such an
> absolute -- I think that we should always allow an out / exception
> handling for corner cases...

This stance quite plainly empties the word "mandatory" of its meaning.
If you wish to remove the "mandatory" items and call them "Really
Sooper Genius Important" or something (to indicate that they're More
Important than the Important ones), I'm ok with that.  But they're not
_mandatory_.  "Mandatory", both in the plain English meaning of the
word and as it is defined in the document now, means that if the
condition is not met then the target thing cannot be reached.  It is
mandatory to have reached 16 years of age in Ontario in order to apply
for a G-class license.  That doesn't mean that the day before your
16th birthday you get to write the test.  You need to be 16.  Period,
end of story, no exceptions, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

If people instead want to have an ordered list of classes in
descending order of importance, I can buy that as long as the first
one isn't "mandatory" and doesn't contain enough room in each
criterion that it all turns into "judgement call".  (e.g. "Must be
considered" is meaningless for a high-importance item.)  We already
_have_ that arrangement, and the continual expressions of discontent
suggest to me that it doesn't work for at least part of the community.

Best regards,

A

> 
> For example, I could easily see us writing:
> Mandatory: Location must be at least 50KM away from a war zone, or a
> border between 2 countries who are at war with each other.
> 
> This sounds like grand mandatory requirement; I know that I find it
> distracting to have my presentation interrupted by an RPG passing
> through the window, it distracts participants and makes hums difficult
> to hear.
> 
> This would have ruled out Seoul - the DMZ is ~35km away, and, although
> there is an armistice, (I believe) that N and S Korea are still
> technically at war.
> Dunno about you, but I liked Seoul, and felt safe...
> 
> 
> >
> > In addition, I agree strongly with Ted's suggestion about crisp
> > "marching orders" for Madatory.  I think of the canonical case for
> > Mandatory is "enough meeting rooms".  If there aren't enough, we're
> > not going to have the meeting there, period.
> 
> This also sounds like a fine mandatory rule...
> 
> However, at a recent meeting (I *think* it was in Berlin, but cannot
> swear to that) there were not enough "meeting rooms", and one of the
> larger rooms was split into two smaller spaces with air walls.
> Worked just fine. If we write Mandatory rules (with no exception
> processing) we'll have to be very very precise as to what exactly we
> mean - luckily we have many armchair lawyers we can rope in...
> Personally I think it is preferable to explain what we really really
> want (call it mandatory if we like), what we really want (important),
> and what we'd like to have (desirable), and assume that the folk
> running the process are a: mostly sane and b: not out to make us sad.
> 
> >
> > This is why I don't like things like "Mandatory" for stuff like
> > "travel costs are acceptable".  I don't know how to operationalize
> > "acceptable" such that it is meaningful.
> 
> So, I think that Mandatory should really mean "Do X, unless there is a
> really good reason not to" -- this seems to be very very similar to
> "Exception-required", and so these should just a a single level.
> 
> I also think that it is impolite to assume that we need to document
> things like: "Thou shalt not meet in a location if there is not enough
> space". If we really think that the folk selecting meeting venues
> cannot figure that out, then we have bigger issues, and no amount of
> documentation will solve it...
> 
> W
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > A
> >
> > --
> > Andrew Sullivan
> > [e-mail]
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Mtgvenue mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mtgvenue
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
> idea in the first place.
> This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
> regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
> of pants.
>    ---maf

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]