Re: [Rfced-future] Model proposal

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 08-Jul-20 10:28, Nico Williams wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 09:45:34AM +1200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> Absolutely I think that community discussion and rough consensus is
>> appropriate for this and other strategy or policy issues. My concern
>> is that this needs to be facilitated and informed by someone with
>> relevant knowledge and experience in the editing/publishing/library/
>> archival world and that is not us. It's certainly not a skill set that
>> the NomCom typically looks for when picking IESG or IAB nominees. It's
>> a skill set that we did look for when appointing the previous RSE.
> 
> The IESG and IAB need, above all, decision-making skills and mastery and
> respect of process.  They have at their disposal, too, a great deal of
> collective expertise from the community, shepherds, directorates, and
> RSE, so they don't necessarily need to be experts in any one area in
> order to make decisions in that area.  Moreover, IAB and IESG members
> tend to have been through the RFC publication gauntlet, so they almost
> necessarily have at least a modicum of publication expertise of their
> own.
> 
> If there's no question that some issues must consume some of their
> attention, then I'm not sure that the IAB performing RSE oversight is a
> problem.

Sadly, I think we did get a demonstration that it can be a problem
last year. However, since we largely seem to agree that separating
out the IT and contract management aspects is the right way to go,
we are transforming the issue quite a bit.

All the same, I believe the actual evidence is that we (engineers)
don't understand the editing/publishing/library/archival world at
all well and we need help.

On 08-Jul-20 10:18, Eric Rescorla wrote:

> Stipulating for the moment that this is true, I don't really see how you get from there to "and this person needs to be in charge of the process". To give an example that I think I also gave on the most recent virtual call, we often have to do things that require a bunch of relevant expertise in the legal world, and that's not us, but address that problem by engaging a lawyer and asking their opinion. Why doesn't that work here?

It might, if we set it up right. I think this is worth exploring.

    Brian