Subject: RE: non-problems

From: "Mak, L (Leen)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 14:11:10 +0200

>  I think the problem-process draft's initial section - "what are the core 
>  values of the IETF that we don't want to lose" - is the  closest thing we 
>  have on the table now to a statemnet of what *not* to  change, or criteria 
>  on which we can judge that change proposals are out of scope.
>  

Allow me to go out of scope. In section 2 of the ietf-problem-proces draft, 
I read: 

>   As we consider changes to the IETF processes and organizational
>    structure, it is important to keep in mind the things about the
>    IETF that we don't want to change -- 
[snip]
>    "We reject kings, presidents and voting.  We believe in rough
>    consensus and running code." -- Dave Clark

I wonder whether I am really the only one who is thinking that this 
"things-about-the-IETF-that-we-don't-want-to-change" attitude 
threatens to make the whole attempt to improve futile.

All over the world, civilisations found that the proces of having town 
meetings where everyone can talk and argue and talk and argue 
ad infinitum or until (rough) consensus, simply does not scale. 
Voting, and delegating executive power to presidents, has been found to 
be working, albeit far from ideal, instruments to deal with this scalability 
problem. 
To me it is a mystery why people seem to think that IETF can escape 
from these scalability problems and go on with the town meeting model.

Take for example this problem-statement list. In the last month, about 
400 emails were sent. More than 80% were written by less than 20 
contributors (i.e. about 1 % of the average attendance of the 10 most
recent IETF meetings). 
Just a few observations, based on the postings to the list. I concluded that, 
in order to contribute succesfully:
1) one needs to have plenty of spare time, not only to read but also to 
digest all these 100's of messages;
2) one should have more than average, intimate, personal knowledge of 
many years of IETF and IESG history, because many assertions are being 
made which cannot be valued if one lacks such knowledge;
3) it is very preferable to be a native English speaker, because sometimes 
the language is so subtle and sparse that the meaning is very difficult to 
grasp.
For me these are serious signals that some of the core values (like
"everyone can speak up and all opinions count") are already (irretrievably?) 
lost. I think it is better to acknowledge that and to improve given such
context, than to try to stick to the belief that the old values are still valid.

I have been taught that the internet is based on ideas of people who
were able to really think out of the box. Why is it than, when it comes
to organisation and processes, that this community appears to be so
conservative?

Leen Mak

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 15:33:05 +0200

"Mak, L (Leen)" wrote:
...
> to organisation and processes, that this community appears to be so

I think many of us are acutely aware that

a) "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" is a vital engineering principle in 
complex systems.

b) any change to a social system has unintended and largely unpredictable
consequences, as well as the intended consequences.

So personally, I am indeed in conservative mode except where we have a
clearly understood problem and a proposed solution with clearly limited
consequences. But then we should go for it.

   Brian

---

From: Mark Allman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 10:22:56 -0400

> I wonder whether I am really the only one who is thinking that
> this "things-about-the-IETF-that-we-don't-want-to-change" attitude

A few thoughts:

  + I agree that taking certain changes we might make off the table
    without thought is a bad idea.  Everything should be fair game
    for careful consideration with regards to changing our
    processes.

  + However, that doesn't mean that everything needs changed.

  + What I was musing about was whether there are things that we can
    take out of the "change this" pile because we have consensus
    that the status quo is working well.  (That is, I don't think we
    want to change for the sake of change.)

  + The key is that we carefully consider everything and use what we
    have found to not work **and** what we have found to work well
    to make wise decisions about our future course.  Or, we should
    not only take the "what are our problems" angle or, IMO, we have
    less of a chance of succeeding.

allman

--
Mark Allman -- BBN/NASA GRC -- http://roland.grc.nasa.gov/~mallman/