Subject: trust networks and class

From: avri <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 10:06:26 +0900

this is a personal opinion.

while reading the list on this topic, i have been having
trouble with the word 'trust'.  just as others have issues
with the word 'class'.

when i hear that a certain set of tasks were given to those
the AD trusts, i immediately hear that those not chosen
were not trusted.  it does not take much of a jump,
at least for me, to then believe that the reason someone
did not get an editorship, a chair or a seat on a directorate is
because they were not trusted, i.e. either did not earn the
trust of those in a position to grant positions or did something
to render themselves untrustworthy.  and while i am
well aware of the fact that this is a logical fallacy, i believe
it is an emotional fact.

so the term trust network hits me very badly every time i
hear it.  btw, network makes me wonder too, i start wondering
about the topology of someone's trust network, it is hub
and spoke, is it a ring or is it a mesh of some sort?  while
somewhat fanciful, i do believe it is baggage.

it is funny about words.  when i think of class,  i think of
membership in a group with certain attributes.   the kind of
class being defined by some modifier.   but
others have a set of baggage of attached to it that makes
it problematic - they hear class and think warfare.

my personal opinion is that we should avoid both terms.

while it may be an awkward term in this setting, i believe
we are talking about an affinity group, where the members
of the group are grouped based on shared experience,
similar identity and common challenges.  as with classes
and trust networks, affinity groups are sometimes relatively
closed and take energy, sometimes a lot, to enter.

and hopefully the term has not yet gathered any baggage
in the IETF.

a.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 18:12:08 -0700

> the AD trusts

do you actually hear that?  often?  sounds like something the
nomcom should fix.

but if it is given to someone the AD and others have reason to
trust will do a quality job, then, to me, that seems to be their
duty.

randy

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 10:06:02 +0200

--On 21. juni 2003 10:06 +0900 avri <[email-masked]> wrote:

> were not trusted.

I didn't think of it this way.....

in many (most) cases, there is either one obvious candidate (the original 
proposer, the person who drafted the first version) or many qualified 
people, one of which gets picked.

In the process of picking chairs for this WG, for instance, I had about 17 
candidates suggested to me; all of them were people I trusted to try to do 
the right thing for the IETF - in one or two cases, I doubted their 
competence to perform the job, and in some cases, I felt that I had too 
little information to evaluate their probable performance. In the end, it 
came down to choosing the ones I thought best qualified for the job, based 
on the information available to me, among a set of good  people willing to 
serve.
(it's a nice example since the process is already public.... there's no 
other reason to pick that process in particular....)

> closed and take energy, sometimes a lot, to enter.

Yes! It also gets around the problem of having multiple kinds of 
affinities, of which "trust" is only one aspect. I like that term!

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 11:22:58 -0700

avri,

a> when i hear that a certain set of tasks were given to those
a> the AD trusts, i immediately hear that those not chosen
a> were not trusted.  ... and while i am
a> well aware of the fact that this is a logical fallacy, i believe
a> it is an emotional fact.

There is always someone, somewhere, who is able and likely to take a
meaning from a statement that was not intended.  So we need to be
careful about creating fear of a word on the off-chance that someone,
somewhere, might misunderstand.

With that caveat, I have to agree with your concern over the word
'trust' in most IETF process discussions.

To use the word is to make the opposite relevant. As you note, it is a
powerful, emotional term. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Perhaps the real problem is that it conveys no useful information. Would
someone be selected who is *not* trusted? Hence saying that they are
trusted provides no insight.

In all likelihood, the word is used in place of working a bit harder to
say something that really *is* meaningful and distinctive about that
person, in this particular context.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>