you are talking about actions that could be taken by all the actors in the system. I was talking about the actions that the WG could take on its own.
--On 10. juli 2003 16:24 +0200 Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net> wrote:
HTA> even if a WG feels abused by the IESG, or its AD, that's no excuse for a WG not fighting back - in this case, by rapidly removing the IESG's apparent excuses for delay.
In other words, you appear to be saying that a working group should be expected to perform any action imposed on them, no matter how unreasonable. Perhaps that is not what you meant, but it is the meaning I take from your sentence.
OK, let abstract out the case, and let us go through this theoretical example in more detail.
- A writer group is seeking to have a document published. - A gatekeeper group is imposing a requirement that must be fulfilled before the document can be published. - The working group feels that this requirement is unreasonable.
Now, assume that both parties are acting in good faith, both parties are reasonably competent at their work, and that both parties are interested in seeing the document published.
Since we're assuming good faith, rationality and competence on both sides, we must assume the gatekeeper group had what it thought was a rational reason to impose the requirement. It would be irrational for the gatekeeper group to drop the requirement without being convinced that its reason was wrong or insufficient.
I see a number of rational actions from the writer group, which need not be exclusive:
A - Try to convince the gatekeeper group to drop the requirement. B - Try to fulfil the requirement with the minimum amount of energy. C - Take their business elsewhere (give up).
In an ideal world, there would be dialogue enough between the writer group and the gatekeeper group that one would convince the other about the reasonableness of the requirement. In the real world, this doesn't always happen.
What I was saying is that I don't see the group's action that seems to have happened here (procrastination in fulfilling the requirement, after being convinced that convincing the gatekeeper group to drop it won't work) as rational. Understandable, but not rational.