Margaret,
A comment on part of your note to Brian...
--On Saturday, 23 October, 2004 11:46 -0400 Margaret Wasserman
<margaret@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> Brian, I believe that you and John Klensin were both members
> of one such group -- the IAB Advisory Committee that did the
> initial AdminRest work. As far as I know, your meetings were
> not minuted and your mailing lists archives were not open,
> although you did produce a public report in RFC 3716. Is it
> your belief that the public report includes all of the
> substantive information that you received, and all of the
> substantive issues that you discussed as members of that
> advisory team? Or did the team make some decisions regarding
> what the community did or did not need to know? Is there any
> reason why your mailing list archives were not made publicly
> accessible? What it even considered?
>...
While it was not handled perfectly (by my rather tough
definition at least), that effort came pretty close to the way I
think things that require some private discussions should be
done. The existence of the effort, and the members of the
committee, were, if I recall, made known to the community (and
certainly to all of the IAB and IESG) on a contemporary basis.
The general agenda being discussed was also exposed fairly
early. And, yes, while I disagree with some of the tone and
details of the report, it did pretty much cover all of the
substantive issues we discussed. Certainly I can recall no
discussion of what the community "did or did not need to know"
and am pretty sure that no such discussion occurred.
Now, the reasons the discussions and mailing list archives were
not made public. I don't think we really discussed it, but all
of us who are familiar with the IETF process, yourself included,
have noticed how rapidly the S/N ratio can deteriorate in
"public" discussion of things for which the "public" doesn't
take the time to understand the details. Private discussions
are sometimes a necessity, as is the ability to float what might
be stupid ideas without having them quoted for years as one's
firm position. When issues that either involve people's jobs,
that can get highly emotional, or that may involve legal claims
are at issue, the importance of holding private discussions
becomes even greater (and we have seen all of those things in
various pieces of the Admin restructuring/reorg process). I'd
actually favor changing the rules to make that more explicit.
But it seems to me that what we don't need to do is rather
nicely reflected in the difference between the AdminRest
process, as Leslie managed it, and the rather more confused
"consultants report" and "scenarios" process that has followed
it more recently. In the latter, it has been claimed that
members of the IESG and IAB have been cut off from information,
even when they have wanted it, and with no reasons being given.
I don't know if that is true, but, if it is, I think that is
intolerable -- not the cutting off, but the lack of exposure of
agendas and reasons why privacy was needed. And, if it is not,
a little more open discussion would go a long way to making the
community feel better about the process. There have been
discussions that have been hidden --intentionally or
accidentally-- from the community. I think there is a huge
difference between "We are going to discuss X with Y. Those
discussions need to be private because they touch on sensitive
issues, but a summary of conclusions and justifications will be
made available as soon as that is possible consistent with that
level of sensitivity" and "the community isn't entitled to know
that the discussions are being held". For long periods of time,
the community was been told very little besides "we are looking
at this and you should stand by" (and, by implication "be
prepared to support whatever we conclude"). It is at least
debatable whether the consultant's report reflected all of the
available options accurately and fairly (although, if it did
not, it may never be clear whether that was due (as has been
alleged) to malice, excessive control behavior, prior strong
biases about acceptable outcomes, etc., or just to asking Carl
to do far too much work in too short a time.
I am tired of singing this song, but there have also been
assertions of the "rights" of the IESG and/or IAB do things and
make decisions out of sight of the community, and I don't
believe there are any such rights or any role for such claims in
any of our processes. But, again, that isn't how the first
rounds of AdminRest were handled, and I think the differences
are pretty important.
john
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