----- Original Message ----- From: "SM" <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Ted Hardie" <ted.ietf@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 9:34 PM > Hi Ted, > At 11:46 08-11-2012, Ted Hardie wrote: > >Thinking a bit about the directions that conversation took, I think > >there is both a relatively simple answer to Andrew's question and a > >much larger piece of context that need to be teased out of the > >discussion. The relatively simple answer is that we don't just use > >common sense any more because we don't want to trust individuals as > >much as we used to. That lack of trust isn't directed at the current > >IESG, IAOC, or IAB, but at future incumbents. We have come to the > > The five second sound bite is "why don't you trust your leaders"? > > >idea that allowing a current set of office-holders to make ad hoc > >decisions implies that all later incumbents will share that ability. > > Yes. > > >Since we don't know those later incumbents (how could we?), we don't > >trust them; since we don't trust them, we don't want to cede to them a > >power that might later get abused. So we attempt to use structure and > >process to restrict those unknown future incumbents. That's > >interesting in part because we believe in precedent enough to worry > >that ceding decision making will grant to later officer holders > >equivalent power, but we don't believe in it enough to believe it will > >guide what the later officer holders will do. That, again, likely > >stems from a lack of trust. > > It's a bit more complicated than that. If there is a perceived lack > of transparency, process may be viewed as safeguarding the > individual's interest. I once had a chat with an IETF participant > who asked what to do as the WG Chair took a bad decision. There were > two options: > > (i) The Standards Process > > (ii) Talk to the person > > The person did not mention Option (ii). There is a newcomers' > tutorial where people are lectured about the marvellous Standards > Process. There is very little socialization in the IETF. The I* > bodies are lacking when it comes to communication > skills. Unfortunately, when the I* bodies communicates the community > asks "why are you bothering us with this"? I agree that socialization and communication are weak in the IETF but disagree as to the cause. Socialization depends on communication and there is a spectrum in communication from the richest, when I am standing in front of you, looking you in the eye, to the poorest, a tweet. E-mail, the sine qua none of the IETF, is towards the poorer end of the spectrum, so that as the work of the IETF has become dominated by e-mail, with little happening face-to-face, so the socialization and communication - except at the most technical level - has decreased. Socialization breeds the idea of a common goal, a mission if you will. If I know you and relate to you, then I am more willing to compromise, to negotiate, to go the extra mile (such as at the weekend) or to give up my pet concerns in order to produce a better standard. Without such socialization, then work becomes dominated by other things such as the bottom line, legal actions or the fear thereof, a lack of trust and so on; and yes, we then need more process to ensure progress. I think that the evolution of the IPR processes in the IETF would be a good case study for this. Tom Petch > >I think that's where the larger context comes in. The IETF is not > >simply an engineering organization, it is a mission-based > >organization. Our mission is to make the Internet work and grow. > > Frankly, I don't know what the IETF is. > > >Belief in that mission is something built into the context of the > >IETF, and it is part of what helps each of us guide our decisions > >here. Where some SDOs get compromises entirely by horse-trading, many > >of the compromises that let the IETF work by rough consensus actually > >come about because of that shared mission. We recognize that > >compromise to get interoperability is a key part of what lets the > >Internet continue to work and grow. We both give our technical > >insight to that mission and we subordinate our technical desires to > >it. > > It is difficult to get people to compromise. > > >I suspect that some of the trust issues we have with imagined future > >incumbents actually comes from a subconscious fear that we won't be as > >successful at passing on a belief in that mission as we have so far > >been. That may be because the current mechanisms are largely ad hoc > >(as Joe's comments on mentoring hinted); it may be more free form than > >that. To counter that concern, we may want to extend the methods we > >already do have (Edu teams, newcomers socials, and so on) for longer > >parts of the initial participation periods. We may even want to > >consider new ways of generating affiliation to our core goals. > >However we do it, it seems likely that energy put into making sure > >that the IETF's mission is part of each participant's understanding of > >their work will return benefits both to the IETF now and when those > >unknown future incumbents take office. > > I was pleasantly surprised by the level of comments at yesterday's > plenary. The Edu team is absent except for a few hours a year. The > newcomers' social is IETF-centric. I like the idea of extending the > initial participation periods. > > I read the last sentence as building trust. People might share your > core goals if they "trust" you and they agree with the goals. That's > different from convincing them. People put in energy if it is in > their interest to do so. > > >Maintaining the power of the incumbents? Not important. Maintaining > >the current structures? Not important. Change for change's sake? Not > >valuable. Making sure the mission gets done? Pretty much the only > >thing that matters. > > Agreed. > > Regards, > -sm > >