RE: Purpose of IESG Review

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--On Friday, April 12, 2013 23:50 +0000 Pat Thaler
<pthaler@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> +1 on for John's response.
>  
> I will argue with my manager if I think they are wrong and
> I've gotten positive results from giving managers feedback on
> their performance. Of course, disagreeing with management
> won't always get the decision changed, but I've never felt I
> lost anything by raising the discussion.

I should probably have added that, for some specific classes of
issues and for those who are members of ACM, IEEE, and several
other professional societies, failure to do so is a violation of
the standards of professional ethics to which they have agreed.
Then again, so is discriminatory behavior.  See, e.g.,
http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics and
http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html .

> I've also seen some bad decisions made when someone had good
> reasons why a decision was wrong but didn't surface them
> because they didn't feel they could argue with management.

Yep.  I didn't say it always worked out well or that all
managers are competent and secure enough to tolerate feedback.  

> IETF participant to IETF leadership isn't the same as employee
> to manager of course. We are all volunteers collaborating to
> get good results and if we feel there is a process problem we
> can discuss it. IETF formalizes this by having open mike
> sessions for example. 

And appeal procedures as an integral part of the decision-making
process.  I've said this before, but I believe we don't use
those enough for "normal" situations where issues and tradeoffs
have not been considered properly.  That lack of use has led to
an impression that appeals were the tools and refuge of crazies
and trolls, which was certainly never the intent.

> A thread on whether there is a problem with the IESG review
> process is appropriate, IMO.

Oh, indeed.  And, at a slightly more indirect level, I believe
that the ways in which carefully thought-out constructive
discussion and suggestions have sometimes been belittled and
suppressed lies at the root of some of our larger problems.
Unfortunately, noise from crazies, people who strongly push
suggestions or comments without bothering to try to understand
the actual situations or history, a few people who think that
making IETF more like some other body would automatically make
it better, fear of change by those in leadership positions, and
miscellaneous trolls has made those more constructive
conversations difficult as well.

    john





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