On 05/15/2013 12:25 PM, Thomas Narten wrote:
I don't think the IETF needs to be in the profile/resume business. There are plenty of other places that do a fine job already. What I do think the IETF should do is *require* that participants identify themselves. That means knowing who they are (a name and email contact) and an affiliation.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I would like to know who (if anyone) is paying someone to do IETF work, because there's always some potential for inappropriate bias even among people with a high degree of integrity - and of course not everyone has such integrity.
On the other hand I don't think that a contributor's affiliation should mean anything at all when evaluating that contributor's input to IETF. If people treat contributors from major companies as having more weight than other contributors, it makes a joke out of the whole notion of consensus-based decision making. (And we all know that people do this sometimes.)
I also don't think that anyone should automatically presume that a contributor's input is representing his employer's interests.
On balance, I do sometimes find it helpful when IETF contributors disclose their employers. But I don't think it should be required. And if everybody stopped disclosing their employers in the context of IETF conversations, it might be a good thing.
Keith