On Tue, Jul 31, 2018 at 2:42 AM, Melinda Shore <melinda.shore@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think I'm actually okay with limiting the work the IETF takes
on based on {some set of resource constraints}. I need to think
about that some more but that doesn't strike me as obviously a bad
idea (no worse, certainly, than professionalizing the IESG!).
I (1) agree with this and (2) believe that it's already happening—that the process is self-limiting. It may be however that it self-limits at too high a workload per AD.
What I'm not okay with is charging down this path, including
investigations, etc., when there's a universe of other ways to
address the problem that aren't being discussed. I'm not sure
I've even seen a clear statement of "the problem."
Melinda, I would really appreciate it if you could articulate, first of all, where the idea comes from that someone is charging down some path. We are having a discussion here. Eliot has no power to do what he's proposed. I have no power to do what I've proposed. There is no charging down some path being done here.
As for other alternatives than figuring out how to fund ADs who do what ADs do now, if there are ways to address the problem that haven't been discussed, why not bring those up? Padma made a good point, and we discussed that; there wasn't so much emotion involved with that one, and so it didn't turn into an exploding IETF thread of doom, but there was discussion.
I am astonished that this is receiving serious discussion.
It might help if you could really stop and reflect on why you are so astonished. I mean that sincerely—the discussion yesterday was really puzzling to me. You must have some kind of internal model of how it goes wrong that's more detailed than just "if you pay people to be ADs, bad things will happen." But I didn't hear that yesterday—I heard a lot of comparisons to other very different organizations with very different appointment models in very different monetary ecosystems. I saw no reflection about the factors present there that produced the result there, nor about whether those factors are also present here and would produce the same result here.
I really don't want to burn another day on this discussion—if you don't want to unpack that, that's fine. But that's why the discussion went the way it did yesterday, and TBF I'm astonished that you're astonished. :)
