Melinda,
Like others, I very much appreciate your (and other IAB folks) thoughts
on this. It's very helpful. A larger question about the below, which Ted
Tso's message alluded to:
On 24 Jul 2019, at 23:16, Melinda Shore wrote:
for those of us not on the RSOC, what transpires between
the RSOC and the RSE is completely opaque. To me, it resembles
a black box, and it's not the case that we have some inside
information that we're hiding from you. Most of us just don't
know much. I think that this is a very good thing -
the RSOC members have domain expertise and a specific interest
in working with the RSE and RPC to get our documents published.
I suspect that most of us would agree that we don't want the IAB
micromanaging the RSOC or the RSE. Personally, I do trust the RSOC
and feel that what's gone wrong here is the result of structural
problems, a terrible confluence of events, and possibly some
misjudgments (again, I have no information about this, I'm just
guessing
based on pretty much the same information you all have).
However, this lack of information has led to a situation in which the
IAB is *accountable* for RFC publication but not *responsible*
It seems to me there's a pretty wide chasm between "completely opaque"
and "micromanaging", so I'm curious about your thought that the complete
opacity "is a very good thing". In particular, if the IAB is accountable
(and I believe it is and should be), it's got to have at least some
knowledge of what's going on at a high level. That to me means that the
IAB not only reviews the minutes of RSOC meetings like the rest of us
do, but also gets regular briefings from the RSOC so there can be some
Q&A about minutes.
This isn't about micromanaging: I've served on a couple of non-profit
boards, and managing staff was definitely delegated to the Executive
Director and financial oversight was delegated to the board Finance
Committee. And it wasn't the expectation that the ED reported to us
about how a particular client is served, or that the Finance Committee
reported to us about expenditures on pencils. However, we did hear from
the ED about the strategy of serving particular client communities, and
from the Finance Committee about the long term financial outlook. We had
the opportunity to ask questions, and sometimes we'd ask about more
specific things just to get an idea that the implementation of board
strategies and initiatives were resulting in the desired results. That
to me isn't micromanaging; the board was accountable, so we made
ourselves aware of what was going on, though only in very broad
brushstrokes. However, it also wasn't a completely opaque black box.
Maybe a similar level of insight into the workings of the RSOC and the
RSE wouldn't have helped avert the current outcome; maybe it would have
helped. Hindsight and all. But I'm not clear: Why is having a completely
black box a good thing?
pr
--
Pete Resnick http://www.episteme.net/
All connections to the world are tenuous at best
