--On Thursday, 23 December, 2004 13:31 -0800 Carl Malamud
<carl(_at_)media(_dot_)org> wrote:
Hi John -
(i) the IESG, or the IESG's leadership, is likely to
micromanage because it has tended to micromanage, or try to
do so, many of the things it has touched in the last several
years -- the secretariat, the content of various documents
down to the editorial level, the RFC Editor, and so on (some
of that has gotten better in recent months or years, but that
...
Hmmm .... I don't see how worrying this particular BCP to
death is going to change any of that. You're talking some
pretty fundmamental doom-and-gloom stuff. If things are that
broken, could any BCP fix them?
Well, that is one of the reasons why several members of the
community have tried to comment, several times, that the Admin
Reorg effort is addressing problems that are either irrelevant
or not on the critical path. And I have observed that all of
them, after having been ignored, have simply dropped out of the
discussion. I suspect, but can't prove, that "in disgust"
belongs at the end of that sentence.
I'd also observe that I don't think you have tried to get a
technical or standards track document through the system in the
last year or two.
(ii) If I'm worried about bagels (I'm really not), I'm not
worried about the IAD/IASA making that decision: I expect
those people to be firmly in contact with fiscal realities and
priorities. If they are not, we will have far worse problems
than the bagel supply. But I'm concerned about even the
possibility of bagels-by-appeal, or
bagels-by-IESG/IAB-overriding IAD decisions, even while
realizing that particular example is (deliberately) unlikely.
And, as I said, the issue I'm raising is a key management and
management-relationships principle. Whether one agrees with
it or not, characterizing it as a corner case seems to me
like a stretch.
Hmmm again ... maybe it is just the holiday spirit, or the
six months of intensive community work that has gone into
the document, but it just seems to me that bagels-by-appeal,
or any of the other bagel-related scenarios, are corner
cases.
The bagels aren't just corner cases, they are a
deliberately-silly example (which I think I've said). But the
question of how much the IESG and IAB should be able to
intervene in the operations of the IASA is not.
<snip for brevity>
No. But I've heard that the draft IAD job description was
floated by a couple of HR/ search experts (I believe at least
one of those reports has not been forwarded to the transition
team because there was no indication that the advice was
...
Well, I wrote portions of that description, so I definitely
resemble that remark. ;) I think you're overblowing this
IAD position by asking for things like executive searches.
Feel free to furnish new text to the committee ...
I actually never asked for an executive search. I asked for
review of the description by someone competent in that area and
for the transition team to consider whether an executive search
was appropriate. My personal hypothesis, as I said on the list,
was that it probably would not be useful and worth the costs.
But I thought the question was important to ask, and am
concerned about the symptoms of its not being asked, of the
description not being reviewed by professionals, etc.
As far as whether I'm overblowing the position, I don't know,
because I still can't figure out from the draft just what the
expectations are of how much authority that person has and what
he or she is expected to do. If we are talking about an
overblown administrative assistant (or executive assistant to
the IETF Chair), then thinking seriously about searches is
unnecessary. But I keep seeing phrases that imply managing a
fairly large operation consisting of multiple subcontractors,
shaping a reasonably large budget, and making a large number of
decisions that could, if gotten wrong, impact the IETF's ability
to function. If _those_ are the expectations, then I think we
really want some executive-level talent in the job and that
hiring someone junior who happens to know some of the IETF
Leadership (not the only alternative, but one extreme
possibility) would be a bit mistake.
As to the end of the IETF, mumble. That seems a bit much.
Well, my impression -- it is just an impression, but I am still
trying to get technical work done in this community and keep
hearing from others in the same boat-- is that this process is
sucking a lot of the energy and life out of the community. I
suggest that very few of the people who are following all of the
BCP and issues traffic are functionally doing anything else in
the IETF. If those impressions are correct, it brings us to the
question of how long we can pull energy into administrative
planning and similar structural/ organizational issues before it
is fatal... whether fatal to energy, fatal to the notion that
work can get done here, fatal to the notion that investing (in
donations, travel money, or just time) in the IETF is a
worthwhile investment, or in some other way.
Is that "a bit much"? Probably. But it is beginning to make
me really nervous.
...
You may have noted that I've said virtually nothing, on or
off-list, about editorial matters that don't impact principles
except sometimes to suggest that excess detail be removed.
That is not an accident. It is consistent, I think, with
your desire to get this cooked and out but without pushing
important issues under the proverbial rug in the process.
YMMD, of course, and likely does.
It does. I've seen a remarkable degree of consensus, a few
tweaks on a few things, but no huge disagreement that the
principles are wrong. It may not be a great document, the
framework may not be ideal, but I think y'all should move on
and get back to some real work. :)
And I think that a large fraction of that "remarkable degree of
consensus" is consensus by exhaustion of most of the community.
I've even heard from several IAB and IESG members that they have
been exhausted by the process and can't deal with it any more.
We've recently had a document about a piece of this work
published with an announcement that contained the phrase "The
IETF Chair has declared that the IETF has consensus on this
recommendation;...". I'm probably just being oversensitive,
but, in the "no kings; rough consensus and running code" IETF I
remember, that phrasing would have produced immediate calls for
explanation or resignation. I observe that there apparently
haven't been any (including from me). Perhaps that is a sign
that everyone has tuned out as a consequence of this process.
Perhaps it indicates that the IETF is already dead or at least
in need of life support. Or perhaps we are evolving in a
direction in which "declarations" are an appropriate community
consensus-determining mechanism.
regards,
john
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