Re: I'm not the microphone police, but ...

--On Saturday, 06 August, 2005 12:00 +0200 Keith Moore
<moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu> wrote:

> I actually think IETF might function better if nobody's badge
> had his company's name on it, and nobody used a company email
> address.  People place way too much importance on someone's
> employer.  Yes, sometimes people break the rules and speak for
> their employers, but it's not wise to assume that this is the
> case.
>
> As for those who want to acknowledge who pays the travel bills
> - It doesn't matter who pays the bills.  What matters is
> whether what's being said makes good technical sense.
Keith,

In a more perfect world, I would completely agree with you.  In
practice, there is a more subtle issue than "speaking for their
employers" which involved avoiding saying things that one's
employer would find troublesome.  In my experience in IETF and,
especially in other standards bodies, it is much more common for
a company to say to an employee "in general, we don't care what
you advocate, but you are not permitted to speak against a
position the company has taken or in favor of a position that
would hurt one of the company's product plans".

FWIW, the main US standards body in the
above-physical-infrastructure information technology area
responded, something over 30 years ago, to variations on to
problem of whether someone was participating as an individual
expert or a company representative by making people declare what
they were (with a default). Every membership roster for a
technical committee or working group would list people in a way
that would distinguish between "works for Foobar Corporation"
and "represents FooBar Corporation and reflects their views".
The strongest push for making the distinction actually came from
some of those who were obligated to represent company positions:
more than one of them commented in private that if he or she was
required to say stupid things, it was good for it to be clear
that they were someone's else's opinions.    The advantage of
that sort of approach is that no one has to lie or pretend they
are something they are not.  Everyone has to identify explicitly
what they are and under what constraints they do (or do not)
operate, and then we move on.

In or environment, without long-lived rosters and membership
lists, we could require periodic disclaimers in email messages
(e.g., "I am speaking for GreedyCorp here") or make colored
badges, or stripes, or...).

I am _not_ particularly recommending this, but it is something
we might think about as pointing the way to a better plan than
"let's pretend everyone is acting as an individual and able to
speak freely on any topic, even when we know it isn't always
true".

    john


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