On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Ken Hornstein wrote:
That hasn't been my experience; I've seen what can only be described as
an "old-boy" network in operation. I'm not saying that such a thing is
necessarily bad, just that sometimes it takes significant effort to
overcome it if you're a newbie.
Both the "old-boy" network and the undue skepticism are natural and occur
in every field. My intuition is, if you try to suppress them, they'll show
up in other ways!
On the other hand, I was a first-timer at the 49th IETF (although I was
already known to some in mmedia wg before), and had a rather atrocious
proposal to lobby for (see my I-D - you *can't* possibly believe it at
first reading :-). I've seen no less openness and no more skepticism at
the IETF than within my own organisation. I think the people are wonderful,
including many "old timers" - I quite enjoyed the many first-hand stories
in the many hallway discussions.
just my 2c.
-p.