Hi Charlie.
Hello folks,
I have talked to a lot of working group chairs and document authors.
They complain about the IESG. I ask them why they don't raise their
issues at the IESG plenary. The answer is always the same:
"It does not pay to piss off the IESG".
From this, I infer:
- The IESG plenary is broken as a method for public input, at
least to some degree
- The IESG is seen as authoritarian and vengeful.
- You are not hearing crucial feedback that you need to thrive.
Please comment at the plenary. You can read aloud my e-mail, and if
you promise not to be pissed off at me you can attribute it to me.
Apologies for not bringing this up last night, but as you know we got
pressed for time.
The statement "It does not pay to piss off the IESG" really concerns
me. It implies that the IESG (as a body) somehow holds grudges or
takes things to a personal level. That is clearly unacceptable, and if
it is happening, must be stopped. If there are cases where this is
happening, or individuals believe it is happening, the issue needs to
be brought to the attention of the IESG and dealt with appropriately.
If what you are saying is that individual ADs (as opposed to the IESG
as a body) hold grudges, that again is not acceptable, but is harder
to deny cannot or does not happen, given that this involves
individuals, personalities, etc. But if it is happening, I would hope
that folk feel comfortable finding other ways of approaching the IESG
members than through a single AD.
There are number of ADs that are quite open to being approached
individually. I am personally willing to talk to anyone one-on-one if
they have an issue that they don't believe is being handled properly
by some other individual AD or by the IESG as a whole. I am certain
that the other ADs hold a similar view. So, if there are cases where
the above is believed to be happening, *please* approach one or more
other ADs and discuss the issue. I *personally* can't do anything
about a problem if *I* don't know about it.
To go a bit further on this point, I sense that there is at least some
feeling in the community that the formal appeals process doesn't work.
I.e., appeals don't generally fix underlying problems, are too high a
hurdle, cause too much damage whatever the outcome, take too long and
become a waste of time, etc.
So, I suspect there is a sense that problems sometimes arise where
some of the community feels like the wrong thing is happening, but
they have no recourse and it doesn't get fixed. Again, I encourage
folk to contact individual ADs (if the issues are too personal to
discuss publically), or be brought up in a more public fashion. The
first step towards dealing with substantive issues is to get them out
on the table so people know about them.
Thomas