From: Eliot Lear <lear(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com>
...
If "out of scope" were removed as an acceptable reason to not do things,
then you would never squelch bad efforts.
An effort isn't bad because it's out of scope. An effort is bad because
it's bad, and we invest our faith in the IESG that they will use good
judgment to catch bad efforts.
If anyone on the IESG does not feel empowered to say "no" they should
not be on the IESG. WG chairs need to vet their own group's work first,
of course. And we could certainly do a better job on that.
There's a difference between feeling empowered to say "no" and having
the power to say no and make it stick or even just not be forced to
waste time in bureaucratic appeals.
What's the purpose of this "IETF mission statement" effort? If it
involved better specifications of what the IETF doesn't do, I'd be
happy. Instead it seems to involve replacing reasons to say "no"
with content-free blanket authorizations like "for the kids."
One might have hoped that "mission statement" would be a red flag to
more participants. When was the last time you heard of an effort to
write a "mission statement" that wasn't fodder for "Dilbert"? It's
good decide what you're trying to do and even better if you figure it
out befre you start, but "mission statement" seems to inevitably
produce worse than useless statements like "promote and facilitate
the use of the Internet and of IP infrastructure."
That a IETF "mission statement" is being crafted at this late date
is a very bad sign about the likely result of that crafting and the
state of the IETF.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com