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Re: FW: IETF Last Call under RFC 3683 concerning JFC (Jefsey) Morfin

2006-01-22 12:18:40
On Sun, Jan 22, 2006 at 12:20:15PM +0100, Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:

Eventually you end up with multiple groups on a list: those who
irritate others, those who want to censor the ones they find
irritating, and--sometimes--a minority of people who are grown-up
enough to stay out of both of these groups and continue their normal
work, cheerfully ignoring the children at play on the list.

When this happens, I've only ever seen two possible outcomes.  Either
the smoke generators are ejected, or the productive members leave.

There's a third possible outcome: The productive members are smart,
they ignore the smoke, and they continue to work efficiently. 

A fundamental aspect of group decision making is defining the group making
the decision.  Uncoordinated individual procmail rulesets don't cut it if
there is any kind of accountability requirement. 

IETF lists are frequently required to make group decisions, and those
decisions do have an accountability requirement.  Decisions have to stand on the
public record, not the filtered view of some hypothetical elite.  When an IESG
member examines the archive of a list to review some decision, that review
won't tell the IESG member who is filtering who.  

I've been on lists where I thought there was limited and mostly intelligent
traffic, until I looked at the archive. 

But the
productive members do have to be _smart_, and unfortunately that's
more the exception than the rule, even on lists where the members like
to believe themselves smart.

Would that things were so simple.

-- 
Kent Crispin 
kent(_at_)icann(_dot_)org    p: +1 310 823 9358  f: +1 310 823 8649
kent(_at_)songbird(_dot_)com SIP: 81202(_at_)fwd(_dot_)pulver(_dot_)com


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