Hi, Brian,
Hi,
I'd be interested to know if anyone has comments on
draft-carpenter-ietf-chair-tasks-00.txt:
This document describes tasks performed by the IETF Chair, the IESG
Chair, and the Area Director of the General Area of the IETF. Its
purpose is to inform the community of what these tasks are, and to
allow the community to consider whether combining all these roles in
one person is optimal.
In particular, with the new NomCom cycle starting soon,
does anyone believe we should discuss the last point?
Brian
You can expect smarter comments when people surface for air after the ID
cutoff (or maybe after IETF 66), but for now, I have a couple of comments.
- the draft points out the hopefully-proactive nature of the IETF chair
responsibilities, but is silent on proactive vs reactive vs just-active on
the other two responsibilities. My impression as an outsider is that the
IESG chair responsibilities also are/should be proactive, but the community
has been EXTREMELY resistent to doing General Area work if it can be
avoided, so this responsibility is between reactive and inactive. If you
agree with my understanding here, it might be good to state this explicitly
in the draft (identifying one more reason why you suffer from
schizophrenia - lucky you).
- In section 4, I think
1. (deleted, down to ) Although the General Area is
in theory for any work not covered elsewhere, it is in practice
limited to non-technical topics, i.e. IETF process topics. This
does create a curious meta-problem, which is the constant concern
about conflict of interest for an Area Director shepherding and
advocating work that affects (positively or negatively) his or
her own job.
WAY understates the amount of pushback you get when you (for example) spin
up PESCI, or author draft-carpenter-ietf-disputes-00.txt, or ... well, you
get my drift. If I understand the situation, you believe that as General
Area Director you are responsibile for making things happen that the
community believes you should not be making things happen since you are the
IESG and IETF chair. Madness lies this way, and it's not a long trip.
This alone would justify a few minutes of consideration, before the next
NomCom cycle, I think.
Thanks,
Spencer
p.s. You might also enjoy the following story about General Braxton Bragg,
in United States history, appearing in
http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/Braxton_Bragg and elsewhere:
Bragg had a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian and one who adhered
to regulations literally. There is a famous story about him as a lieutenant
commanding a frontier post where he also served as quartermaster. He
submitted a requisition for supplies, then as quartermaster declined to fill
it. As company commander, he resubmitted the requisition, giving additional
reasons for his requirements, but as the quartermaster he denied the request
again. Realizing that he was at a personal impasse, he referred the matter
to the post commandant, who exclaimed "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarreled
with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself!"
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf