In fairness, the posts resulting from the FSF, uh, call to action, of
this issue have been polite and tried to make a point. Some of them
may be more or less informed about the facts at hand but they have
been on topic and do express an opinion. I'm sure we can all think of
examples of far less useful conversations that have happened on ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
.
The IETF has standardized some of the protocols that became the
relevant and widely used protocols. I believe one of the things that
keeps the IETF's work relevant is that it is not just "profession
standards people" but also actually involves people that write code
and build products. If some programmer who is not deeply involvement
with standards or the IETF is implementing something and wants to come
and make some one time "drive by" comment to the IETF, well, theses
can be valuable insight. These might be in a slightly different
category but I think we should pay attention to people that are
implementing or using a protocol even if they aren't long term IETF
people. At the other end of the spectrum, we have had case on an IETF
list where a single person with multiple "sock puppet" email accounts
was trying to assert undue influence and we had many cases where
people that knew nothing about the topic just said "me too". It is
impossible to come up with any algorithm that separates these - it
requires good judgment of the chairs and others that need to call
consensus. I don't envy the poor AD that gets to sort out the
relevancy of these comments.
Cullen <in my individual contributor role>
PS. I have been sort of surprised that no one has asked all these
people if they plan to implement or use this draft. I was under the
impression that the community of interest in the draft was very small.
If there is more widespread interest, it generally helps up the
chances of the IESG approving a draft.
On Feb 10, 2009, at 9:02 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:19:57AM -0500, Melinda Shore wrote:
Well, no, I don't agree with that last bit, in the
sense that I don't think "replied on the mailing list"
really means the same thing as "participated."
I think we're in agreement. All I'm suggesting is that there's no _a
priori_ way of knowing whether someone is participating, except by
looking at the lists. Therefore, we can't dismiss postings from
people we don't know on the grounds we don't know them. This means
that those "driving by" have to be tolerated, I think.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(_at_)shinkuro(_dot_)com
Shinkuro, Inc.
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