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Re: [IAOC] Proposed IAOC Administrative Procedures

2010-06-02 13:28:37


On 6/2/2010 10:50 AM, Bob Hinden wrote:
The IAOC's intent in creating these "proposed IAOC administrative procedures"
was to write down what we were doing in areas where we thought BCP101 wasn't
clear to us or didn't specify anything, and then get feed back from the
community.   We were not trying to revise or alter BCP101.  We wanted this to
be transparent to the community.


That matches my own sense of what you folks were/are doing and the basis upon which you are "authorized" for doing it.

My own reading of the responses that were posted publicly is that any criticisms are about its details, not about its premise.

There is always a layering of authority and authorizing documentation, for formal activities. Articles of incorporation vs. Bylaws vs. Operating Procedures, for example. Some of their scope and authority is imposed from above, such as a State's laws governing the articles of incorporation.

But there is always quite a bit of freedom to tailor things according to a group's culture. A Bylaws might require all members to approve everything, or it might leave all operational authority with the Board of directors, or...

Simply put, things can range of pure democracy to purely representational, and from default prohibit to default allow (with or without the possibility of reversal.)

Almost all of the authorizing documents in the IETF go into great detail about the formation and structure of a group but say little about its internal operations. IAB, IESG, IAOC, Nomcom, and even working groups. (For example, for "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", we included discussion of some aspects of how a working group might choose to operate, but dictated essentially none of that detail.)

The common model in the IETF is to allow quite a bit of freedom for a group to take initiative on the details of its own operation. For most things, we do not even require prior announcement. It's always reasonable for a community like ours to reconsider our model of operation, but I haven't seen much community interest in pursuing such major changes.

In light of that, the process the IAOC is following here is significantly /better/ than our history and formal rules require, in terms of trying to lock down essential details but also in terms of making this effort transparent to the community and giving the community an opportunity to review things.

If there is a groundswell of objection to the IAOC initiative, then indeed the IAOC should reconsider its initiative. And the IAOC's approach to developing and implementing this nicely enables that possibility.

But as I say, so far the groundswell I've seen is about the details, not the premise.


d/

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net
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