On Feb 17, 2012, at 1:23 PM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
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On 2/17/12 2:18 PM, Chris Grundemann wrote:
*and I happen to know the person who is doing the agreeing*
I keep hearing statements along these lines and it's a bit
unnerving. Either participation in the IETF is open, or it isn't.
When a person's opinion/view/thoughts/words/etc. are judged
exclusively by "do I know this person" then you have an Old Boys
Club, not an open body.
Chris, I think Pete meant that if he happens to know the personal
context of the person who says "+1" then he can impute some meaning to
it (because he knows the person has been following the discussion,
knows what that person's concerns have been in past threads, etc.). He
is not saying that you need to be part of the club in order to gain a
hearing, only that if he doesn't know you then a mere +1 carries less
(or no) weight with him.
I hope Pete meant something a bit more than that. In specific, I hope he meant:
if he happens to know the personal
context of the person who says "+1" then he can impute some meaning to
it, but if he doesn't know the personal context, then he needs to
put effort into finding it out
That is, in a WG where you are leading a consensus call, if you get a
significant number of +1s or -1s from people who haven't participated in the
conversation to date, it is your responsibility to try to find out why. "I just
got started" is a perfectly good reason, as is "I have been following this
silently but this is the first thing I thought was important"; "I was told to
join the list and vote" is also context that is good to know.
All of this, of course, argues against the proposal that started this thread.
--Paul Hoffman
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