On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 11:25:47AM -0400, Dave Crocker wrote:
The proposal I posted offered specific roles and types of activity
that would qualify. It also asked some targeted questions.
As I guess I suggested, I believe the idea that the objectivity is
going to last is just wishful thinking. If I'm wrong about that, then
the list will not do the job we want of it.
You offered categories that would automatically qualify people.
Inevitably, there are going to be cases where some subset of the
community thought that a person who qualifies under those criteria was
notable primarily in the negative sense. They weren't a contributor,
but rather did harm, either to the organization or to the protocol in
question (or both). As soon as we run into such a case, there will be
a debate. If not, the list will just be a list of the historical IETF
in-crowd (if I read him correctly, that's Scott Brim's objection). A
cool kids list is hardly a fitting memorial to the people we are
trying to identify -- those giants on whose shoulders we stand.
I think it more likely that, in response to a controversial case,
we'll invent a new process to manage. I think that's a threat to the
IETF, and it would be ironic if the list meant to lionize earlier
contributors managed to consume the very mechanism they used for
making their contributions.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(_at_)anvilwalrusden(_dot_)com