Re: Common sense, process, and the nature of change

On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu> 
wrote:

> So, for myself, as the importance of the work an organization does, the
> maximum I am willing to trust anyone with regard to process issues
> decreases significantly.
> This is not a negative statement about any office holders, past, current
> or future.
> This is simply a belief that it is important to use more process as the
> importance of things affected by the process increase.
I think the old catchphrase for this was "rule of law, not rule of
men", and I agree that there are fundamental benefits of that
approach.  But the starting point of this discussion was questioning
why we seem to need process for everything--even one off situations
that have "special circumstances" all over them.  I think if we could
agree to evaluate the impact of individual decisions according to your
criteria ("what's the impact?"), before deciding on the need for
process, we would be standing on common ground.

But it sounds like we disagree on whether we can trust our current or
future leadership to make that sort of call.  While I think that
increased trust would increase the latitude that the community would
extend to our leadership in ways that would improve our lot, it sounds
like you would believe that this would grant too much power.  Is that
a fair summary of where we disagree?

regards,

Ted