Martin,
On 21/03/2013 00:51, Martin Rex wrote:
...
My impression of todays IESG role, in particular taking their
balloting rules and their actual balloting results into account,
is more of a "confirming body" of work that happened elsewhere
(primarily in the IETF, typically in IETF WGs, but also individual or
interest groups submissions from elsewhere, though the latter mostly
for (re)publication as informational).
IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where _each_
member reviews _all_ of the work, where _each_ forms his very own opionion,
and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity
within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything).
I think you've misinterpreted the IESG procedures a bit. The definition
of a NO OBJECTION ballot in the IESG ranges from "I read it, and I have
no problem with it" to "I listened to the discussion, and I have no problem."
It's impossible to say objectively which of these extremes predominates,
but when I was General AD, I tried to at least speed-read every draft,
and studied the Gen-ART reviews carefully. Individual ADs vary in their
habits according to workload, but my sense is that there is a strong
sense of collective responsibility and definitely not a sense of
rubber stamping. You could check the statistices I suppose, but it
is normal that when there is a DISCUSS ballot, it is from an AD in
another IETF area, and very rarely from the co-AD in the same area.
That wouldn't happen if the IESG was a rubber-stamping machine.
Therefore, diversity (on any axis) within the IESG can impact the
results. But it is only at the output end, and diversity within WGs
should be even more valuable in generating robust technical results.
Brian