--On Thursday, March 21, 2013 08:53 +0000 Brian E Carpenter
<brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
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.
Agreed. I also suggest that experience in putting both WG and
individual submission documents through the process in the last
several years (and experience that, as Melissa pointed out,
Martin apparently doesn't have) strongly suggests much more
intense scrutiny than would be consistent with rubber-stamping.
From time to time, I'd suspected that some comments, especially
editorial ones, are posted to prove to everyone that the AD
involved actually did read the document. That pattern and
associated discussions also strongly suggests that most ADs read
or otherwise carefully consider most documents. Comments to
prove that one has read the document or that are generated
because, after doing all that work, one must have at least
_some_ comment may be a problem, but, if so, it is different
from the discussion on this thread.
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.
Yes. Over the years, I have been concerned about a different
issue with IESG diversity. Today's IESG has 14 voting members
with 12 different company affiliations and no company apparently
supporting more than two ADs. That is actually not bad in
either absolute terms or, I think, in comparison to the
community. But we have had years in which company affiliations,
presumed sponsorship, and industry sectors have been much more
concentrated, possibly enough so to be fodder for antitrust
actions focused on particular sets of decisions especially if
industry partnerships and other relationships are considered.
More diversity provides some inherent protection against that
sort of problem as a useful side effect.
Of course, that organizational diversity doesn't help with the
100% European or North American males within a moderately narrow
age range dimensions of the broader issue.
john