Hitting another part of AB's message:
The ADs SHOULD have important-things in IETF that they are not allowed
to do. I don't like this off-hat and on-hat activities, or two/three
role-images per person in one volunteer organisation.
This also sounds self-evident, but I'm afraid it would make people
even *less* likely to volunteer for AD positions if they were
explicitly not allowed to participate in the normal IETF discourse. I
think most of us do choose to limit our non-AD participation, because
we are aware that even when we *say* we're speaking only as
participants, some people will give our comments more weight than they
(the comments) deserve, simply because we also have AD roles -- which
is, of course, AB's point.
But if we made an explicit rule that ADs should not participate in,
say, technical discussions in working groups, I think we'd make things
worse than they are, not better.
Barry, Applications AD