On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 8:40 AM, IETF Chair <chair(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org> wrote:
In July, we had a discussion both on this list and at the plenary about this
list, moderation, discussion styles, tools, and participation in last call
and other discussions.
We need to continue thinking about the role of this list and other bigger
issues, but I plan to make one small action regarding the list discussions
now: adding facilitators. Or to be more exact, delegating some of the
facilitation role that I have to additional persons. Occasionally,
discussions on the list get heated, repetitive, or unnecessarily personal.
When that happens, I have found that quick responses on the list or to the
persons often resolves the situation, and productive discussion can continue.
However, I am also finding that it is difficult for me personally to stay on
top the threads in real time, and late reactions are not as useful. As a
result, I plan to ask two persons to help monitor the discussion and steer it
towards the most useful avenues.
This is not a change with regards to roles of ADs/shepherds and last calls,
or a change to how we deal with disruptive or inappropriate postings, such as
PR-actions, sergeant-at-arms, or our spam tools. All those mechanisms will
stay in place. The facilitators will not be able to moderate or block posting
from anyone (except by reporting issues to the sergeant-at-arms, just like
the rest of us can).
Comments appreciated, as always.
I have thought that there are many occasions where the best use of
meeting time would be to have a facilitated discussion of the issues.
Case in point, did we really need to have two completely separate
email standards? There was absolutely no possibility of common ground?
I have discussed it with the AD who made the decision and he pointed
out that before he made the two groups completely separate there was
no progress on either. But end to end email has been hurt by the fact
that we have two incompatible standards and they are both IETF
standards.