MAJOR ISSUE: "Concentration of power"
Brian E Carpenter
brian at hursley.ibm.com
Thu Jun 19 14:36:15 CEST 2003
I agree with Harald's slant on this. The new wording is much better
than in the previous draft, but it still seems to state a perception as
if were were an objective fact. A fairly liberal addition of "perceived"
to the text would help, starting with the title:
2.5.5. Perceived Concentration of Influence in Too Few Hands
Also, let me focus on one sentence:
> ...this may be because the
> 'ruling class' has also come to share a cultural outlook which
> matches the dominant ethos of the IETF.
It's hard to see why this is a problem. It says that the leadership
shares the dominant view. That is a compliment in any democracy.
Apart from that, the paragraph describes characteristics of human
society, not those specific to the IETF.
Brian
Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>
> [Yes, I'm posting more than my usual quota of two issues per day today.
> But I've been lax in keeping up, and I DO want the discussion on issues, if
> any, to have a chance of converging before Vienna. But this is it for
> today.]
> [Note: This message has two issues, but they concern the same paragraph.]
>
> -issue- reads:
>
> 2.5.5 Concentration of Influence in Too Few Hands
>
> Until the last couple of years, successive IETF Nominating Committees
> have chosen to give heavy weighting to continuity of IESG and IAB
> membership. Thus, the IETF appeared to have created a 'ruling class'
> system which tended to re-select the same leaders from a limited pool
> of people who had proved competent and committed in the past.
>
> Members of this 'ruling class' tend to talk more freely to each other
> and former members of the 'ruling class' - this may be because the
> 'ruling class' has also come to share a cultural outlook which
> matches the dominant ethos of the IETF. Newcomers to the organization
> and others outside the 'ruling class' are reluctant to challenge the
> apparent authority of the extended 'ruling class' during debates and
> consequently influence remains concentrated in a relatively small
> group of people. This reluctance may also be exacerbated if
> participants come from a different cultural background than the
> dominant one.
>
> ISSUE: Yes, I have issues with this paragraph. I percieve the distinction
> more in terms of trust networks than in terms of classes - and the trust
> networks of most of the percieved "ruling class" described here are, as far
> as I can percieve, rarely if ever inclusive of the whole class, are quite
> changeable, and have lots of members who are not members of any unified
> "class". This is related to my problem stated as "the IETF runs on personal
> networks".
> SUGGESTED RESOLUTION: None. This appears to be a viewpoint held by others.
> So I'll just state that I disagree.
>
> ISSUE: The problem identified in [WRONG] as excessive reliance on personal
> relationships is not reflected anywhere in section 2.5. Its closest
> relation is 2.5.5, but the focus seems different.
> SUGGESTED RESOLUTION: Adapt text from [WRONG].
>
> [WRONG] = http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/chair/what-is-wrong.html
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