"Adult supervision"

[Charles E. Perkins]

Hello folks,

It seems to me that whenever these words are used
by an IESG member with respect to the needs of a
working group, it highlights a serious problem in
the attitude of the IESG member.  The imagery of
irresponsible children running amok and inflicting
damage to the Internet sets up an expectation of
conflict that is counter to the sort of cooperative
proceedings that (I think) should be our goal.

An IESG member, starting with the attitude of an
exasperated parent, can expect to encounter many
barriers preventing productive engagement with the
working group members.

If a whole working group is doing something that
would deserve such a characterization, then there
should be some document somewhere that the IESG member
can suggest for the working group members to study.
That document should be made available at a very
early stage in the history of the working group.
I expect that the working group members would almost
always take a constructive approach, once the
technical aspects of the document are digested and
understood.

Then we might have "constructive engagement" instead of
"adult supervision", and progress instead of bitterness.

Regards,
Charlie P.