Subject: [yam] A suggestion for restraint

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:23:08 -0700

Folks,

Given that this working group has an extraordinarily narrow focus and that it 
covers material that is extraordinarily mature and well-understood, I'd like to 
make a special plea that we each take every opportunity to avoid pursuing 
distracting lines of discussion.

In particular, I strongly urge folk to refrain from responding to postings they 
feel are clearly irrelevant, misguided, or otherwise sure to produce no 
constructive work with respect to the wg charter.

The view that anyone needs to issue a defensive posting, to counteract possible 
challenges that the wg was not sufficiently diligent, is often used for wasting 
wg bandwidth.  Indeed, due diligence is a powerful concern that should be taken 
seriously.  But it is often taken too far.

First, it ignores the affirmative denial of service damage done by serious 
amounts of such wastefulness.  Second, I'm pretty sure there is no historical 
documentation to substantiate the validity of the belief that defensive posting 
is helpful.  Third is that this wg, in particular, has such a narrow goal and 
such a solid participant base, that I find it hard to believe this particular 
effort, with this particular group, needs to be defensive...

If you doubt my 'First' point, take a look at the amount of traffic on the list 
for most of this week and ask what it accomplished that was useful...

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:34:22 -0400

> In particular, I strongly urge folk to refrain from responding to postings
> they feel are clearly irrelevant, misguided, or otherwise sure to produce no

I'll point out that the post that started this came from the AD:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/yam/current/msg00067.html

I suspect he won't do that again, but....
:-)

Barry

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From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:42:55 -0700

> I suspect he won't do that again, but....

Well, only because I think we need some agreement about when we are wasting our 
time...

I might be misunderstanding the sequence, but I took this as passing an errata 
entry to a group concerned about the relevant spec.  The group has an obligation 
to deal with such things.

I think the problem is that the group DID deal with it but then kept responding 
to a recalcitrant participant who was unhappy with the resolution.

IMO.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:24:51 -0400

> I think the problem is that the group DID deal with it but then kept
> responding to a recalcitrant participant who was unhappy with the
> resolution.
>
> IMO.

D'accord.  IMO as well.

Barry

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:24:05 +0100

>I suspect he won't do that again, but....
Well, we didn't have an agreement about what to do with errata and the 
mailing list was dead quiet at the time.