Mr. Keith Moore: For the record, could you describe what you do for a living ? Jim Fleming http://www.unir.com http://www.unir.com/images/architech.gif http://www.unir.com/images/address.gif http://www.unir.com/images/headers.gif -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Keith Moore Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 11:09 AM To: John Leslie Cc: John C Klensin; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Wandering in the Weeds > No really, _why_ would IESG think that shutting down a group is > called for when they seem to be wandering in the weeds? because the longer a group exists, the more likely it is that the mailing list contains a disproportionate number of people who don't do much useful work and (apparently) have nothing better to do with their time than to argue about proposals that don't concern them. in other words, folks who are interested in doing useful work tend to be busy doing useful work, and due to time constraints (and sometimes disgust) they tend to opt-out of participation in groups that aren't focused and therefore are not getting much work done, leaving the discussion to be dominated by folks who are less interested in doing useful work. shutting down an existing group helps dispel the public mis-perception that the group is actually making progress and/or doing something useful. and newly formed groups tend to stay (relatively) focused for a year or two. thus, shutting down a group is often a constructive activity. in my experience (mostly in the apps area) any group that's been around for longer than two years has about a 90% probability of wandering in the weeds. Keith
