On 8/3/07, Ben Buchanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The informal approach worked well when the community was new and > smaller, but now that it's ramping up it doesn't seem to be coping. > I'm not claiming there's an easy answer, but we should start by > accepting there's a problem. >
The IETF, that master of rough consensus and running code[1], is often sited as an example of a group that is good at lightweight standards development. And it is. But a closer look shows that "lightweight process" is not at all the same as "no process whatsoever." A quick read through the home page for the The Internet Engineering Steering Group[2] shows that there is quite a lot of hard-won wisdom about how groups of grown-ups[3] cooperate to produce a standard. The IETF process is not without problems, and I'm not suggesting it's something that should be copied, but it is a good example of how some real governance is necessary even for a very results-focused group of engineers. FWIW. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus [2] http://www.ietf.org/iesg.html [3] And/or prickly unsocialized prima donna engineers pretending to be grown-ups :-) -- Christopher St. John http://artofsystems.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
