> OK. You sometimes respond to and accept on-list suggestions made by > an individual, without any supporting messages from other people.
Certainly. If the suggestion is reasonable, not contentious, and a good clarification, then it adds value to the document. > You sometimes acknowledge a suggestion and state your reasons for > disagreeing with it. > > My concern is that you sometimes give no acknowledgement of > suggestions, and no explanation of why you reject them. Please remember that the point of the document is to reflect the best thinking of the entire group. Comments that advocate an outlier opinion, lack support from the group, or are simply unreasonable do not warrant further discussion. Note that repetition, volume, loquaciousness, sarcasm, or acidic comments do not constitute support. Instead, I look for a succinct, reasonable, and rational argument from a number of respected sources. > I would have thought that people with something to say about the > report, or about suggestions for improving it, would be most inclined > to write about it to the list, rather than just to you privately. You would be incorrect. I get more private email than list email. Some people are very hesitant to post to the list. > Why should I or others have full confidence in your approach to > running this group, and finalising its report(s) when you apparently > give serious weight to what some people communicate with you > privately, when those people choose not to place their views on the > record via the list (and so encourage further discussion), while you > also choose to silently ignore perfectly constructive on-list > contributions which you apparently disagree with? Because after having been a member of the community since 1991, having devoted my professional life to improving the Internet, having demonstrated a certain degree of competence in building protocols and routers to run them, and having been a mostly reasonable person, I believe that I have earned a degree of respect. Because my motivations are transparent: my sole purpose is to produce the best possible outcome for the Internet. > Why not respond on-list to the suggestions you disagree with and > explain why you think they are a bad idea? Like everyone else here, I am a volunteer. The time that I spend on this topic comes out of a combination of my professional and personal time. I have a day job that has significant responsibilities. I do not have an infinite amount of time to spend on this. Nor would that be productive. Therefore, I respond to the reasonable comments that need discussion. Most others on the list operate in the same way. > I suggest that if you want to encourage full and constructive > discussion, by people with a wide range of ideas and expertise - and > in so doing improve the confidence people like me have in your running > of the group - you should provide more encouragement for people who > make the effort to contribute. Actually, as you may have noticed, our work here is largely complete. Our remaining tasks are to polish the documents and then move on to new topics. Tony _______________________________________________ rrg mailing list [email protected] http://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/rrg
