[governance] RE: organizational orientation

[George Sadowsky]

All,

Suresh is absolutely correct in pointing out through this example a 
large cultural difference between the more hard core technical 
community and the cultures of some other groups.  i know nothing 
about the particular incident in question, but I do know something 
about the IETF, and I'll use that as an illustration.  I believe that 
the circumstances may be quite similar.

IETF operates as a meritocracy.  It has no legal existence, and 
anyone can register for and attend an IETF meeting.  it doesn't 
matter where you are from, who you work for, what color, gender you 
are, or any other attribute of your personal life and/or beliefs that 
have no bearing on how well you think, contribute or perform.  Once 
you are in one of its sessions, you are judged almost completely by 
the ideas that you contribute to the discussion.  If you don't know 
what you're talking about, you'll be shut up.  If you contribute 
well, you will be appreciated.  They don't believe in or have a large 
tolerance for sloppy or uncritical thinking.

In therms of treatment of individuals, this is one of the fairest, 
most egalitarian groups I know.  It believes in working toward 
results and agreeing on the basis of rough consensus and running 
code.  To be fair, the operational test of running code is a metric 
more easily available in science and engineering disciplines than it 
is in many other dimensions of human affairs but it is an ideal that 
other groups might wish to take into account.

George

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At 6:09 PM -0700 5/28/08, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
>Milton L Mueller [28/05/08 16:50 -0400]:
>>RIRs are barely on the agenda here, though of course I wish more of us
>>were involved in that too. (By the way, a newcomer from this list
>>recently made a comment on the ARIN list and was instantly attacked by
>>Randy Bush. There was nothing particularly wrong or controversial about
>
>There's one difference, Milton. Randy's done a lot for the Internet (and
>the Internet in developing countries too). In fact if volume of work done
>were to be calculated, he's done far more for the internet, than you've
>played icann politics (not to mention that his work's actually produced
>some valuable output rather than mere hot air and poison..).
>
>He is also far less reluctant to call a spade a spade than most. Which
>doesnt really equate to tribalism.
>
>	srs
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