Re: [ifwp] Re: Why was Draft 7 of the application not posted to the discuss list?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Dec 10, 1998 at 07:53:05AM +0100, Amadeu Abril i Abril wrote:
> William X. Walsh wrote:
>> 
>> Kent, Roberto, and everyone else,

I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier -- I'm at the IETF meeting, and 
can only get a few snatches of time to check my email (and work on 
documents). 



>> 
>> Many of us active stakeholders in the DNSO process who cannot attend face to
>> face meetings are on this discussion list.
>> 
>> Today I find out draft 7 of the proposed DNSO application was posted only to
>> the participants list.
>> 
>> Either post it to the discuss list or open the participants list to those who
>> participate but cannot attend face to face meetings.
>> 
>> I see this as a SERIOUS obstacle to openness and transparency in the DNSO
>> process.
> 
> Calm down, William ;-)
> 
>All documents will be posted everywhere. The fact is that the drafting team
>was basically incorporating the so-called Monterrey consensus points to an
>earlier draft (already available).
> 
>I guess that it makes sense to firts forward that to those participating to
>the Monterrey meeting to see whether major "mistakes" have been done, and then
>forward it to discuss (and post it to the web).
> 
>I guess that whis will be done later today or early tomorrow. No intention to
>exclude involved. Just a polite gesture towrads those attending the meeting
>and appointing the drafting team ;-)

Amadeu has this exactly right.  The role of the drafting team was
*not* to create, but rather to incorporate what has been agreed to. 
I posted the drafts to the participants list first as a proofreading
measure.  I'm not a perfect editor, and the drafting team as a whole
doesn't have a perfect memory of what was said at Monterrey.

I will give just a bit of history of this draft, to give an idea of 
the process.  The drafting team went through 7 internal versions of this 
latest document (hence "version 7" -- it isn't the seventh published 
draft).  We passed around versions of the document, and various 
people worked on various sections.  

The Barcelona meeting had a drafting team; it produced three 
alternative drafts.  The Monterrey drafting team started from 
alternative two.  That is, that was our "version 1".  I made a pass 
over version 1 to incorporate obvious consensus points from the 
Monterrey meeting.  That was version 2.  Other members of the team 
took from there.  (I was the editor, charged with incorporating 
changes.) 


Towards the end, David Maher did some work that I incorporated into
"version 6" a few days ago.  Unfortunately, I screwed up and used an
earlier version as a base, and so lost some of his changes.  He
noticed right away; I redid the changes from the correct starting
point -- that result was version 6a.  I added some language for
section VI B; David said it wasn't legally rigorous, and suggested
alternate wording, which I incorporated.  

That was version 7, which we decided was good enough to submit for
comment to the participants. 

The charter of the drafting team was to simply incorporate the
Monterrey consensus.  That charter came from the participants at the
Monterrey meeting.  Obviously it is the Monterrey participants who
are the judge of that consensus.  The drafting team is simply not
empowered to say that "this is *the* draft that represents the
Monterrey consensus". 

It is, of course, simply true that there is an unavoidable element of
interpretation in any such effort.  We on the drafting team know 
that -- what we write is our interpretation of the consensus.  
Sometimes we go even further -- there are areas in the draft where 
text is necessary, and we put in our best guess of what we think the 
group would like, even if the discussion was vague, or a formal consensus 
call was not taken.  We do that to make progress.  But there is a risk 
that we may have made a mistake.  That's why there is review by the 
participants.  We are putting words in their mouths; they have a
right to protest before we broadcast to the world.

So far there have been no comments on the participants list, and, on 
the questionable theory that silence is consent, I will post 
"version 7" to discuss later on tonight.

-- 
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair				"Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com				lonesome." -- Mark Twain