Re: [wg-d] "Interim Measures"

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Sep 09, 1999 at 12:40:54PM -0700, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> 
> > It would be great if DNSO WGs could be made to function as
> > effectively as IETF WGs
> 
> Like the IETF WG that has sat in stasis for two+ years while people argue
> over whose name goes on the document?
> 
> Like the IETF WG that has its work held back while that previously
> mentioned WG argues like Lilliputions?
> 
> Like the IETF WG that has found the process so slow and cumbersome that it
> stops and disbands when it publishes its first draft because by that time
> it is already a de facto standard in products by several vendors and
> further revisions would be a waste of time?
> 
> Or like the IETF WG that had so much consensus that it wasted many years
> creating something that looked like an OSI-phile's dream and which was
> utterly rejected by the industry.
> 
> No thanks.

Yes, the IETF allows WGs to fail, and some of them do.  However, 
these are the exceptions that make the rule -- there is absolutely 
no question that the IETF processes as a whole have been extremely 
successful -- we wouldn't be here otherwise.

Nobody, not even you, actually advocates using Robert's Rules.  
Everybody, without exception, realizes that Robert's Rules 
don't fit our situation -- it takes about 5 minutes of looking 
through the book to be convinced.

Instead, what you are arguing for is an "adaptation" of Robert's 
Rules, an adaptation that completely undercuts the primary function 
of Robert's Rules, which is to serialize debate.

What you advocate, in fact, is the creation of a whole new set of 
rules, with some superficial similarity to Robert's Rules.  You keep 
calling these new rules "Robert's Rules", so you can make the claim:

> Let's use a procedure which has been show to work well for a very long
> time in very contentious situations, Robert's Rules.

But in fact the new rules you propose would be better called 
"Karl/Marks Rules", and they they have NO history behind them at 
all.  These new rules you propose have never been used anywhere, 
and in fact they don't even really exist yet.  Calling them 
"Robert's Rules" is probably an intellectual property violation of 
some kind, and putting a reference to "Robert's Rules of Order" in 
the bylaws would be monumentally misleading, at best, since we would 
really be referring to "Karl/Marks Rules".

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