Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 16:24:49 -0500
From: Rob Austein 
Subject: Faith and Practice of the IETF

Several recent conversations have drawn my attention to the extent to
which my own perception of the IETF's decision making process has been
influenced by the practices of another group that uses a similar
decision process.  It would be difficult to translate that group's
practices into input suitable for the IETF, but given that the other
group has running code which they've been debugging for more than 300
years, I'm tempted to try.

A few excerpts which seem especially relevant to certain behavior
patterns that we've been seeing on some IETF mailing lists:

  * We observe silence between individuals' contributions. These
    silences are crucial, not only for the period of reflection they
    provide; but also because they enable a meeting to proceed as a
    gathered body. They act as a brake against one or more individuals
    seizing control of the meeting through rhetorical display, appeal
    to emotions or other means.
  
  * In the meeting, we strive to lay ourselves open to others'
    arguments: no matter how much we may think truth is on our side we
    must consider the possibility that we may be mistaken. The true
    spirit of the business method is thus one of attentive listening.
  
  * We normally speak once only on a subject unless responding to a
    direct question or giving factual information. (We may speak on
    another subject if we want, however.) We speak plainly. We do not
    speechify, hector or attempt to filibuster. It is appropriate to
    speak with conviction or with passion, but not with prejudice.

  * We may express contradictory views, but do not argue with one
    another in meeting. We state what we want to say frankly and
    briefly without belittling each others' points. The meeting thus
    should never become a debating club; nor should the situation ever
    arise where we try to interrupt or shout down another's
    contribution. Having spoken once to the issue, we must trust that
    if further valid points occur to us, others will raise them.

References:

  An introduction to the way in which the Society of Friends runs
  "meetings for business" (discussions of secular matters).  Includes
  fair amount of practical advice, at least some of which strikes me
  as relevant to some of the problems facing the IETF.

  Yes, this description mentions religion occasionally.  Sorry if that
  bothers anybody, it's a side effect of the beliefs which motivate
  Friends to use this decision process.  I've yet to find any purely
  secular written descriptions of their decision process.

  Worth reading for giggle value even if the rest of this strikes one
  as utter hogwash.