Subject: Re: [mpowr] SUMMARY: Give WG chairs more shepherding responsibili ty?

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:41:33 -0800

>On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
>
>    (1) There is rough consensus among the people active on this list
>    that WG chairs should be allowed to revoke the posting privileges of
>    disruptive participants with AD approval and the possibility of
>    appeal.
>
>There is one point that has not been made in this discussion far.
>Personally, I believe a Working Group Chair should have the authority to
>revoke posting privileges and further believe they would have it if it
>was not explicitly assigned to the IESG by documented procedures.

I think that the problem here is that there are not enough checks 
and balances on the WG chair, particularly if the chair is also
an AD.

The two recent bad experiences I have had with the IETF/IRTF are both 
cases where a WG chair has blatantly abused their position.

What am I meant to think when the first time I stand up in a WG meeting
I get heckled by the chair?

What am I meant to think when I see a chair allowing a number of individuals
to be highly disruptive, making personal insults to myself and other group
members and a chair that refuses to step in?

What am I meant to think when I see a chair using a group to publicise their
own company in the media?

What am I meant to think when the chair interprets criticism of proposals
his company markets as a product as 'unacceptable and disruptive' behavior?

What am I meant to think when a WG chair tells me that he has barred me from
a WG list because I have proposed starting another working group in a
different forum?

I don't think, "lets give the WG chair the power to control all
communications with the group".

There are very good reasons why I called for the ASRG group to be disbanded.
The original chair blatantly abused his position. But it took 6 months for
anything to be done.

Complaints get seen as being disruptive - even when they are later
recognized and accepted as justified. The chair was replaced, but the damage
was already done. The people I wanted to work with had left by that time.

I think that what you need to have here is at the very least requirement
that the chair tell the working group whenever a person is barred from the
group and the grounds for doing so.

I think you also need a mechanism where the WG gets to participate in the
choice of chair and a means of forcing a recall. The way things work at the
moment the chair will frequently change before most of the people in the
group know there is even a vacancy.

		Phill

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