Two responses.
1. On people sending memos, etc. in advance of face to face meetings –
that’s a good thing, not a bad thing, and in many cases the other members
(including browser members) have asked people to do this! Otherwise, a very
complex new topic may be introduced at a meeting, and people use up all the
time trying to understand what’s being proposed and can’t use the time to offer
well considered responses. In my opinion, we often make much better and faster
progress when we discuss a difficult issue in person or on a teleconference.
2. The issue of whether and how to open up the Forum to more voices comes
up often. I have said multiple times – I would not oppose, and might even
favor, a new email address where anyone in the world could post on issues
before us – so long as someone volunteers to moderate the postings and exclude
trolls, etc. And I would want to keep this list separate from the current
management@ (which deals with logistics issues among members) and separate from
the public@ list (which I think requires signing the IPR and becoming an
Associate Member to have posting rights). I think many of the blogging sites
run by others suffer from too many postings from people with strong opinion but
who are not directly affected by the subject at hand, who sometimes drown out
other voices, and I wouldn’t want that to happen with what we already have
(which seems a pretty efficient method for us to do our business). But a third
email address for an open list that someone volunteers to moderate could be
useful.
From: Ryan Sleevi [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2016 2:24 PM
To: Kirk Hall (RD-US)
Cc: Dean Coclin; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] FW: Associate member of the CA/B Forum
On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 2:05 PM,
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Given that the list is Public, and both Interested Parties and Associate
Members can participate, this seems an entirely appropriate venue. If there are
items being discussed on our calls or meetings that aren't reflected completely
to the list (as I expressed concern about), isn't that symptomatic of a broader
issue that won't be solved by adding associate members?
See comments above. Associate Members will also participate with comments on
the Public List just as Members do, so presumably their views will be widely
distributed there. But in many cases the greatest value can come from someone
in the room saying on the spot “Wait a moment, have you thought of this?” and
giving us all immediate feedback. I think that can be lost in email strings.
That generally seems to be an idealised form of how our meetings work. Most
often, it's rehashing what's been said on the list multiple times and in
multiple ways, but is somehow new to members (e.g. implying they're not
following the list).
I agree that immediate and real time feedback can provide value, but as we've
seen from the past several meetings, there's a growing attempt to pre-load a
lot of the discussion in advance (re: the topic of "discussion leaders" and
sending out notes in advance of the F2F). It would seem that many times, our
F2F discussions are rehashing what has been said a variety of ways on the list,
or potentially explaining the technical background for the less-technical
members of the group - particularly when the spec addresses it.
I also think that under your model of 'trade associations' being Associate
Members, the probability of real-time actionable feedback is a bit less,
precisely because it's no one single organization being represented, but a
diverse set of members who may have differing requirements. So we can't
reasonably expect an Associate Member to, on the spot, explain something, much
in the same way it's already challenging for Member CAs to commit to things
(i.e. the usual "I'd need to go back to Policy/Legal/Compliance/Technical and
get feedback on the proposal")
As I prefaced my original remarks, we've been strong proponents of greater
participation in the Forum, and welcome contributions from new members and
interested parties alike. Certainly, we build a robust system by making sure to
consider the diversity of positions and feedback. However, having participated
in a number of SDOs, experience has been that without strong agenda setting,
without deep investment in the ecosystem from participants, and without great
investments into transparency and openness, having greater real-time
participants is often directly and negatively correlated with the value of such
real-time meetings. I would think, especially given the diverse stakeholders
that such umbrella organizations reflect, the asynchronous nature of
list-discussions provides greater, not less, opportunity for participation and
involvement.
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