[PDB Data Ownership-TF] decision process

[Filiz Yilmaz]

Hi Chris, 

I respect your decision not to attend the meetings. 
Also no offence taken, this is not about me. 

As I explained before, I see meetings as helpful tools to iron out misunderstandings and working on details when we get to dreadlocks especially. 
Communicating on mail can be time-consuming and can be open to misunderstandings to some at times. 
There were also several TF members since the beginning who supported having meetings.  
Otherwise they are a lot of logistics and hard work on my end too. 

I am a bit surprised with your assertion that decisions are made by a small group of people "on the phone calls". 
I agree it is a small number of people who are still actively engaged with the TF duties unfortunately, as opposed to the full 19 people who volunteered initially. 

However I am in disagreement with the part that decisions are made on "phone calls”. 

Anything we discussed on the calls were reflected back to mailing list and the recent and almost the only major decision, which you were fully involved with about the conflict resolution on IXP data, was reverted back to the mailing list with a LAST CALL. 

That we did not hear much on the mailing list about it and that there were no objections to your proposal during LAST CALL, can be interpreted differently, but that is a different matter. I am inclined not to second guess the support we received expeciltly from some active members of the TF and take it with face value that there were no objections to it.


Regarding the number of people who take part in PeeringDB fora, and that is in any fora of PeeringDB, I agree with you that participation may seem rather limited, compared to other groups I work with, like ICANN or RIPE, on the surface. 

But I would not tag this us an issue exclusively for this TF but that PeeringDB seems to be operating with limited number of volunteers in general. 
And that might be because of the nature of issues we deal with. They are rather quite specific, pragmatic and operational problems.  

For example Product Committee consists of currently 9, but soon to be 12 members. The requirement for consensus is set to 3 PC members’ support for any issue. 
This can be seen as a rather low barrier but in fact it is there because it is not realistic really to expect all 12 volunteers to fully comment on every specific issue at any given time too. 
 
I also want to note that in volunteer environments one should put some faith in the system regarding “silence”. 
Otherwise notification of participation followed by actual non-activity can be a burden for making actual progress.
Interpreting silence from non-active members as no consensus can be counter-active to moving forward. 
Groups should factor this in and what this may mean in general. 

Either way, I am happy to talk about this and hear from others. 
If there is a general concern how we have reached to where we are so far, that needs to be addressed, totally agreed.

Kind regards
Filiz


> On 27 Feb 2020, at 08:49, Chris Caputo <ccaputo at alt.net> wrote:
> 
> It is with a heavy heart and a desire to not offend anyone, including our 
> Chair - Filiz, that I state I am uncomfortable with the amount of 
> significance placed on decisions made by a small group of people on the 
> phone calls, without some concept of a quorum that honors our 19 members.
> 
> Further, people that have crucial information and wisdom to provide are 
> often not able to attend the call.
> 
> Therefore I will not be on the call today nor am I likely to listen to the 
> recording afterward.
> 
> Respectfully, I believe this mailing list is where matters should be 
> deliberated and decided, so that all active task force members are able to 
> participate in a way that encourages thoughtfulness and consensus.
> 
> I wonder how others feel.
> 
> Chris
> -- 
> DataOwnership-TF mailing list
> DataOwnership-TF at lists.peeringdb.com
> https://lists.peeringdb.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dataownership-tf