[ripe-chair-discuss] Status of RIPE Chair discussion?

On 17.05.17 13:29 , Brian Nisbet wrote:
> ...
>I will admit that I'm a little worried about terms like "amateur
> lawyers" being thrown around in relation to this and the Accountability
> Taskforce. It seems far more pointed than is necessary or justified.
>...

I stand by that rhetoric device which I used in this specific context.
It came to mind when Shane used a contribution I made in a different but
related discussion to slight me by changing the meaning of what I said
into the opposite and by deliberately ignoring the different context as
well as my explicit reasoning.
See  <40ad8e83-af61-e7fd-53a9-68b55cacb00c at ripe.net> and
<78ac6707-393e-9eb6-5c12-39721915b54a at ripe.net>.

'Amateur lawyers' is also justified because we, as a community, tend to
go straight into arguing about details whenever someone proposes a
process or formalism. We hardly ever stop to consider what the problem
at hand really is, what our strategic long-term goals are and whether
the process or formalism is the appropriate way to achieve our goals.
And on top of that we tend to be very amateur in considering any
possible risks or side effects of the formalisms and processes we
'design'. I have been guilty of this myself in a distant past. Do I need
to dig into the address policy archives or can we take it as read?

As a technical community we are not unique in this regard. In the past
RIPE had Rob Blokzijl to counteract this badness. Today I fear that
before long we will make the same mistakes as these other communities.
It is so easy to fall for the non-sequitur [newspeak: fake reasoning]
that formal process is a necessary condition for 'ripe values' and all
other goodness. Form there it is not far to the shouting down of anyone
who cautions against over-formalisation by questioning their intentions
and worse.

Caveat emptor.

Daniel