Re: DISCUSSION: archiving of NOMCOM information

[Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>]

    Date:        Fri, 15 Mar 2002 08:49:03 -0800
    From:        "todd glassey" <todd.glassey@worldnet.att.net>
    Message-ID:  <008201c1cc41$516f1720$020aff0c@tsg1>

  | OK say someone finally has it up to wherever they do and they file a lawsuit
  | against the IETF or the NonCom or any of the other orgs that piggyback off
  | of this "there will be no records kept" philosophy. What then?

What then?

  | My take is that the courts come in and find that
  | 
  |     1) none of the organizations have any way of proving squat except
  | through the verbal testimony of the people that will likely be named as
  | co-defendants to the cause of action.

So, nothing can be proven.   Big deal.  That happens lots of times.
Nothing proven, nothing happens.

  | So I have to ask "Why should we believe them?".

No particular reason.   But on the other hand, why would you believe the
person bringing the action?   They obviously feel aggrieved - they have
just as much incentive to lie.   Or more likely, in both cases, to have
a different view of what actually is the truth.

But please note, I'm not suggesting that nothing be archived.   It's
entirely reasonable to archive minutes of the meetings, summaries of
comments made (I don't see any real point archiving the comments themselves
without any attribution, that would simply be worthless, there's no way
to check if the comment was actually made, or just inserted into the record
to justify some decision), and such.   I just see no point keeping precise
records of every confidential comment that is made.  In fact, that would
probably be illegal in some bizarre circumstances - consider the possibility
that a lawyer might get appointed to the nomcom someday, and someone makes
what is a privileged legal communication to that lawyer...

kre