Who makes policy?, was (Re: Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely , rogue and should be removed?)

[Chris Kilbourn <kilbo-list () forest net>]

On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Barry Shein wrote:

> On September 30, 1998 at 17:26 aglists () goldblatt net (Aaron Goldblatt) wrote:
>  > >I think it's beginning to become obvious, to me anyhow, that any claim
>  > >that the internet is better regulated by those who are involved in its
>  > >engineering is a total failure as a concept.
>  > 
>  > You're therefore suggesting that the Internet is better regulated by those
>  > who are totally unfamiliar with it.  Or, in other words, you want your
>  > heart transplant performed by a 10-year-old.
>
> People who work for the FAA know something about air traffic issues
> and aren't ten year olds. People who work for CDC know something about
> epidemiology and aren't ten year olds. Etc.
>
> Such regulatory agencies always employ people knowledgeable in the
> technical aspects of the subject.

Knowledgeable people != good policy makers
Knowledgeable people != good decisions about regulatory issues
Knowledgeable people != people you can trust

> What's peculiarly missing in the internet realm is much anyone with
> any skills in building processes by which decision-making and review
> of policies can occur.

So the IANA and IETF have been doing what for the past several years?

> That's why, I assume, raising any policy or resource issue is
> generally met with a flood of sarcastic remarks, non-sequitars, and in
> particular a total lack of process by which to address such an
> issue. It's completely missing.

I believe your assumption is incorrect.  The issues involved
are control and the power to change things. Is it all that surprising
that people get a wee bit wound up over that? When you propose that
policy should be made by some regulatory agency instead of by consensus,
what do you expect? What you are proposing is nothing short of asking us
to abdicate power.

> You may believe that the above regulatory bodies are less than
> perfect. But what you can't do is assert that what goes on in their
> stead on the net works any better.

Why not? I can still pass a packet from one end to the other, and if
I can't, I can buy transit to do so. Fundamentally, that's all the
Internet needs to do. If that wasn't happening, or I couldn't buy
transit to do so, then I might be a little warmer to your ideas. As
it stands, I will vigorously oppose your desire to hand our collective
power of policy making to another entity just because they _might_ do
a better job than us.

Regards,
Chris
____________________________________________________________________
Chris Kilbourn          System Administrator          digital.forest 
kilbo () forest net            425.483.0483       http://www.forest.net
               Macintosh Internet Services Since 1994.