[ih] This Review is for Everyone

[Steve Crocker]

Indeed!  The Security Area was created in 1989 and I was selected as the
Area Director.  I thus became a member of the IESG.  It was an excellent
experience.  Collegial and effective.  I was impressed with Phill's light
touch and the group's cohesiveness.

Steve


On Mon, Mar 23, 2026 at 7:34 AM Noel Chiappa via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

>     > From: Craig Partridge
>
>     > (and recognizing that Dave and Noel were both on the initial IESG
> with
>     > me), figuring out how to get the IETF to work was a tortuous effort
>
> Speaking of the IESG, it should be recognized that creating the IESG was a
> stroke of genius _and_ humility (an even rarer personal quality in this day
> and age than genius, it seems - apparently the observation that "There is
> no
> limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn't matter who gets the
> credit",
> Ralph Waldo Emerson, has been lost track of) on the part of Phill Gross.
>
> I know it's a truism that committees are worse than useless ("If you want
> to
> kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it." - Charles
> F. Kettering), but I think Phill calling in a group to help him run the
> show
> was (perhaps unforseeingly) a big part of what made the early IETF so
> effective.
>
> In a group which consists of sharp members, and is prepared to work
> together,
> without squabbling for power (as I think the early IESG was - we, like the
> IETF in general, could see the magnitude of the opportunty that was before
> us, so, like them, we set to it), together they will produce better
> thinking
> than any one person alone. (This is, after all, how scholarship works -
> debate among like-minded people.)
>
> I have no idea whether Phill's selection of the members was pure chance
> (there's a quotation from an earlyish American military person hovering at
> the edge of my brain, to the effect of 'pick any one, they are all the
> same',
> but I can't locate it), or whether he had an idea of how they would work
> together. I _suspect_ he just picked people who were smart, and had
> expertise
> in the area they were to oversee.
>
>         Noel
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