RE: Ballot Group Confidentiality

[gthompso@nortelnetworks.com (Geoff Thompson)]

John-

If this is your position then how is it that under your tenure only the
names of members of the Sponsor Ballot Group were put in the standards.

>From what you say below it sounds like the standard should publish full
contact and employment affiliation information.

In particular I take issue with your thesis that "all material
affiliations, company and organizational" should be provided. IEEE
membership is by individual. The person is ultimately responsible for their
vote, not the clubs and companies they are affiliated with.

The issue under discussion is whether, in this age of the web, information
that was previously classed as public but only lived on a piece of paper in
a file drawer should now be put up on the web. I don't believe that the
default answer is yes to this question.

Geoff

At 09:05 AM 4/14/99 -0400, Montague, John (Exchange) wrote:
>The Sponsor Ballot is the mechanism by which public review of IEEE's
>proposed standards occurs.  A case can be made for limited confidentiality
>for those involved in the development of a standard.  Any right to isolation
>(constraint of full public exposure) ends when the proposed standard is
>complete enough for public review.  There is no legitimacy for anonymity or
>confidentiality among those who choose to act as surrogates for the general
>public during the Sponsor Ballot process.  Every member of the Sponsor
>Ballot list should be publicly identified together with all material
>affiliations, company and organizational, etc.; contact information should
>be provided -- at least e-mail addresses and postal addresses.  The IEEE
>Standards process is fatally flawed if the final public review of a proposed
>standard is not completely public and open.
>
>John Montague
>
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