... seriously took it on board? Not that they disagreed necessarily, but it didn't get a "so let's do something about it" kind of response.

The next year, I didn't feel as closely connected to the group as I would have liked, and I have to admit, I mostly ignored it. I read the list, I participated in this conversation or that, but that's about it.

This year approached, and there was something on the list asking about next steps for the group. Between other things I had going on, I ...

... did not pay much attention to it.

So this year I figured I'd go to the room since I had nothing else going on, and in principle I still care?

There was a presentation I had some feedback on, and I'd arrived at the point where I was thinking it was all interesting enough, but not really stunningly exciting.

And then Mark spoke about his two ongoing drafts ( datatracker.ietf.org/person/Ma… ) on centralization, and wow, they are necessary. That I had some things to say on. I hope I can contribute..

... to those in the next months. Basically he takes apart the misunderstandings that people have when they have overloaded terms like "centralization". And then he makes the argument that exercising power is the driving force behind it.

I didn't expect DINRG to have it in them, basically, and I humbly stand corrected.

But that's not the thing that makes me feel bad. This is exciting!

What makes me feel bad is that my expectations were so much lower than they should have been at this...

... point.

And then in the last bit, Dirk picked up the conversation about where to go next again, and quotes me. Me, who had nearly written the group off.

And he quoted me not once, but twice.

Both on the point of saying in different ways how ambiguous the centralization term is, and that disambiguation could help move things forward. Precisely the thing that Mark had been doing in his drafts, essentially.

I had to sleep on that.

It's good to know you're being heard. It's even better...

... to understand that other people have similar thoughts and concerns.

I guess I have to repay that by now guiltily putting way too much energy into those drafts, right? That's how this works, doesn't it?

I think once I've thought about those drafts a bit more, I'll also try and get some fedi feedback on them. This is the right kind of place for talking about (de-)centralization after all!