While I'm very much in favour of reminding everyone of Tyranny of Structurelessness and shadow hierarchies, the article is referring to a more IETF-like situation of voluntary collaboration. Here there are other sorts of shadow hierachy:
- Postel decentralisation: it used to be the case that a lot of important internet functionality was run through one person. Less so these days, but there will still be critical individuals.
- Fait accompli. This is really apparent in browsers, where the W3C inevitably lags actual practice and features tend to be introduced by deploying first and standardising later.
The article makes an early mistake in describing the IETF as "membership based". Nope. You cannot join or leave the IETF, it has no members, everybody who is interested can and should participate. It likewise confuses itself by insisting on calling the hum a "vote" even though it acknowledges that humming mustn't be used to try to enumerate support which is exactly the point of voting.
The IETF process works because of _what it's for_ and could not usefully be replicated in contentious political environments. Rough consensus and running code builds SMTP but it doesn't end the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Because the IETF deliberately has no actual power, in the end the worst that can happen is you didn't agree anything and have to roll your own. You are "at" the IETF (many people never attend a physical meeting, and that's fine) to reach an agreement, and if you can't agree then too bad but it cannot stop you pressing on anyway.
This part of the model also worked for CA/B. CA/B initially exists as a meeting between two groups that both want something, the Certificate Authorities want a sales promotion tool and the Browser Vendors want better validation. But the CA/B meeting lived on long after that discussion bore fruit, because it turns out that _agreeing_ among yourselves is much better for everybody than if you all just do whatever you want and hope it works out.
- Postel decentralisation: it used to be the case that a lot of important internet functionality was run through one person. Less so these days, but there will still be critical individuals.
- Fait accompli. This is really apparent in browsers, where the W3C inevitably lags actual practice and features tend to be introduced by deploying first and standardising later.