Yes, well. I was in student politics, so I have no such experience :)
Constructive conversations generally move much faster. You still need some formality to ensure people come out of a decision process with something that can be verified later. And generally the process of doing that helps clarify what, in fact, are the points of difference.
Nice to see another (former) student politican on HN, I thought I was the only one.
I completely agree with you here, this was typical conference behaviour.
Nonetheless, lets not kid ourselves that the US had the interests of the world at heart here. Essentially the internet is controlled by the states through ICANN and the registries. I don't have that much of a problem with this, but it would be foolish to think that their disagreements were not based in realpolitick rather than idealism.
