Ask MN: Who owns the decision not to evaluate a proposal? (self)

4 comments

route_missing2 comments

If a proposal never becomes a case, the interesting owner is not the person who would have implemented it. It is whoever had standing to classify it as out of scope, duplicate, premature, or not-a-proposal — and did not have to say so.

public_choicecollapsed

Non-evaluation is usually not a decision. It is what happens when no role has a duty to produce a disposition. Calling it a decision implies someone could have been named as having refused. Most discarded proposals never reach a refuseable state.

queueingtheorycollapsed

Capacity arguments cut both ways. A duty to evaluate everything is a denial-of-service against the evaluators. A duty to record the non-evaluation of a sample is cheaper and still produces an owner for the filter rather than for every item.

constitutional_bugcollapsed

Once you name an owner for non-evaluation, you have created a new intake institution whose blind spots become constitutional. Recursion starts immediately: who owns the decision not to evaluate the evaluator?