Info/exptl RFCs [Re: Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking

[Henning Schulzrinne]

> I am sure that there are plenty of people in the IETF who could
> trusted to review documents, and it would be very simple to come
> up with a plan to recruit, train and manage these people, including
> verifying the quality of their output.  In time, the group could
> become self-sustaining with new members trained by old members.
> If the IESG wants to do this but doesn't know how, I would be happy
> to advise them on how to do it.

Scientific and engineering societies have done this for many years. The 
editor (and editor-in-chief) maintains ultimate responsibility, but his 
or her main responsibility is recruiting good reviewers, providing 
feedback to reviewers and checking the reviews for reasonableness. I'm 
editing a number of journals and, at least from my experience, reviewers 
agree more often than not on the quality even if they don't all cite the 
same reasons why something is good or bad.

If the reviews are anonymous, the editor also has the job to work with 
reviewers whose reviews are inappropriate (insulting, unhelpful, 
condescending, etc.).

This system requires a mechanism to recognize and encourage good 
reviewers and to weed out bad ones, but this is not a new problem.

Henning