Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking

[Randy Bush]

>> so tell me, marshall.  if it is as you contend, that less attention
>> is paid to meeting wg milestones (note that i am unsure of your
>> hypothesis), other than the obvious iesg stupidity, ill intent,
>> lack of management skill, and black helicopters :-),
> randy - i went to great lengths to avoid personalizing my
> message. in fact, the amount of value-neutral text i used would
> make the UN look downright reactionary, so i would view it as a
> favor if you wouldn't take this stuff personally.

i assure you i did not take it personally.  sorry if you take my
trying to maintain a sense of humor personally.

>> i mean the question seriously.  if indeed wg milestones are being
>> given less attention than they were in the past, what might be the
>> reasons, which are bad and which beneficial, and what might we
>> learn from it?
> that's really up to the IESG to decide. actions have
> consequences, as i keep saying. when, over the course of the last
> decade, the IESG stopped enforcing deadlines, the WGs reacted
> accordingly. there are lots of intelligent actors in the system,
> adam smith would be proud.

you keep focusing on missing deadlines with the a priori assumption
that this is a really bad thing and everyone involved should be
excoriated.

i keep asking so what?  i.e., what are the actual negative or
positive results of deadlines being made or missed.  in terms of
the goals of the ietf.

having spent decades as an engineering and corporate manager, i
understand the use of tight schedules in the corporate environment.
i am trying to understand their benefits and costs in the ietf
environment other than as something we can measure to decide whom
we can blame this week.

> if it was an explicit decision, then with the benefit of 20/20
> hindsight, i fault the decision. if it was "just something that
> happened", then perhaps this provides an opportunity for the IESG
> to sit up, take notice, and decide whether they want to start
> caring again.

and i am asking for some of the bases on which the iesg and
whomever would prioritize and make such decisions.

> if the IESG feels that it shouldn't/can't care because of scaling
> costs, no perceived payoff, or more difficult problems, then i
> reply that actions have consequences and everything has a cost. i
> suggest that the cost of ignoring deadlines has proven to be very
> high in the long-term...

could you go beyond suggesting in a dark threatening tone and
instead try to motivate WHY people should be seriously worried
about milestones when there are 42 other things competing for our
problem mindshare, such as, for example, quality of documents
coming out of wgs.

randy