Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking
Mak, L (Leen)
lmak@lucent.com
Fri, 13 Dec 2002 11:10:13 +0100
jak wrote:
>
> So, as a practical matter, working group status of a draft
> has come to more or
> less represent what PS once was, and PS has become more or
> less what DS was.
This growing difference between the formal status of a WG document
and its perceived status has the upstream knock on effect that the
transition from individual submission to WG document is becoming
more and more important. Reason: if a draft takes this hurdle, it
chances of becoming a standard are high.
A result of that is that people want the contents of the draft to be pretty
stable at the time it becomes WG document. This seems to be a
logical conclusion.
A consequence of this is that an increasing amount of work and
consensus forming on the draft is being done when the document is
still an individual submission.
However, according to the current working methods, the document is
than still owned by the editor(s) who can do to the draft as they like.
This creates the situation that comments on a draft which is not yet a
WG doc could be ignored because the editors have no duty to consider
them, and that the same comments, aired after the doc has become a
WG doc, will be ignored because they are perceived to be threatening
to the apparent consensus.
The IETF working methods should cater for these effects.
Hence, IMO we should consider whether it is possible to write up:
(1) the rights and duties of the editors and WG chairs during the time
that a draft is already subject of consensus forming on the list but is
not yet formally a WG document;
(2) the qualifications which a draft should meet to become a WG
document.
Leen Mak.