Standards Classification and Reality Problem Statement (was Re: Not a problem statement [ was Re: Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking)

[John C Klensin]

--On Monday, 16 December, 2002 14:22 +0100 Brian E Carpenter 
<brian@hursley.ibm.com> wrote:

> James Kempf wrote:
>>
>> > it's not obvious to me that all working group documents are
>> > standards track; many are informational. If there's a
>> > "preordination", it is that a PS from a working group is
>> > deemed to need less justification (2 week last call vs a 4
>> > week last call) than a PS from an individual submission.
>> > However, the latter exist as well.
>> >
>>
>> Sorry, I meant "all WG IDs which are Standards track are
>> deemed to be pre-ordained to become RFC". Informational track
>> documents are, of course, not, though some have the
>> perception they are. The issue here isn't the perception that
>> Informational documents are Standards, but rather that a WG
>> ID will inevitably become the standard, without substantial
>> modification in any form of its basic design and contents.
>
> If this is true (and I do mean *if*), then it appears that we
> have effectively defanged the IESG; apart from the traditional
> retro-fitting  of security, the important decisions were all
> taken long before the  IESG saw the document. Now, is that a
> problem or just a feature?

FWIW, based on the number of documents that get held up in the 
IESG while they are rewritten or renegotiated with WGs or 
document authors, it is not true.

I think it would be plausible to say that "any document that is 
submitted by a WG to the IESG with a recommendation to make it 
standards-track is eventually matched with a standards track 
document, usually with the same title".  The IESG rarely manages 
to say "no, that is not standards-quality work" and make it 
stick, even when that is justified.  But some of the documents 
are sufficiently transformed in the process to be recognizable 
only in outline.

      john