IESG procedures (Re: what is a problem)

[RJ Atkinson]

On Wednesday, Nov 27, 2002, at 02:56 America/Montreal, Harald Tveit 
Alvestrand wrote:
> We (both the IESG and the IETF as a whole) ARE moving from being a 
> body of "people trusted to try to do the right thing" (and make up 
> procedures to match) to a body of "people trusted to execute the 
> documented procedures".

Certainly the IESG Plenaries in Atlanta and in Yokohama lead anyone to 
the conclusion
that a large number of IETF participants *already* do not trust the 
current IESG
to do the right thing.

Lack of transparency in IESG actions/procedures/status has clearly been 
part of those
concerns.  Unclear to me personally whether the I-D Tracker becoming 
public has changed
the IETF community's perception about transparency in IESG 
procedures/status/actions
or not.

It is clear that IESG refusal to document its own procedures anyplace 
has increased
the level of community concern, rather than lowering the level of 
community concern.
If the IESG wants to continue to set its own procedures and have 
flexibility, a start
might be for the IESG to document those procedures publicly someplace 
of its own choosing
(e.g. on a web page).

Some number of folks have suggested to the IESG over the past 4-5 years 
that
they publish a charter -- even if that charter were broadly worded and 
gave the IESG
broad responsibility and broad flexibility.  The longer the IESG stalls 
on creating
a draft charter of some sort, the higher the probability that the 
community as a whole
will insist on a more narrow and less flexible charter for the IESG.  
So if the goal
is to avoid having the IESG get too wedged in via mandated procedures, 
putting together
a non-procedural broadly worded draft IESG charter now/soon might well 
be the approach
with higher probability of success.

Ran