Danger to the Net? (Re: My thoughts about theproblems of theIETF)

[Bound, Jim]

That's another problem and that is many of the consistent contributors
(and on this list I will note) have only so many hours in a day.  After
3-5 very focused subjects as active WG member diminishing return can set
in.  My point is we need to extend our need to new members or ones who
are focused but not in reviewer or leadership roles (directly or
indirectly).  We have the Tao of the IETF and Getting to Know the IETF
type sessions on Sundays but maybe we need to mentor more folks in some
way that is politically correct without coming off as superior or
whatever.  Often just an offer will be enough. But we need new blood to
help fix some of these problems not the same old blood.  I get a lot of
mail from people I don't know that could help be reviewers so as we
nominate folks for nomcom we might want to think about that for reviewer
process.

That being said I suggest so we don't bottleneck that it be a Chair+AD
effort not IESG keeping the management of such a process close to where
the work will get done and not create higher level of approval process.

But lets get new people engaged and sell them on the opportunity in some
way.

/jim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian E Carpenter [mailto:brian at hursley.ibm.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 10:47 AM
> To: John C Klensin
> Cc: problem-statement at alvestrand.no; Fred Baker
> Subject: Re: Danger to the Net? (Re: My thoughts about 
> theproblems of theIETF)
> 
> 
> Exactly why Dave Crocker and I floated the idea of a panel
> of reviewers. I do intend to turn that into a draft, one of 
> these decades.
> 
>    Brian
> 
> John C Klensin wrote:
> > 
> > --On Monday, 21 April, 2003 17:13 -0700 Fred Baker <fred at cisco.com> 
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > At 06:30 PM 4/21/2003 -0400, Steve Silverman wrote:
> > >> If less than 7 people have read and really understand an 
> ID, there 
> > >> is a good chance, that there are significant undetected problems 
> > >> that may result in an AD blockage or problems down the road.
> > >
> > > That suggests a procedural step: any working group that sends a 
> > > document to the IESG should perhaps have a requirement to 
> identify 7 
> > > people that read it.
> > >
> > > I'm not generally much for idiocy tests of that sort, but in this 
> > > case one wonders...
> > 
> > Fred,
> > 
> > I don't know if seven is the right number, but I have believed for 
> > some time that many steps in the approval process would be 
> improved if 
> > the submission process from a WG to the IESG included a checklist 
> > document that, in turn, included
> > 
> >         * An explicit statement from the WG chair that the WG
> >         had reviewed the document and reached meaningful
> >         consensus.
> > 
> >         * Checkoff statements (one at a time) that the required
> >         sections were present or explanations as to why they
> >         were not required.
> > 
> >         * Explicit signoff from several participants in the WG
> >         that they had read the document, verified it against the
> >         checkoff statements, and were of the opinion that the
> >         document was technically competent, an adequate
> >         definition, complete, and represented WG rough
> >         consensus.
> > 
> > That "several" could reasonably be your "seven".  And the 
> notion would 
> > be that, if the responsible AD, or the IESG, detected document 
> > problems that this process should have identified and 
> didn't, we would 
> > have a list of names that could be held up for public 
> ridicule and as 
> > responsible for any ensuing delays.
> > 
> > Pretty hard-nosed, but there really is no excuse for asking 
> an AD to 
> > spend time reviewing WG output that has long-required sections 
> > missing, that is not intelligible, or that no one has really read.
> > 
> >       john
>