Working group participation issue

Andy Bierman abierman at cisco.com
Sat Feb 22 23:24:33 CET 2003


At 08:39 AM 2/23/2003 +0200, Pekka Savola wrote:
>On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Andy Bierman wrote:
>> but only the chair(s), author(s) and design
>> team members (if any) actually make any real commitment to get any work
>> done by a specific deadline.  
>
>It seems to me that this is false, more often than not. :-(
>
>Perhaps I'm expecting w.g. chairs to be more active, push the w.g. 
>(especially editors, authors etc.) to do stuff, and perhaps I'm expecting 
>the authors to be more active in pushing and revising the documents 
>they're authoring.

I don't think you understood my point.  It's not enough that 
authors write documents in a timely matter.  It's important
that the technical content represent the consensus of the
community it's supposed to serve.  Without this buy-in from
vendors and operators, a standard is not going to succeed.
The "stuckee" proposal does not guarantee success, but it
allows the chair(s) and ADs to have a better understanding
throughout the WG process that widespread interest and
sufficient resources exist for a particular work item.


>It seems to me that very often I see documents getting "stuck" for no
>apparent reason: either forgotten, or just refreshed without including the
>commentary between 6-12 month intervals.
>
>So, it seems like the authors do not always have a commitment to push 
>their work forward.
>
>As an author of multiple drafts myself, I can understand this.  It's often
>the case that the working group fails to give enough support and interest
>in the draft: so you begin to think "nobody cares about this, so why
>should I waste my effort on it?".  That's what w.g. stuckees could *maybe*
>help with too.
>
>This seems a real problem for fast progress to me.  Some more
>self-motivated w.g.'s might not have it as badly as I've noted (the ones
>where authors/chairs have a lot of vested _personal_ interest in getting
>things done).
>
>-- 
>Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
>Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
>Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

Andy



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