General comment on draft-ietf-problem-statement-00.txt

[Eric Rescorla]

Keith Moore <moore at cs.utk.edu> writes:

> > Instead, I think that we need to find ways to push (or pull?)
> > authority (including substantive decision making) out to a
> > larger group. 
> 
> I can't imagine how this could possibly work well.  
> 
> The group with ultimate approval authority needs to be kept small in
> order to function well.  IESG is already as large as it can stand to be.
> Now if you would like to see another group to provide advice and
> expertise to working groups, and relieve IESG of that burden - that
> might be worth considering.  
It's important to separate the notion of "ultimate" authority
from the notion of direct authority. Just because the IESG is
ultimately responsible for getting the right decision made
(in the buck stops here sense) doesn't mean that the IESG has
to be directly involved in every individual decision. The
purpose of delegation is to create a group of people who exert
authority on behalf of the IESG.

> But maybe it's worth asking the question:
> 
> Why aren't WGs doing due diligence?
Because they're not incentivized to do so. In my experience, WGs by
and large see their job as getting their particular set of documents
out. 

> If WG's don't do due diligence, how can we expect that another review
> body between the WG and IESG is going to do any better?
Because they would perceive it as their job to do so in the same
way as the IESG does. 

We're getting pretty close to discussing solutions rather than
problems, but I don't think that optimally what we need is another
review body. Rather, what we need is for the ADs to delegate authority
to individuals who would act on their behalf in specific situations.

-Ekr

-- 
[Eric Rescorla                                   ekr at rtfm.com]
                http://www.rtfm.com/