Formal vs perceived document status

[Mak, L (Leen)]

Back in December, I sent the attached message 
to the list  Until now I did not see any reactions,
neither do I see the issue reflected in the I-D. 
Therefore this repost.

Leen Mak.



-----Original Message-----
From: Mak, L (Leen) 
Sent: vrijdag 13 december 2002 11:10
To: problem-statement at alvestrand.no
Subject: RE: Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking


jak wrote:

> 
> So, as a practical matter, working group status of a draft 
> has come to more or
> less represent what PS once was, and PS has become more or 
> less what DS was. 

This growing difference between the formal status of a WG document 
and its perceived status has the upstream knock on effect that the 
transition from individual submission to WG document is becoming 
more and more important. Reason: if a draft takes this hurdle, it 
chances of becoming a standard are high. 
A result of that is that people want the contents of the draft to be pretty 
stable at the time it becomes WG document. This seems to be a 
logical conclusion. 
A consequence of this is that an increasing amount of work and 
consensus forming on the draft is being done when the document is 
still an individual submission. 
However, according to the current working methods, the document is 
than still owned by the editor(s) who can do to the draft as they like.
This creates the situation that comments on a draft which is not yet a 
WG doc could be ignored because the editors have no duty to consider 
them, and that the same comments, aired after the doc has become a 
WG doc, will be ignored because they are perceived to be threatening
to the apparent consensus.

The IETF working methods should cater for these effects.
Hence, IMO we should consider whether it is possible to write up:
(1) the rights and duties of the editors and WG chairs during the time 
that a draft is already subject of consensus forming on the list but is 
not yet formally a WG document;
(2) the qualifications which a draft should meet to become a WG 
document.

Leen Mak.