My thoughts about the problems of the IETF

[Spencer Dawkins]

OK, starting with the assumption that solutions are now in scope
(Melinda? Avri?)...

--- Keith Moore <moore at cs.utk.edu> wrote:
> from personal experience, adding outside reviewers can
> increase AD
> workload, because the AD needs to evaluate the reviews in
> addition to
> the documents under review.  (outside reviews can and do help
> increase document quality because they catch thing that the
> IESG and
> working group miss, but they don't generally reduce workload.)

I'm good with this so far.

> 
> or if you think that the reviewers should be part of the
> decision making
> process, consider that the more people involved in making a
> decision,
> the harder it is to get convergence.

I THINK I was viewing this as a review, not as an approval -
(others?)

> 
> IESG members are about the only people in IETF who are
> routinely
> expected to review documents within a short and bounded
> timeframe (say
> 2-4 weeks), that aren't necessarily in their area of personal
> or
> professional interest, and without compensation.  it would be
> difficult
> to impose these demands on outside reviewers, so the result of
> trying
> to rely on outside reviewers might mean more delay in getting
> documents
> reviewed.

I don't disagree with Keith's point as stated. Speaking only for
myself, I was thinking more about asking an applications guy to
review DCCP (for instance). What I was asking for was some
thought about who's affected by a document - and the reviewers
would come from the affected communities.

> 
> two ways that outside reviewers might help reduce workload:
> 
> 1. require all documents to have N favorable outside reviews,
> each
> from an IESG-appointed reviewer pool, before going to IESG
> review

Did we make it far enough in SIR to know where the SIRs come
from? I wasn't sure whether Keith was visualizing
"IESG-appointed" or "AD-appointed"...

> 
> 2. provide that any document which has more than Z unfavorable
> reviews from the reviewer pool need not be considered by IESG
> 

I read this the first time as "may not be". I'm OK with "need
not be", reading it as "the IESG can still consider the document
if the AD/IESG decides the review issues are manageable."

> however, if we give outside reviewers any formal power we need
> to
> define ethics for such review - such as, reviewers should not
> accept
> compensation for reviews.  otherwise people will try to buy
> favorable
> reviews for their pet projects and unfavorable reviews for
> others.

I guess I could see this if we said "reviewers can give you
Proposed Standard status, and the IESG can give you Draft
Standard or Standard status". I wasn't thinking of giving
reviewers a LOT of formal power. What were others thinking?

Spencer