My thoughts about the problems of the IETF

Jonne.Soininen at nokia.com Jonne.Soininen at nokia.com
Wed May 7 19:14:11 CEST 2003


Hi Ted,

> From: ext Ted Hardie [mailto:hardie at qualcomm.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 10:37 AM
> To: Soininen Jonne (NET/MtView)
> Cc: problem-statement at alvestrand.no
> Subject: Re: My thoughts about the problems of the IETF
> 
> It's not a show-stopper, but it is a practical difficulty.  
> The change 
> in style that
> John Klensin described ("The IESG approved Whangdoodles for Proposed
> Standard after a discussion of Frobnitzzles as an alternative") would
> be easier.  Finding a balance between effort and outcome may take some
> work.  It may also take some resources, which removes them from the
> pool that can be used for other things or stretches the time for 
> producing
> other things.  If this is a high priority, then that makes sense.

I believe this is a high priority issue, and the time just has to be taken to produce good meeting minutes. I do not believe it would take too much time from the IESG, and if it would we can always discuss the possibility to use outside minute takers.

> 
> >>  (any personnel issues are
> >> private,
> >> for example).  So we may well not have a "one size fits 
> all"  result.
> >
> > These personal issues is something that I cannot really understand. 
> > (Due to limited experience, or brain power.) What are the personal 
> > issues that are secret, private, or confidential. I do 
> understand that 
> > you do not minute "IESG (including the IAB liaison) jointly agreed  
> > during the coffee break that Mr. X is an a-hole and should stop 
> > whining on the problem-statement mailing list. It was 
> agreed that Mr. 
> > X is to be dragged out of the IETF by wild horses and he is 
> to be fed 
> > to pigs right thereafter. The IETF chair has been given the action 
> > item to carry out this important task during the next IESG open 
> > plenary - routing area AD will provide the pigs, and horses 
> are to be 
> > ordered from the concierge desk."
> 
> Sorry for any confusion, but I meant personnel issues, not personal 
> issues. It is common management practice to keep issues related to 
> performance, hiring,
> and so on confidential.  Inside the IETF, you see that with the 
> confidentiality of the NomCom process.  There is a balance here
> between respecting the privacy of the individual and reporting the 
> consequences to the community.  When someone resigns,
> for example, reporting the reason may be inappropriate 
> (whether health, 
> job issues, or any one of a raft of reasons); reporting
> the need to find someone who can fill the position may be 
> appropriate.  
> Depending on the person's timing and privacy requirements,
> you might actually see different announcements at different times for 
> different cases.  That's what I meant by no one-size-fits-all
> result in some cases.

I would tend to trust the IESG to have enough common sence to understand what can be documented on personal level things (health, job issues, etc.) 

However, I do not agree on the comparison to personel practices in a company. IETF is not a company, but a community. In a company, the management represents (at least theoretically) the owner(s) of the company, and is not responsible the workers. In a community, like the IETF, the community "owns" the community. The management is responsible to the community, and has to report its doings to them. I think this reporting is now what is a bit missing.

Cheers,

Jonne.

> 
> 
> > However, things like WG chair replacements, resignations, 
> or additions 
> > should be documented. I think the WG has at least the right 
> to know, 
> > when there is a chair opening, or a possible problem in the WG, and 
> > above all why.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Jonne.
> >
> >> 					regards,
> >> 							Ted Hardie
> >>
> >> On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 02:52 AM,
> >> <Jonne.Soininen at nokia.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi Ted,
> >>>
> >>> I just try to write a few lines more to explain what I mean. I
> >>> certainly do not want a transcript. I believe you are 100%
> >> right that
> >>> transcripts are definitely not useful, and are also too much of a
> >>> burden for the writer of transcripts.
> >>>
> >>> Good minutes to my opinion describe briefly the 
> discussion, and the
> >>> position of the different parties/people involved in the
> >> discussion.
> >>> In addition, they then give the result of the discussion 
> and agreed
> >>> actions. The current minutes show the result, and the
> >> agreed actions,
> >>> but do not reflect the actual discussion. I also makes it
> >> impossible
> >>> to see what positions did individual people take in the IESG
> >>> discussions. Along with the agendas this would give a good
> >> overview of
> >>> what IESG is doing, and what direction certain discussions
> >> are taking.
> >>>
> >>> I hope this helps rather than confuses even more... ;)
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>> Jonne.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Jonne,
> >>>> 	I think what are produced really are meeting minutes,
> >>>> and I suspect
> >>>> you want something different (a transcript, possibly?).  
>   Meeting
> >>>> minutes
> >>>> that adopt a "he said/she said" format end up being difficult
> >>>> to extract the salient information from (what was 
> decided?  who is
> >>>> holding
> >>>> the token for a particular action?).  Rather than have 
> every reader
> >>>> do it for herself or himself, the format that exists now
> >> has evolved
> >>>> to try to capture that data for later reference.
> >>>> 	The "he said" "she said" version of a current IESG meeting
> >>>> would be boring (at least to me), as the ADs are required to send
> >>>> DISCUSS
> >>>> comments in writing in advance.  What might be better would be
> >>>> a version of the minutes that included links to the
> >> tracked comments,
> >>>> so that you could easily follow from the action item to 
> the ballot.
> >>>> As an example, the decision that draft-ietf-group-draft remained
> >>>> under discussion would be linked to:
> >>>>
> >>>> https://www.ietf.org/IESG/EVALUATIONS/draft-ietf-group-draft.bal,
> >>>>
> >>>> so you could follow up immediately.  I think that would give you
> >>>> a far better view into the real issues than trying to 
> read through
> >>>> a doc that included each of us going "Which draft are we on?"
> >>>> at least once per session.  Using links rather than included
> >>>> docs means, of course, that you need to read it online, but
> >>>> an email-friendly version could probably also be developed.
> >>>> 	Since this is problem statement, let me suggest that the
> >>>> problem here is lack of visibility into the IESG discussions
> >>>> which effect progress of documents.
> >>>> 					regards,
> >>>> 							Ted Hardie
> >>>>
> >>>> 		
> >>>>
> >>>> On Monday, May 5, 2003, at 02:38 PM,
> >> <Jonne.Soininen at nokia.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hi Keith,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> well, any actual objections to protocol actions have to be
> >>>> written up,
> >>>>>> rather than merely mentioned in a telechat, in order 
> to have any
> >>>>>> effect.  and those are now available in the tracking system.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> it may be that IESG meetings are more boring than you thought.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> You may be right. However, the good thing about meeting 
> minutes is
> >>>>> that you can skip over things. Actually, it is 
> sometimes better to
> >>>>> read the minutes than be present in the meetings... ;)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> However, I would really find real minutes useful, and I 
> would not
> >>>>> believe that it imposes impossible work load for the IESG.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>> In addition, what I would like to see is also the
> >>>>>>> IESG meeting agendas (before the meetings), and the meeting
> >>>>>> calendar.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I doubt it would be difficult or controversial to provide
> >>>> either one.
> >>>>>> but again, the document tracker pretty much provides 
> these things
> >>>>>> already.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I find ID tracker extremely useful, but I still believe
> >>>> that it serves
> >>>>> a bit of a different purpose than meeting minutes. I
> >> think they are
> >>>>> complementing things instead of mutually exclusive. I think they
> >>>>> should hold a bit of different topics (e.g. WG creation, charter
> >>>>> discussions)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Jonne.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> 
> 


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