Charters, "normal process" versus ISOC, etc. (was: Re

[John C Klensin]

Keith,

Two brief observations...

--On Tuesday, 20 May, 2003 19:26 -0400 Keith Moore 
<moore at cs.utk.edu> wrote:

>> Neither of you really need to be reminded of this, but the
>> issue isn't  placing blame
>
> agreed.  but we seem to be spending most of our energy
> concentrating on what's wrong with IESG and how to fix it, and
> very little energy trying to understand what is wrong with
> working groups and how to fix them.

I agree, and agree that this is a problem.   But many members of 
the set of non-pixie-dust possible fixes for WG problems come 
down to looking at how they are chartered, structured, and 
managed.  To the extent to which we are looking at WG problems 
that involve those sorts of solution spaces, the remedies, if 
not the problems, lie again in the vicinity of the IESG... at 
least within our current overall structure.

> working groups that produce technically sound results rarely
> have problems with IESG.

If "problems" includes delays in getting those results approved 
and published --delays that are longer than those WGs consider 
appropriate-- then I think several people have made comments on 
this list that disagree with you.  Some have claimed that this 
is getting better and that the improvements are due to 
procedural changes that the IESG has made spontaneously.  I 
don't have nearly enough first-hand information to support or 
deny either of those claims, although both would make me happy 
if they were true.

Conversely, if there is a disconnect between the time-to-publish 
expectations of a WG that has produced a technically (and 
editorially) sound result and the length of time it takes the 
IESG and the RFC Editor to get a document out, then that would 
fall into the "adjusting expectations" category.  And, in at 
least some cases, that category may turn out to be as important 
as "fixing things".

But, with the understanding that this isn't what you said, there 
is clearly a perception that WGs that produce results that they 
consider technically sound (or at least "good enough") quite 
often see delays in the IESG that they consider unreasonable.

       john