Problem: Resolution mechanisms for when working group consensusreal problems)

[John C Klensin]

--On Tuesday, 27 May, 2003 08:54 +0200 Harald Tveit Alvestrand 
<harald at alvestrand.no> wrote:

> --On fredag, mai 23, 2003 20:16:44 -0400 John C Klensin
> <john-ietf at jck.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't know that I've mentioned it on this list (probably
>> haven't, and it intrudes into the "solution" space a bit
>> anyway), but I've had periodic thoughts that it would be a
>> good idea to have ADs "invite" particularly interesting
>> and/or problematic WGs to present their problem definition,
>> work in progress, ideas, and plans at a plenary, and then
>> take questions, etc.  This would act as a way to bring the
>> whole community in on questions of relevance and relationship
>> to the overall architecture and operation of the Internet.
>> Both the audience and the WG participants might learn a lot.
>> And while "contemplate process changes", "whine at the IESG"
>> and "whine at the IAB" have an important place, injecting
>> some community-wide _technical_ review and discussion back
>> into the environment might be really helpful and interesting.
>
> I'm a little bit worried..... not that I don't recognize any
> number of instances of the scenario above, but there are other
> instances.....
>
> my counterexample is an example of something that is totally
> irrelevant to the Internet architecture per se, but has proved
> useful to a sharply limited community, has (as far as I can
> tell) not had any really bad effects on the architecture, and
> the only time the managing AD had to do some management was in
> order to insist that they should have some security (and they
> delivered!).
>
> TN3270E - Extending the Telnet protocol to handle IBM 3270
> terminals, or emulators thereof.
>
> In the current climate of WG creation, we would have a
> 1000-message debate on the IETF list in order to take this on
> at all. And the debate would actually be more costly in terms
> of management time than the running of the activity.
>...

Hmm.  I'm having trouble understanding what this has to do with 
my suggestion.   I didn't contemplate any discussion on the IETF 
list.  I didn't contemplate doing anything before a WG is 
chartered or, in general, given a work item.  And, since there 
clearly is not enough plenary time (even if we expanded it) to 
get presentations from every WG, I indicated that ADs would need 
to choose useful candidates.

So let me restate what I had in mind (since I obviously wasn't 
clear when I discussed this with you after some plenary a while 
back either).   We have some WGs that raise important 
architectural and/or cross-area issues.  We also have WGs which 
are doing things that might set important precedents for other 
work, or which are headed in a different direction than prior 
work, but which trends are not precisely "architectural". 
Often, but not always, those WGs know who they are.  Often, I 
hope "almost always", the relevant ADs know which WGs these are.

When one of these looms large enough on the radar, the AD gets 
to say "you just won the jackpot and get plenary time to explain 
what you are doing and where you are headed".   The WG presents 
its work, the community gets a chance to ask questions and 
challenge assumptions.   If things go well --which, I presume, 
would have a lot to do with the WG's clarity of thinking and 
degree of preparation-- then everyone learns something, the WG 
may get some mid-course calibration, and the sorts of surprises 
that now tend to show up as violent protests during Last Call 
get headed off.  If things go seriously badly -- if, e.g., the 
community concludes that the WG is doing silly things and 
ignoring important operational or architectural principles -- we 
have what I referred to about as a public flogging.  Not 
pleasant, but, by the time it is over, there would be no 
uncertainty as to whether unhappiness with the WG's approach 
represented some sort of community consensus or was just the 
idiosyncratic position of an unhappy AD.

While I would hope ADs would be responsive to community input on 
what ought to be reviewed, I would assume that, if we had a WG 
that was doing important work that was of interest to a small 
community and whose impact was confined to that community (like 
TN3270x), it would not be a good candidate for this sort of 
presentation.  Ok, so they don't make one... no harm done.

       john