Harald,
I am not sure that your statement of the problem and
your solution match. You give the core problem as:
Debates in the WG tend to be wide-ranging, contentious, inconclusive and
not terribly well informed; many members of the community are staying away
from the WG because they do not relish the style of dialogue; it takes a
very long time to get consensus on even reasonably simple things.
As you note, these symptoms match those of working groups that
have lived to long. Many of them also match meta discussions or
process discussions in general (wide-ranging, inconclusive, not
terribly well informed, odious to those who wish to move from meta
discussion back to real work, difficult to get consensus). Changing
the venue of those discussions seems unlikely to change their
character. Certainly starting those discussions with the mailing list
most subject to topic wander and contention seems likely to have a
contrary effect; even if they are hustled onto a new mailing list
quickly the damage seems likely to have been done.
I also wonder whether the parallel between process work and
the work of an area (as opposed to the work of a working group) is
really that close. Fundamentally, engineering work and process work
aren't very similar. Picking one engineering paradigm over another
may improve things marginally, but it may be better to go outside
that set of paradigms.
One interesting possibility to consider would be modifying the
nomcom paradigm for this purpose. Create a "proccom" that lives for,
say, two years, half of its members rotating off each year; give it an
IAB liason and an IESG liason. Bound the numbers to something that
gives a reasonable representation but can come to consensus. Unlike
the nomcom, make all its discussions on open mailing lists, and limit
its actions to one of three things: create/revise a document on
process; recommend to the General Area director that a new working
group be formed to create or revise a process document; solicit input
via the ietf-announce list on an issue, comment to occur on its list.
This avoids some of the "who watches the watchers" issues inherent in
the area proposal, builds on an existing social process that seems to
work, and might avoid the working group rot.
In any case, I agree that a decision on this by October 19th
seems premature and that further discussion would benefit the community
more than delay would harm it.
best regards,
Ted Hardie