FWIW, Lisa's description of how things work with the tools in place
today pretty well matches my recollection of how things worked (without
those tools) when I was on IESG from 1996-2000. So to me it doesn't
seem that the tools have changed the procedures much.
Basically IESG had to keep track of so many different things that a
"blocking" action was pretty much required to keep things from falling
through the cracks. So DISCUSS was used, among other things, as a way
to make sure that various kinds of details got proper attention. This
wasn't as bad as it might sound, because any item with a DISCUSS
automatically got put on IESG's biweekly telechat agenda - which pretty
well served to keep those items from getting buried.
Keith
John C Klensin wrote:
Lisa,
--On Monday, 09 June, 2008 10:45 -0700 Lisa Dusseault
<lisa(_at_)osafoundation(_dot_)org> wrote:
...
The way the IETF Issue tracker works is that if you enter a
COMMENT, nobody can track whether the issue is still open, has
been resolved etc. But a DISCUSS is trackable, and in this
case trackable == blocking.
...
Just one observation about this, which is that the community has
invested huge levels of resources in administrative
restructurings, new organizations and management structures, new
secretariats, and the like over the last few years. I say
"huge" because the level of investment has been sufficient to
disrupt the main work of the IETF on a number of occasions
during the various transitions, which is a high price to pay --
probably worth it if we get good results and ROI, but
nonetheless a high price.
On the other hand, if, after all of that, the IESG is being
constrained to do unreasonable things by the tools it is using
and how those tools are organized, one has to wonder whether all
of that effort and resource investment has left us no better off
than we were before in the areas that really count.
Just a thought...
john