[ Taking note of Harald's suggestion to use the general IETF list I
trimmed the cc.... ]
On Fri, 12 Oct 2001, Dave Crocker wrote:
Working group chartering, and even mailing list setup, has quite a bit of
overhead.
...
Retain the list and the group. Permit open discussion, in order to
provide a separate venue for raising issues.
Dave, although it may be true that our current process for creating
working groups can be cumbersome, I am expecting the IESG to streamline
the process of "new" working groups for process issues. Obviously this
requires a bit of "change" in how the IESG works but surely they realize
this is necessary for the proposed process to work and it will get done.
I use the word "new" in quotes because another observation I want to
make is I'm not convinced each working group will be all that new.
POISSON, like most working groups, has its core that grows and shrinks a
bit with each issue. I don't expect that to change with this new
process, and it would be unfortunate for me to be wrong in this case.
In fact, it's possible the "streamlining" would including lining up and
ensuring the participation of a "core."
On the other hand, creating a new working group and a new list has one
feature that is an explicit goal. IETF working groups always have an
abundance of "fringe" participants and for long-lived groups this is
especially problematic: you get on a list and you never get off and you
find yourself interested or otherwise involved in topics you otherwise
would not have bothered with. Creating new groups and new lists as
needed increases the likelihood that the participants are both
interested and active.
As far as mailing lists go, the only "overhead" is the transition to it
while we wait for those who want to subscribe to be subscribed. This
has no easy solution I can identify but I'm not convinced it's a real
burden anyway. Setting up the list itself is certainly not an issue,
unless you're planning to be doing it all day long. And I don't see how
a participant could view it as a burden since subscribing to a mailing
list is the cornerstone of how the IETF operates.
Finally your last sentence seems to suggest that open discussion is some
how coupled with a long-lived working group and its mailing list. Even
if that were true, the proposal is to use the general IETF list, which
is a mailing list that is both open and long-lived. It's not a working
group but I don't see how that matters.
Jim
--
--
James M. Galvin <galvin(_at_)acm(_dot_)org>
Co-Chair of POISSON but speaking for myself