Jim, et al,
At 10:19 AM 10/12/2001, James M Galvin wrote:
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.
giving full credit to everyone's clear and honest good intentions and good
actions -- especially the kind folks on the IESG -- the question is why
you have that expectation? we are talking about a management body that is
vastly overworked, and that has a very, very stable long-term pattern of
handling working group creation.
And unless the processes inside the IESG have changed, it is even more
consensus oriented than the rest of the IETF.
That takes time. A lot of it. And it is very difficult to streamline such
a process.
At any rate, the topics that poisson has had to cover have been rather
narrow and isolated.
now, it well might be that an effort to query the community about process
topics that could be improved would produce a substantial list of topics
that are legitimately in need of work.
THAT would warrant a working group. (it would also be at least a 2-year
working group, i suspect.)
however the pattern, to date, has been topics that have come up far more
piecemeal and have needed more timely response than is possible if each
must wait for a critical mass of topics, before forming a working group.
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.
Ahhh. Social engineering. Entirely rationale.
However we stink at it and need to avoid opportunities like this to pretend
that we have a clue about how to do it.
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.
My wording was obviously inadequate. You are not the only one to think
that I was referring to "openness". I wasn't.
I was referring to the easy, spontaneous "collaboration" that is like
walking down the hall to consult a colleaque. I am now calling this the
"water cooler effect".
Hence the question reduces to: what existing list should be used? The
IETF main list, or a different list?
Given that we are considering a rather specific category of (ongoing)
topics, then forcing them on to the IETF list is likely to have unfortunate
side-effects on the IETF list. (What happens when you remove the water
cooler is not a good thing.)
d/
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Dave Crocker <mailto:dcrocker(_at_)brandenburg(_dot_)com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.273.6464