The problem is not that ADs have nasty intentions. It's that the
otherwise-essential job of quality assurance has been taken to the
extreme of having ADs block completed work that has been developed in
all the proper ways. This includes AD vetos (which are
euphemistically called "discuss") with non-normative issues or
requirements for lists of adjunct -- ie, not required -- work.
Speaking from personal experience as an AD for four years, I found it
extremely difficult to use the "discuss" mechanism to block shoddy work
by working groups. There was considerable pressure from certain other
ADs to accept work that clearly did not meet RFC 2026 criteria, and
if an AD tried to push back on such work with "discuss" the likely
response was that the "shepherding" AD and/or WG would sit on it for
several months or years, make no substantive changes, and blame the
"discussing" AD for blocking their work. In the end the document would
usually get approved without the problems being fixed.
I understand that WGs that have been working for several years tend
to be exhausted and burned out and have difficulty doing good technical
work at all - and even more difficulty with a "reset" that would
revisit old technical decisions even if those were poor decisions.
So in my mind, the problem isn't so much with the IESG process for
final approval of those documents - the problem is that WGs are allowed
to spend years pursuing approaches that have serious technical flaws
without any cross-area review or pushback.
Keith
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