I wonder if that time frame represents the amount of critical mass
turnover for these topics to be refreshed, but previous discussion
forgotten.
I don't know if there is something that would fulfill this roll, but from
40 feet back, here is a suggestion.
A bulletin board (Not BBS, but like an old cork one).
Take what Brian said, that we need to look at this in sections. True.
Take what Eric said, we are doing that, but different people at different
times at different sections. True.
Wouldn't it be nice to compartmentalize some of these systematic
functions, but still keep them as neighbors so that if someone wants to
talk about _requirements_, you step over and look at that section, and all
the notes that people have stuck to the board. If someone wants to look
at _solutions_ they look there. If they just want an overview, they
glance at the whole thing.
If people think an idea is not great, it gets stuck to the bottom, if it
is well liked by many, then it bubbles up to the top (allowing many to
bubble up or down). The reasons could be discussed on the list, but the
result might end up on the board.
What is nice is that if we just shrug our shoulders and walk away from it,
we can come back to it in .5-3 years time and look back at this simple
"cork board" rather than spilling through mounds of mail archives.
I think (after watching the IETF for a while) that a fair amount of time
is spent rehashing good ideas (and bad ones). Maybe a "cork board" that a
newcomer could come up to, see the note, see the notes about the note
would be useful. (Think persistance of knowledge in the new-comers
orientation information presented at each IETF).
Again, I'm just tossing this out there as a brainstorm idea. I think the
problem (ID-Format) is real. I think it is solvable. I think we have too
many great brains jumping around the systematic process of solving it,
thus spending time on thought swapping and bringing newcomers up to speed.
In other words, an e-mail list might not be the best way to solve the
problem, and an e-mail archive might not be the best way to keep the
summary knowledge around and accessible for newcomers to the task.
--Brett
I agree. As usual we seem to be stuck in an infinite loop on this
mailing list with the cycle being somewhere between 6 months and 3 years.
Eliot
Gray, Eric wrote:
Brian,
I think it is somewhat unfair to say that we have
not tried the steps you outline below. Where we run into
trouble is when different sets of people disagree as to
which of the steps we are currently working on.
Quite frankly, I believe we can address the second
step (which of the requirements are not met today?) with
a firm "none."
This is - IMO - the basis for the apparent stodgy
resistance to change.
--
Eric
--> -----Original Message-----
--> From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
[mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org]
--> On Behalf Of Brian E Carpenter
--> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 7:36 AM
--> To: Harald Tveit Alvestrand
--> Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
--> Subject: Engineering our way out of a brown paper bag [Re:
--> Consensus based on reading tea leaves]
-->
--> Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
--> >
--> >
--> > --On mandag, januar 02, 2006 18:10:15 +0200 Yaakov Stein
--> > <yaakov_s(_at_)rad(_dot_)com> wrote:
--> >
--> >> The only thing I am sure about is
--> >> that
--> >> consensus on this list is for keeping everything exactly
--> as it is.
--> >
--> >
--> > I'm pretty sure there's no such consensus.
--> >
--> > I do, however, see a rather strong
--> consensus-of-the-speakers against
--> > using MS-Word document format for anything "official".
-->
--> I think we need to tackle this whole issue, if we do decide to
--> tackle it, in a much more systematic way.
-->
--> - what are our functional requirements?
--> - which of them are not met today?
--> - what are the possible solutions, and what is their practical
--> and operational cost?
--> - which, if any, solutions should we adopt, on what timescale?
-->
--> I believe that if we took a systematic approach like that, the issue
--> of how we determine consensus would be broken into enough small
--> steps that it really wouldn't be an issue.
-->
--> Brian
-->
-->
--> _______________________________________________
--> Ietf mailing list
--> Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
--> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
-->
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