On Dec 29, 2006, at 8:44 AM, Dave Crocker wrote:
Meta-point:
Something quite basic that is missing from the draft on
Discuss Criteria is a requirement that any Discuss not only
explain its precise normative basis, but that it give a clear
statement of what actions must be taken to clear the Discuss.
That's great when it's possible and desirable, but it's sometimes
impossible, and sometimes undesirable. How about a bit more nuanced
view: any DISCUSS position should move towards being actionable as
all the parties come to understand each other and the alternative
approaches, rather than simply trash the DISCUSS because it's not
actionable yet.
It's impossible for an AD to give a clear statement of what actions
to take to clear a DISCUSS when the issue begins as a question. It
can sometimes take a few weeks for an issue like "Can somebody
explain to me whether this draft really suffers from such-and-such a
problem, or did I miss something which would make it immune to that
problem?" to turn from a beginning exploratory DISCUSS into an
accurate problem description (if there still is one), and from there
into a clear statement of actions to take.
It's undesirable for an AD to give a clear statement of what actions
to take to clear a DISCUSS when there are many possible approaches
and the AD doesn't know enough about previous discussions rejecting
some of them. It unnecessarily hardens everybody's positions if an
AD blithely suggests "To clear my issues, this document should be
made Experimental instead of Proposed Standard" when the WG can't
abide that particular solution and there may be half a dozen other
solutions. Proposing a solution too early (before an AD understands
the problem and the local constraints) is a classic engineering
mistake. I hope you'll forgive us when we do suggest the wrong
solution now and then under pressure to make DISCUSSes actionable.
I've been document shepherd on WG documents where other ADs placed a
DISCUSS and described their issue in terms of the problem. Once we
came to a certain amount of agreement on the problem, I've worked
with WG chairs and authors to figure out the WG's preferred
solution. We checked with the DISCUSSing ADs along the way to see if
our alternatives would actually satisfy their issues, and those ADs
have been responsive and open-minded in considering various possible
solutions. I've done this both as WG chair (pre-AD) and as
shepherding AD. Sometimes it takes a bit more work to find the best
solution rather than the first one.
Lisa
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf