Michael,
On 2006-12-31 03:00, Michael Thomas wrote:
John C Klensin wrote:
If an AD who was responsible for a WG came up with an issue about that
WG's work and raised it only during or after Last Call, I'd expect
either a really good explanation or a resignation. I certainly would
not expect it to happen often. But, IMO, we have an IESG and, indeed,
an IETF rather than a collection of different organizations addressing
per-area issues precisely to increase the odds of catching serious
cross-area and cross-perspective issues before things go out. Like it
or not, unless the relevant WG makes an effort to get broad reviews at
critical "early" points, there will always be a risk of late surprises
as someone --in the community during Last Call or on the IESG--
suddenly wakes up and says "but how does this relate to XYZ".
I was obviously not clear enough on my first post because I wasn't
referring
to the shepherding AD or the poor AD's who have paid no attention at all
who are then tapped to do their job. It's really the in between AD's that I
think really exasperate the wg participants -- if they've paid enough
attention
to attend the wg meetings and perhaps even subscribe to the mailing list
and
registered concerns, I really think they owe it to the working group to
either
get them out when the working group is in active issue resolving mode, or
to... well, just live with it. Or something. Frankly it does a lot of
damage to
the IESG's reputation when you know that there's likely going to be
trouble,
but there is nothing you can do to fend it off ahead of time because those
AD's have only given vague allusions to their non-amusement. It promotes
the vision of the unitary IESG which I think is a bad thing.
I think you're overlooking two or three facts that collide at a single
point:
1. ADs physically don't have time to read intermediate drafts oustide
their own Area. So while they may suspect that a WG is heading in
a worrisome direction, they aren't in a position to do much about it.
2. ADs are collectively instructed by our rules to act as the reviewers
of last resort - it's the IESG that takes the final responsibility
to say a document is good enough.
3. Unfortunately, WGs do sometimes agree on drafts that prove to
have signifcant defects when critically reviewed outside the WG.
Put these facts together and you *will* get a reasonable rate of
significant (i.e. hard to resolve) DISCUSSes, and in the nature of things
they will come from ADs outside the Area concerned.
However, the DISCUSS non-criteria are specifically intended to
exclude capricious "I don't like this" discusses.
BTW, I'm an author (draft-ietf-v6ops-nap-05.txt) trying to resolve
a very complex DISCUSS from an AD outside the Area. I believe the
document will be much better as a result, even though it's
a painful process. And it's largely a result of the WG having
a narrower view of the universe than is ideal.
Brian
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