Tracking resolution of DISCUSSes [Was: When is a DISCUSS really a discus

As often, Spencer speaks sense.

By the way, would it be possible for all DISCUSSes and COMMENTs for I-Ds 
originated by a working group to be *automatically* copied to the mailing 
list of the working group? The reasons are:
- the WG chairs, editors, and interested parties should
  not have to monitor the I-D tracker to spot them
- there is otherwise no automatic archiving of the
  follow-up discussions
- it can often be hard to tell from the record
 how/if/why a DISCUSS was cleared (the entries in
 the I-D tracker do not usually show this information)
- the WG has an obvious interest in the follow-up
  discussions
- if the discussions result in changes to the I-D the
 WG really needs to be kept in the loop

Not sure who should own this, but typically ADs have told me that it is "not 
necessary". (The I-D tracker has a Web page for making suggestions, so I 
have pasted this email there.)
Cheers,
Adrian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spencer Dawkins" <spencer(_at_)mcsr-labs(_dot_)org>
To: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 10:09 PM
Subject: When is a DISCUSS really a discussion?


> and, now for something completely different ...
>
> One thing I've noticed in sitting quietly and typing IESG telechat 
> narrative minutes is that a DISCUSS is a living thing.
> - Sometimes a DISCUSS starts out as "this can't be right", and morphs into 
> "the working group really thinks it's OK to blow off congestion and 
> security".
> - Sometimes a single AD's DISCUSS text changes - maybe more than once. So 
> to talk about "<insert name here>'s DISCUSS on ip-over-hamsters" isn't 
> always precise.
> - Sometimes a DISCUSS starts out as a really big DISCUSS, that becomes a 
> big COMMENT and a short DISCUSS. There are IESG members who challenge 
> specific points of a DISCUSS - not sure I've heard all of them do it, but 
> it's pretty common.
> - Sometimes a COMMENT becomes a DISCUSS because another DISCUSS becomes a 
> COMMENT. Sometimes a DISCUSS becomes a COMMENT because the AD couldn't 
> cast the 11th DISCUSS on one document ("not a good use of AD time").
> There are certainly other paths through the maze to the cheese, but you 
> get my drift.
> So, what I would suggest is that people stop stroking out about the 
> (amazingly high) number of documents that collect DISCUSS ballots, and 
> focus on documents that don't clear DISCUSS in two (or some other small 
> number of) telechat cycles.
> Or some other metric. But just because you get a DISCUSS, doesn't mean you 
> have a problem that takes more than a few minutes to work out. You may, 
> but that's where we should focus.
> What follows is from a little more than a year of IESG telechat narrative 
> scribing. It does not follow the ID tracker state machine, I'm just trying 
> to explain what I hear on the telechats.
> The way it usually works is, Amy says, "there are X DISCUSS ballots, 
> <insert AD's name here>, do we need to DISCUSS them today?", and the lucky 
> AD says one of a few things:
> - "no, the DISCUSSes are clear and actionable, and I agree with the 
> concerns", or
> - "yes", but the ADs talk and figure out that the point of concern is not 
> a real concern at all, so the DISCUSSing AD clears, or
> - "yes", but the ADs talk and figure out what the real issue is, and how 
> to solve it, usually terminating in "if that happens, I'll clear my 
> DISCUSS" (note that the sponsoring AD usually asks the DISCUSSing AD to 
> hold the DISCUSS until it's addressed, just so the sponsoring AD doesn't 
> misplace it - this isn't a lack of trust), or
> - "yes", but the ADs talk and say the issue is real and the working group 
> needs to make some decisions (the ADs do suggest RFC-Editor notes on 
> calls, but this isn't common and isn't usually more than two or three 
> lines of text), so the document goes for AD followup, or
> - (and this doesn't happen often), the ADs don't work out a path forward, 
> either before the call (ADs do talk), during the call, or after the call, 
> and the document continues in DISCUSS status.
> It would be lovely if our documents were so good, and our working groups 
> were so good, and our ADs were so good, that there was never a DISCUSS. 
> Until that happens, I'm OK with most of the interactions that happen on 
> the telechat, and I suspect others would be, too.
> But I'd like to focus on the documents that just hang. There are some. 
> They aren't a large percentage of the documents that appear on each 
> telechat agenda.
> So, if we could agree on a metric (and the IESG has LOTS of metrics now), 
> that might be helpful.
> Thanks,
>
> Spencer
>
> p.s. The Narrative Minutes for telechats are not a deep, dark secret, and 
> have been available at http://www.ietf.org/IESG/iesg-narrative.html for 
> about a year. Linked from the IESG home page, one click down from the IETF 
> home page. If you think they are useful, please say so - and then 
> volunteer as a scribe, because Brian has been asking for more volunteers 
> for a while now. If you think they are not useful, Brian, and his 
> replacement, would love to know that, because both Marshall and I have 
> things we aren't doing, because we're scribing for the IESG.
> From: "Spencer Dawkins" <spencer(_at_)mcsr-labs(_dot_)org>
> To: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 4:43 AM
> Subject: Re: IESG Success Stories
>
>
> > I strongly agree with John's reasoning here. But please keep reading...
> >
> > From: "John C Klensin" <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>
> >
> >
> > > I have two questions...
> > >
> > > (1) Do you have evidence of actual situations in which an AD
> > > behaved in this way, kept concerns to him or herself, and then
> > > raised them only, and for the first time, via a DISCUSS after
> > > Last Call?
> > >
> > > (2) If the answer to (1) is "yes", why didn't you, and the other
> > > people who were impacted, immediately file recall petitions?
> > >
> > > The second question is not rhetorical.   We all understand that
> > > recalls would be painful and destructive, that would they take
> > > too long to have much practical impact, and so on.  However, the
> > > behavior I think you are describing would be such an egregious
> > > violation of the ways that the community and the IESG should be
> > > interacting with each other that I believe a recall would be
> > > appropriate even for someone whose term on the IESG had only a
> > > few months remaining: it would be at least as important to
> > > establish a clear message that the behavior is unacceptable,
> > > ever, as it would be to get the person off the IESG.  No one is
> > > valuable enough, hard-working enough, or smart enough that the
> > > community should put up with the behavior I think you are
> > > describing, even for a minute.    And that implies to me that
> > > there should be no perception that an AD can get away with it.
> > >
> > >      john
> > Now, backing off a few billion nanometers, When Michael kicked off this 
> > thread, his posting began:
> > > So what occurs to me is that a reasonable question to ask is whether
> > > there are some legitimate success stories where a DISCUSS has actually
> > > found big or reasonably big problems with a protocol that would have
> > > wreaked havoc had they not been caught. I ask because ...
> > My impression is that drafts that capture experience with IETF working 
> > group dynamics are painful and useful (thinking specifically of the case 
> > studies in the draft that became http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3669.txt). I 
> > think Michael's question is important enough to answer. I think I can 
> > think of some examples where the answer is "yes", but this isn't about 
> > what *I* think, it's about what our experience has been.
> > Do other people think that collecting DISCUSS success stories is helpful?
> >
> > I have two points to add -
> >
> > - Michael asked specifically about SUCCESS stories. The level of cynicism 
> > in the circles I run being sufficiently high, I'm asking about the same 
> > thing Michael is asking about, where "success" matches the dictionary 
> > definition.
> > - if people want to collect DISCUSS "success" stories, of the more ironic 
> > nature, I ask that we do this, going forward, and not looking backward. 
> > Depending on how you count Jon Peterson, we seated new ADs for almost 
> > half the IESG last year, and we know that we will pick up at least a few 
> > more new ADs this year, because some people have already said they will 
> > not return. We don't need to replay 30 years of history, and even going 
> > back to the beginning of ID tracker use would be less than helpful.
> > If you have relevant deep dirt from the recent past, please feel free to 
> > file recalls and provide NomCom input, of course. But I hope everyone 
> > already knows that.
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Spencer
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
> > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>
>
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