On 9/14/09 10:13 AM, "RJ Atkinson" <rja(_at_)extremenetworks(_dot_)com> wrote:
On 14 Sep 2009, at 10:00, Polk, William T. wrote:
IMHO, the current text places a responsibility on the IESG to deal
with
"exceptional circumstances" but fails to provide the tools to
execute that
responsibility. After 27 years in government, I have a lot of
experience
with assignment of responsibility without authority, and none of it
was
positive.
It is interesting to better understand your perspective.
I would have read the "current text" in a nearly inverted meaning:
providing "authority to deal with someone trying to make an
'end run' around the IETF in some area of current IETF effort",
by requesting the RFC-Editor to add an IESG note in such a case,
but not requiring the IESG to do so.
It is a fair observation... The word "responsibility" doesn't appear, so
that is just the way I interpret it. Since this option is reserved for
"exceptional" cases, I guess I think the IESG would have an obligation to
address the issue, but that may be an AD-specific reading.
To me, the most relevant datum is that we have more than 15 years
of operational experience with the current setup, and zero actual
problems.
If we are lucky, this a painful exercise to establish process that will not
need to be tested in practice. I certainly hope that is the case.
[...stuff deleted here...]
3) As I understand things, and on this I might be a bit
out-dated as to the current state of things, there is
a concrete proposal to also add to each RFC (starting
in the near future and continuing forward) the specific
"Document Stream" (i.e. IETF, IRTF, IAB, Independent
Submission) via which a particular RFC was published.
I have no objection to that addition. I don't think that
it is really necessary, given (1) and (2) above, but it
seems to make some folks more comfortable and I don't
immediately see any harm in that addition.
I actually think this is a very good addition, precisely because I
believe
(1) and (2) are insufficient. If the reader reads and understands the
boilerplate, we have the 98% solution.
(I personally have my doubts about reading and understanding the
boilerplate,
This parenthetical bit just above is confusing, and (at least to me)
non-obvious.
Why would someone who can read sufficiently well to understand
the content of an RFC have trouble distinguishing between the
"Status of this Memo" texts AND also have trouble understanding
the RFC's "Category" field ?
It's not that the reader can't, it's that they *won't*. I don't believe
readers always read the boilerplate, and I don't think many readers bother
to research the difference between the categories. I find even long time
members of the IETF Community can debate whether a particular document
should be PS vs. BCP vs. Informational for a long time, so I am sure that
the nuances will be lost on the casual reader.
However, my limited expectations of the reader are irrelevant beyond
confirming my pessimistic nature. I think the test we should apply is for
people that will read and understand the boilerplate. (Otherwise, they
wouldn't see the IESG note anyway!)
but I believe that is the
criteria the community would have the IESG apply: "Assuming the reader
understands the headers and boilerplate, is a note really needed?")
I'm glad that you agree that seems to be the (most of the)
community's perspective.
[...stuff deleted here...]
[I wouldn't assume that anyone speaks for the IESG on this topic,
especially
me! This represents my personal views only.]
Fair enough.
Thanks for the explanations. At a minimum, I think I understand
your perspective much better.
+1
Tim
Yours,
Ran Atkinson
rja(_at_)extremenetworks(_dot_)com
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