On Wed, Aug 03, 2011 at 01:59:01PM -0400, Michael Richardson wrote:
Well, if the discussion (on the mailing list) was so good, then the
number of changes to the document should be very precise, and should of
course, be in an email on the mailing list, right?
Not necessarily. Especially in the sorts of cases I'm thinking about,
one sometimes sees two or three different proposals for text, general
kicking around of large issues, and so on. It's the editors'
responsibility to synthesise that input and come up with final text
that reflects the views of the WG. The text might have gone to the
list before being incorporated, but might as easily have been put into
the draft where it was needed, and the list sent a pointer.
In case it wasn't clear, I'm really only thinking of the sort of
large-scale changes or discussions that will sometimes affect drafts,
typically when a major substantive issue (like of principle) has to be
dealt with. Small and narrowly focussed issues can almost always be
worked out on list. But if we only ever had issues that could be
worked out on list, then we wouldn't need to have IETF meetings at
all.
If there's some progress in the sort of large issue of this sort, I
want chairs to have the freedom to include that progress in their
consideration. (Indeed, there's an argument to be made that the
particular irritant that kicked off this discussion is exactly that
sort of case, although we seem to be thrashing it out on the list
anyway.) I know we can all think of 20 minute presentations 15 of
which were details of the entire history of a WG draft; I don't
believe that is as valuable as using in-person time to hash out the
large problems facing a WG, and if there is late input to the latter
class of discussion I'm all for including it.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs(_at_)anvilwalrusden(_dot_)com
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