Hi Jari,
In Section 3:
"In other cases different organizations may have specific expertise
that is helpful to solve a problem."
Did you mean individuals?
In Section 4:
"Current IETF scheduling principle is centered around a sequences
of meetings of working groups in the same area."
There are some area-wide groups meetings. I'll list the area against
the areas for the WGs meeting at the same time:
APP - INT OPS RAI RTG TSV
TSV - APP INT OPS RAI RTG
INT - APP OPS RAI SEC TSV
RTG - APP INT OPS RAI SEC
SEC - INT OPS RAI RTG
APP and SEC can follow each other. The other areas have more conflicts.
In Section 5:
"Cross-area review. Similarly, expertise is not brought in by an
area designation, it is brought through the right people
actually reading the specifications. Encouraging cross-area
review is therefore helpful, for instance through directorates
assigned to review important documents from other areas."
How are important documents from other areas identified? I rarely
see messages saying "this might be of interest to your area" with an
explanation to incite interest (excluding "please review my draft").
The cross-area review may be perceived by some people as a burden
they could do away with. There is the following question in the write-up:
"Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from
broader perspective?"
There are rarely cross-area comments in reply to that question.
The list of directorates and review teams is at
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/directorate.html Most of them rarely do
reviews. There was a draft with five (or more) listed authors. None
of them responded to the review. The AD provided feedback. There is
a document shepherd for each draft. Only a few of them are
responsive. The reviewer ends up trying to explain to the author(s)
details which the document shepherd could have done.
There should be a checkbox somewhere which says "further review is
discouraged". Reviewers would not have to waste their time and
effort reading a long draft. They don't have any financial or other
interest in it anyway. So why bother?
"Extensions for a specific application purpose (such as delivering
location information) must be owned by some other working group that
is chartered to develop those applications (such as the GEOPRIV WG
in the Real-Time Applications Area)."
Stephen Farrell posted a question during a Last Call (
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg73924.html ). I
didn't see any feedback from GEOPRIV on that.
"Scheduling models for the IETF should take cross-area work into
account in a better way. Possible tools to improve this include
ability to specify ADs from multiple areas as interested in a
working group or the ability to specify entire areas as
conflicts in the meeting request tool."
The above focuses on how to get the relevant ADs in the room. It's
more about AD scheduling than cross-area scheduling.
One could look at this in terms of the relation of the work with
other areas. There was a message from ADs in an area requesting a
summary of what their WGs have been up to. It's a way for the
average participant to get a quick view of what has being discussed
and what are the issues. The person might also be able to identify
topics of interest. That's more fine-grained than area. It might
attract a larger number of participants.
I'll highlight an important point from the draft:
"People matter, organizations do not. The essence of most cross-
area work is getting the right expertise to the room and to the
list. This does not happen through mere organizational forms,
people have to be interested about the problem."
Let's take the IESG out of the equation. How do you get people will
the right expertise in the room and on the list? The draft mentions
"chair and advisor" selection. That addresses the organizational
form. Most people are volunteers and do not have the time to keep up
with more than a few mailing lists. Some of them might end up
following only Area WGs during a meeting. There isn't much
opportunity, or maybe it's a lack of incentive, to talk to people
from outside the area.
The draft is well-written and it covers the challenges. I am left
with a sense that the recommendations are viewed more in terms of
meetings and the IESG.
Regards,
-sm