From: barryleiba(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
[mailto:barryleiba(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of
Barry Leiba
we have a
million things that are unspecified and should be unspecified and left
to management choice. Trying to find all of those and explicitly say so
will be a frustrating exercise, and one that won't have a lot of value
in the end. In general, we specify what we want to specify, and what's
left is up to judgment and management.
[WEG] I'm sorry if it was unclear, but I am not saying that *everything* must
be specified, nor do I think anyone should undertake an effort to even identify
all of the things that are currently unspecified. I'm pointing out a specific
area of confusion and inconsistency that has been created by something that is
unspecified and asking "should we specify?"
Further, no matter how good the individuals are at their "jobs" within
the IETF, applying undocumented policy (especially doing it
inconsistently) looks to the outside world as arbitrary and capricious
Here's where we have a gap, you and I: what you call undocumented policy
I call a management choice.
[WEG] that's not really a gap, especially because you can replace my words with
yours and the statement above still holds. I am saying is that there is an
inconsistency because different people are making different choices on how to
proceed, hopefully with the consensus of the WG behind them. IMO, the
inconsistency goes beyond merely being flexible to accommodate the widest
variety of cases, and adds confusion and variability to the process. I think
the gap arises from the fact that you do not see this as inconsistent or that
you do not see the inconsistency as a bad thing. It may not be bad in all
cases, but I think there's a middle ground between overcreation and
overapplication of rules and relative anarchy. I'm just trying to make sure
we're actually in that happy medium, and that this is indeed the result of a
conscious decision rather than simply imitating what we see in other WGs
because that seems to work. FWIW, the WG Chairs wiki is also silent on this
matter, and p!
erhaps that is the best place to add a discussion about WG adoption of I-Ds.
Is that more palatable?
We hire the best and the brightest as our working group chairs in order
to rely on their judgment and management abilities,
[WEG] Well, no disrespect to any current or former AD, but this is giving us
entirely too much credit for why the vast majority of our WG chairs are good at
their jobs when it's more likely attributable to luck. Unlike other leadership
positions in IETF, there's no formal interview or "hiring" process to determine
who out of the group of engineers that make up IETF is best qualified to start
chairing a WG. I certainly had no specific experience that made me any better
than anyone else at being a WG chair the first time around. My qualifications
included a non-zero amount of common sense, available cycles, interest in the
topic, and <joking> the poor sense not to decline when asked to serve
</joking>. There's no mandatory training class. If one is lucky, you get paired
with an experienced co-chair (I did) and given a pointer to the wiki (I didn't)
to help you learn on the fly. It's clear that we trust our WG chairs, and
there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes providing!
them with more guidance is helpful.
Wes George
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