Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director

Gaving discussed TCP Congestion behavior with the TCP folks, and tried 
to understand the issues, it seems to be very hard.
And if the AD is not well-versed in it, there is a serious issue.  It 
seems to me that unless we restructure the entire way the IESG operates 
(maybe a good idea, but a VERY different question) the AD needs to have 
significant understanding of the technical questions of his area.
Otherwise, the AD gets a directorate review calling out congestion 
problems.  He puts in the discuss.  And can not discuss it with the 
other ADs.  It is not his discuss.  He can not work out how to resolve it.
Directorates are critical.  I would hope tat all areas can move to a 
situation where finding the issues rests primarily with the 
directorates.  But the AD has to have enough details in his area to deal 
with it.
Yours,
Joel

On 3/3/2013 11:32 AM, Mary Barnes wrote:
> Lars,
>
> Do you not have individuals in the directorate that are experts on
> congestion control (that aren't document authors) that can review for
> technical sanity of the proposal?  ISTM that some of the TSV nominees
> have broad technical skills, including management that could be quite
> useful.  Certainly, we have an example where a Nomcom appointed
> someone with little expertise for a specific area and the result was
> not good. However, I believe that was far more to do with how the
> individual approached the role - authoritarian versus understanding
> that from a technical perspective they should really listen to the
> experts.  IMHO, that's the most important skill that some ADs lack -
> i.e., listening.
>
> In my experience at not all ADs carefully scrutinize WG items and they
> tend to rely on the write-up of the shepherd.  While the shepherd is
> most often the WG chair, if they do their job properly, I believe that
> the problems that an AD might encounter are fewer.   I will note that
> from what I have seen not all shepherds actually review the documents
> themselves, which is a problem unto itself. There is often quite
> visible when one does gen-art reviews.   ISTM, there is a way for the
> process to work with an AD that is not the technical expert in
> specific areas IF others down the chain do their jobs properly.  Of
> course, IETF is really bad at managing down the chain when there are
> weak links. IMHO, someone with decent project management and people
> management skills can make a huge difference.
>
> Regards,
> Mary.
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Eggert, Lars <lars(_at_)netapp(_dot_)com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Mar 3, 2013, at 15:35, Brian E Carpenter 
> > <brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
> > > What I'm getting at is that this line of argument doesn't scale.
> > > The only solution I see is to replace it by
> > > "Several people on the Y Directorate need to understand X."
> > only if the Y directorate reviews all IDs going through the IESG. Which in 
> > itself is a scaling issue. It may work for some topics, but things will fall 
> > through the cracks for various reasons.
> >
> > IMO congestion control is important and fundamental enough that the IESG itself 
> > needs to have the knowledge. YEs, I'm biased.
> >
> > Lars