Dave - I hope you'll indulge my selective quoting as I have a couple of
specific points to address. My apologies if I end up quoting you out of
context...
On May 16, 2013, at 12:23 PM 5/16/13, Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
[...]
So here's a simple proposal that pays attention to AD workload and includes a
simple efficiency hack:
When the IETF Last Call is issued, wait a few days, to see whether any
serious issues are raised by the community. The really serious ones usually
are raised quickly. If there are none, it's pretty certain the document will
advance to an IESG vote. That leaves 7-10 days of IETF Last Call for ADs to
get educated and ask questions, just like everyone else.
Jari has expressed the goal of having AD concerns be raised more publicly.
Moving AD review and comment to the IETF Last Call venue nicely accomplishes
this, too.
I just posted elsewhere a suggestion to move this review even earlier, to WG
last call. Accomplishes most of the same ends, while putting the discussion in
front of the IETF participants who are, presumably, most invested in the
resulting document.
[...]
In terms of quality assurance, the idea that we have a process that relies on
the sudden insight of a single AD, at the end of a many-month process, is
broken. It's fine if that person sees something that everyone else has
missed until then, but that is quite different from designing a process that
is claimed to rely on it.
As you and I have discussed in person, I am 100% in agreement with this
comment. As much as I liked to think of myself, when I was an AD, as a
rock-god Network Expert with complete and in-depth insight into every document
I reviewed, I know the reality was that any problems I might have found were
related to the old observation that "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn
occasionally".
And of course, the reality is that we allow bad specs out the door all the
time; we just allow fewer of them than many/most other standards bodies...
You're such an optimist.
- Ralph
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net