On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Adrian Farrel
<adrian(_at_)olddog(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk> wrote:
Hello,
The IESG defines the job and the IESG 'operates' the model. So yes,
formally the IESG controls this issue.
Mutter.
I suppose the seated IESG defines what it does.
Or more precisely, each member of the IESG decides what (sadly) he should
do to
best serve in the role.
But don't see the "job requirements" put out by NomCom as the IESG placing
requirements.
The NomCom asks the IESG what skills and tasks are needed in the view of
the
current IESG.
The IESG serves up this information and NomCom can do with it as it likes.
More important, the community can and should tell the NomCom what it wants
the
IESG to do and not do.
How can the community know what is happening on the table of NomCom or on
the table of IESG. They need to announce information of such requirements,
opportunities, questions, decisions,
I don't know what I want IESG/NomCom to do or not to do if I don't know
(i.e. receive announcements) why they are doing things in such way and why
they are not doing things in such way. We need good statistics information
of the past history (community discussions and IESG decisions and reasons),
we have a week history documentations but still we have old participants
discussing and can be good advisers (will take longer time in process than
documenting issues) today but not sure of tomorrow. The General Area has
no WG, that means the IETF is weak in documentations of its decisions
reason history.
It would be better for the IESG to take the initiative here and
formally
and publicly re-define the job, but it has so far ignored such
requests.
Which cuts into what Peter says since from where I sit there are many
calls on
the time of an AD and it would be useful to know which tasks the community
would
like me to not do (I think that I and my chief sponsor would both be happy
if I
spent more time working for them and less working as an AD).
I don't think I want to distroy few tasks of ADs, it is better to know what
makes them do what they are doing, did the past community ask them to do it
or it is the need of the job nature. We should be careful if we start to
think to reduce tasks, because there may be many consequences, I prefer
delegating tasks and AD just reviews and signs outputs,
It might be helpful to talk about what could change, such as:
1. Less/no time on document reviews.
Right. Ask:
Do the reviews currently done by ADs make a difference to the quality of
individual documents or the overall canon?
Yes, IMHO, the ADs review is a MUST in the process.
Would we be happy to publish RFCs with lower quality?
NO, any low quality output means low number of users/trusts, which will
distroy the IETF future,
Are there other ways to reliably improve the quality (like, for example,
the
community doing proper reviews of their own work)?
This is true, the community SHOULD do more work, but don't forget that we
need more leaders, to direct the community which means we need more
diversity and quality.
Could discussions of Discusses go more smoothly and take less effort?
Yes, but if every one respects each other, and if each WG chair never
ignores inputs to meetings/WG-list, and if ADs never ignore comments on
documents.
Note:
I spend more time (factor of more than 2) reviewing I-Ds when publication
is
requested (from a WG) than I do reviewing at IESG evaluation.
That is the key of IETF good quality and quality of Area outputs, so each
AD reviews all related Area documents.
2. Less time managing working groups.
Right. Ask:
Does the management of working groups improve the output?
Yes, they SHOULD be responsible, as does the AD select the Chairs and can
fire them,
Would we be happy to allow WGs to "muddle through"?
The WG is already responsible, so they should always comment on related
issues. I was always commenting in MANET WG, but some day I got a message
from the Chair saying that my messages on the list are very high and it is
disturbing the WG, which I think is reducing efforts and discouraging me to
add value. Some Lists in IETF still have personal response and some WG
documents are not acknowledging efforts, because their editors still think
the document is theirs not owned by WG.
Could WG chairs somehow (magically?) take more responsibility and get
stuff done
(some chairs do)?
I think there should be more chairs if possible, but that depends on the
AD strategy or management,
Note:
A few of my WGs/chairs take most of my management time.
I don't put a lot of time into managing WGs unless something goes badly
wrong.
Things go wrong when the manager/Chair responsible ignores issues, and
leaves things for the future,
3. Fewer working groups to manage.
Right. Ask:
Should an AD close a WG with a small number of people doing productive work
slowly?
No, but a warning is good to encourage them to bring more people into the
WG. There is not person that cannot bring more interests in the IETF,
because IETF is a friendly environment and accepts remote participants, not
only f2f participants. Please note I understood that you mean small number
of all participants not only f2f participants.
Should we refuse to open new WGs until we have finished other work?
No we never SHOULD discourage work for the Internet community, but
recharters of old WGs SHOULD not happen often, I prefer changing old names
and making joints between WGs when the time of charter expiry comes. I
prefer reducing numbers of individual documents not WGs, because don't
forget if you stop new WGs you may get many individual work into IETF.
Could we reduce the number of WGs per AD by increasing the number of ADs?
Yes that might be but needs a good reason, this depends on IESG decisions.
I prefer creating assistant ADs and leaving only two ADs per Area.
Note:
Even if management of the WG is not issue, each WG produces documents to be
managed, so reducing the number does have a direct impact.
Agree
6. Less/no involvement with creating the schedule.
Frankly, with the new tooling, this doesn't take more than a few hours per
IETF
meeting cycle.
And that does point up a good question to ask the IESG in general - what
additional tools could significantly reduce your work load?
Agree
Perhaps some time and motion studies are in order to figure out how ADs
spend their time. In my experience, document reviews required a major
time commitment.
And, since I do track my time at quite a fine granularity...
Email takes up a large lump.
Got to skim the mailing lists for each of my WGs every week.
Got to skim the mailing lists for other WGs in my area every month.
Got to skim IETF-announce and IETF-disgust daily.
Another 15 or so IETF lists that I skim weekly.
A few related lists (such as NANOG) that I skim when I can.
Emails directed to me that need attention "at once".
That is a good list of tasks, and I encourage not only ADs to do that but
ALL participants to do that,
Please don't assume we ADs want this to be full time work.
Please do tell us what you don't want us to do, and what you would like us
to do
less.
The AD SHOULD do less job in managing WGs, because WGs should not fight in
arguments, but they should be responsible to find the way without
directions from an AD. All participants should behave like the Chair in the
WG, this make the AD happy.
Consider whether the "IETF management" could be separated from the
"document
quality".
That will be great if it is possible, but still the IETF SHOULD work harder
on its mentoring and marketing to get to that stage. Having participants
acting working hard like ADs will make WG quality which will make that
separation true ( separate of managment quality from document quality).
AB