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Re: CHANGE THE JOB (was Re: NOMCOM - Time-Critical - Final Call for Nominations)

2013-10-18 10:05:57
Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:

We have been having some very serious recruitment problems for a number 
of years now.  This year's crisis was entirely predictable.

The only way the situation will change meaningfully is to make the job 
less onerous...

<hat="Senior Narrative Scribe">

   Having followed a strong majority of formal telechats for five years,
it is blindingly obvious to me that

- there are too many documents to review, and
- there are too many Working Groups to manage;

and it keeps getting worse. :^(

   The fact that the IESG gets through the agendas for these telechats
fools some folks into believing the job is possible -- but the rest of
us aren't fooled.

Re-define the bloody job...

   Here I part ways with Dave. (It never seems to take long... :^)

   There is nothing wrong with reviewing documents. There is nothing
wrong with managing Working Groups. There are just too many of both!

   I can't very well name a WG that shouldn't be on the list for an
AD to manage (I'll cover that issue in a separate email); but we have
a perfect example right now of a document that the IESG shouldn't be
responsible to review.

   Pete Resnick's draft-resnick-on-consensus is an individual submission
seeking Informational status. From its Abstract:
] 
] This document is a collection of thoughts on what rough consensus is,
] how we have gotten away from it, and the things we can do in order to
] really achieve rough consensus.

   Yet, if it is published as an Informational RFC, it will have
boilerplate saying:
] 
] This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
] (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
] received public review and has been approved for publication by the
] Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
] approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
] Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Thus some folks have quite understandably objected to it being
published, even as Informational.

   IESG review of it is really redundant (and I'd be surprised if any
AD puts a DISCUSS on it once Pete is satisfied with it). Pete will do
any appropriate consensus-seeking before he signs off an it.

   But there's that boilerplate!

   There's just no way a document like this can get genuine "consensus
of the IETF community". Yet it most truly deserves an IETF-wide Last
Call.

   IMHO there are _many_ documents being published as Informational
which deserve an IETF-wide Last Call, but don't deserve to go before
an IESG telechat and ask ADs to sign off on "consensus of the IETF
community".

   Documents such as this should represent the _author's_ opinions
after a Last Call process -- claiming "IETF community" consensus
detracts from that, and even _formal_ IESG review without that
boilerplate would detract from it.

</hat>

   Can we get there from here? I don't know. :^(

   Removing the IESG review would be a process change; and we've had
very poor luck with those recently...

   But even changing the boilerplate would help...

--
John Leslie <john(_at_)jlc(_dot_)net>