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Re: Last Call: <draft-secretaries-good-practices-06.txt> (IETF Working Groups' Secretaries) to Best Current Practice

2014-12-08 12:30:53
Howdy Adrian,

On Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 8:05 AM, Adrian Farrel 
<adrian(_at_)olddog(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk> wrote:


I believe I see two issues raised by you and Melinda in this thread which
I may
summarise as:
- This I-D needs to be clearer that it is not normative, not defining
process,
   and not directing WG chairs to use secretaries.


Agree.


- The use of a WG secretary somewhat reflects an abdication of
  responsibility by a WG chair who was appointed to carry out these tasks.


I think that's a bit more than what I was saying, at least.  Some WGs
become unwieldy because they end up taking on more documents or more people
than they had anticipated, or a co-chair's expected availability becomes
compromised.  In some cases it's appropriate to replace such a co-chair
with someone else that can handle the demand, and in others a WG secretary
might be all that's needed.  It's possible to delegate without abdicating,
where the delegated authority is merely to, for example, collect
information needed for the co-chair to make a decision; the co-chair
accepts responsibility for the collection and has the opportunity to verify
the input, even if she isn't the one actually doing the collection.

The second is more of a philosophical question. The chair is "contracted" to
deliver and given certain powers to achieve delivery. Can the chair
delegate the
actions while supervising their implementation and carrying responsibility
for
their correctness? This is maybe an issue we can address by making it
clear who
carries responsibility  for actions carried out by a WG secretary and what
the
complaint/appeals path is.


I think the answer to the question there is not only "yes", but that's
exactly what's expected if the chair exercises her prerogative to appoint a
secretary.  The proverbial "buck" still stops in the same place.  If that's
not written down, it ought to be.   (And yes, I'll offer to edit such a
document, though probably not until the new year.)

-MSK
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