Dave,
On 11/11/2015 05:16, Dave Crocker wrote:
...
The reality is that IETF work does not succeed or fail because of the
technical input from an AD. Nor does it succeed because of an AD's
"leadership". That an AD occasionally catches some important error in a
draft is a distraction, not a justification.
I think these three sentences between them are fundamentally misleading,
so let me break them down in details, and in reverse order:
That an AD occasionally catches some important error in a
draft is a distraction, not a justification.
It is rather beside the point whether an AD notices an error personally,
or whether one of his or her support team (reviewers, directorate, etc.)
does so. The point is that (a) an important error has been found and
(b) it is the AD who has the power to ensure it gets fixed.
Also, I think that "occasionally" is plain wrong. A lot of of quite serious
errors survive WG Last Call and are detected during the part of the process
that the AD supervises. I am not saying that all documents have such errors;
I estimate that ~20% have significant issues when they leave the WG.
Nor does it succeed because of an AD's "leadership".
The scare quotes are tendentious. The point isn't that the AD is in a
leadership position. It's that the AD has the power hold up the document
until it's fixed.
The reality is that IETF work does not succeed or fail because of the
technical input from an AD.
Correct, but completely beside the point. The point is that the ADs
have (barring an appeal) the power of decision, and they don't treat
this power as a rubber stamp.
...
Defining the AD job to be fundamentally more modest and fundamentally
one of facilitation will simultaneously make the job accessible to a
much wider range of candidates and make the job more useful to the
community.
If you advocating removing the power of decision from the IESG,
please say so less cryptically, and explain how the serious errors
that are currently fixed after WGLC will be fixed in future.
Brian