Subject: Comments on draft-wasserman-rfc2418-update-00.txt

From: "James Kempf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 00:26:03 -0700

Margaret,

Looks really good, only two comments:

- The section on what to do if a WG chair is also a document editor seems a
little unclear to me. I'd suggest the following rewording of the second
paragraph:

   If a WG chair also serves as the Document Editor for a WG document,
   that WG chair is expected to recluse from all decisions about the
   document, including calling concensus and judging quality. If the
   WG has more than one WG chair, as is typically the case, then
   the chair who is not also Document Editor will manage the
   working group process for that document. The roles of the WG
   Chairs must be made clear to the WG in this case. In rare cases, perhaps
   due to a role change, a lone WG Chair may also serve as a Document 
   Editor for a WG document, but that situation should be avoided when 
   possible, and must be corrected as quickly as practical by turning over 
   the Document Editor role to another person.

- I think something should be added in the appeals section (Section 3.5 in
the new document) about appealing quality and mailing list management
decisions. These changes are giving significant new authority to WG chairs,
which I think is absolutely necessary, but the document should also remind
people that they have recourse if they believe they are being treated
unfairly.

I think this will go a long way towards making the IETF process more
scalable, and reducing the management burden on the IESG.

            jak

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From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:03:20 +0200 (EET)

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, James Kempf wrote:
[...]
> scalable, and reducing the management burden on the IESG.

Yes, maybe the goal is to change the "big bad IESG" to "big bad WG
chair".. I'm not sure whether that's a bad thing, but that it might have
implications (such as, WG chairs getting fired more easily for not
standing up against bad ideas, WG chairs being required to commit a lot
more resources to the job (properly), decisions appealed more often and
all the time wasted processing the appeals and appeals on appeals, etc.).

It's just that _someone_ has to be able to tell the bad news about a
document.  Now it's easier when the WG chair can blame the AD, and the AD
can blame the WG ("good cop, bad cop" :-).  If you bundle these
responsibilities in one, the WG chair (acting responsibly) would be seen
as a lot more partial in the discussion.  The ADs and the IESG, as
currently done, don't have to care (.. that much).  Whether that's a bug
or feature is another thing..

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

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From: "James Kempf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 02:33:57 -0800

Pekka,

It simply isn't scalable to have 13 people take first line responsibility
for a 2000+ person technical organization with 240 working groups generating
X x 10**2 documents per year. To say nothing of requiring the full IESG to
decide whether someone should be ejected from a mailing list for disruption.
Hierarchical management is the only way to inject scalability into the
process.  Directorates help a little if the ADs use them, since they can
offload some processing, but I'm sure most ADs won't trust directorates
opinions alone with standards track documents, and many people are
suspicious of directorates because they have no official status. We can
either set up another level of management hierarchy or we can take the level
that's there, namely the WG chairs, and empower them to really manage their
WGs. Naturally, as you point out, this makes the WG chairs responsible for
their decisions, but that's part of empowerment. And, yes, WG chairs need to
be removed if they aren't performing (they are occasionally today), and,
yes, they need to commit more time to the job. To prevent an increase in
appeals, WG chairs need to understand their roles, hence the need for the
kind of training Margaret and others are trying to organize. The ADs still
have the final decision, of course, and they can still push back and the WG
chairs need to convey that to the WG, just like today. But hopefully, the
upshot will be that fewer poor quality documents are sent to the IESG.

So I agree this will be more work for the WG chairs, but you don't get
something for nothing. If we want to relieve the pressure on the IESG, the
load has got to spread out somewhere and the WG chairs are the logical place
to do it.

            jak