Re: Late review management (Re: [Icar] independence of reviews; variability)

On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 02:58:39PM -0800, David Meyer wrote:
>> 	Margaret,
>> 
>> >> >Once again, diversity of perspectives is our friend... that is, if we
>> >> >believe in community rough consensus, rather than hierarchical assertion
>> >> >of authority.
>> >> 
>> >> This touches on a thought I've had off-and-on for the past couple of 
>> >> years...
>> >> 
>> >> The current IETF structures, policies and processes are based on some 
>> >> fundamental assumptions two of which are (1) that making decisions by 
>> >> rough consensus, reached through an open process will achieve good 
>> >> results, and (2) we can select leaders (ADs, WG chairs, etc.) and 
>> >> trust them to fairly solicit, judge and act upon rough community 
>> >> consensus.  Sometimes, though, we seem to question those assumption, 
>> >> and we end up adding structures, policies or processes that are 
>> >> intended to protect us from the results of our own consensus-driven 
>> >> decisions.  I think that is (and has been) a mistake.
>> 
>> 	I couldn't really parse the last sentence in this
>> 	paragraph, i.e., what do you think is the mistake,
>> 	questioning the assumptions or adding structures,
>> 	policies, or processes? 
>> 	
>> 	That being said, honestly questioning one's assumptions
>> 	with an eye toward improvement is never wrong. However,
>> 	the latter (adding structure, etc) clearly can. So maybe

s/clearly can./clearly can be.

Sorry about that.

Dave

>> 	its not really so much about the questioning (that much
>> 	is healthy for our or any organization); maybe it is more
>> 	about what we do in few those cases (if any) that we
>> 	might find in which our common assumptions don't hold. In
>> 	the case of the IETF, it is pretty clear that there are
>> 	at most a few cases in which our consensus based approach
>> 	is less efficient than we might like; it clearly works
>> 	well in the vast majority of cases (nuff said on that
>> 	one; the record speaks for itself).    
>> 
>> >> While there is no decision making process (hierarchical, democratic, 
>> >> I just get to decide...) that achieves good results all of the time, 
>> >> the consensus-driven process has worked well for the IETF over the 
>> >> years.  By failing to trust it, we don't actually move to another 
>> >> effective decision making process, we just break the one that we have.
>> 
>> 	Maybe there is be something more (less?) granular here,
>> 	like trusting the "Rough consensus and running code"
>> 	isn't a binary thing? That is, it works extremely well
>> 	for us most of the time, however, we do need to be
>> 	vigilant and watch out for those few instances in which
>> 	it doesn't. So maybe it is less about trust, and possibly
>> 	more about trying to make sure those processes that have
>> 	been so successful for us continue to serve us well. That
>> 	goal would seem (minimally) to require continual
>> 	reevaluation as we, our technology, and our industry
>> 	evolve. At least that is how I see this issue.      
>> 	
>> >> I think that this same line of thinking applies to review...  We 
>> >> should put into place the mechanisms, tools, training, etc. to 
>> >> improve the community's capacity to provide quality review.  Perhaps 
>> >> we should provide mechanisms that help WGs' find and recruit 
>> >> reviewers.  We could even develop some guidelines about what type and 
>> >> quantity of review makes sense at each level.  But, ultimately, I 
>> >> think that we should trust that our WGs (and our WG chairs, document 
>> >> editors, etc.) actually _want_ to  produce good quality, 
>> >> well-reviewed work.  We can improve their ability to do that by 
>> >> giving them better tools, but we won't achieve anything by trying to 
>> >> enforce quality through "better" rules.
>> 
>> 	Completely agree. 
>> 
>> >> If we decide, as a community, that we can no longer trust the 
>> >> consensus process and/or the motivations of our ADs, WG chairs or 
>> >> document editors, we have a _much_ bigger problem than can be solved 
>> >> by changing our review processes.
>> 
>> 	Again, completely agree.
>> 
>> 	Dave

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