An Experiment with IESG evaluation of documents

[Harald Alvestrand <[e-mail]>]

The IESG is doing an experiment with its review process.
This should not affect the interface between the IESG and the rest of the IETF,
but we feel that the community should know what we're doing to make things
function more smoothly.


This experiment runs for the next 3 telechats, which brings us close to San 
Diego. I (or someone else from IESG) will give a report on our experience in the
General Area meeting in San Diego.


                          Harald
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Experimental IESG Split-Team Review


The aim of the experiment described below is to determine if
the IESG can lower the amount of direct review it gives documents
in specific classes by delegating the management of that
review to teams within the IETF.  The reviews themselves may
be done by directorates, groups like "mib doctors", or the relevant ADs.  If
successful, the experiment may point to permanent procedures
that reduce the "bottleneck effect" of current IESG processing.




The following procedures describe an experimental mechanism
for evaluating if review managed by split teams within the IESG is
a practical substitute for full-IESG review for one or more document
classes.  The experiment will consist of using these procedures for
three full review cycles (i.e., the new documents on three telechats), and
then assessing whether they are effective.




Candidate documents:  Informational and Experimental documents
sponsored by a working group or Area Director.




Procedure:




There are two mailing lists, to which all IESG members will be subscribed.
Currently, those are [e-mail] and [e-mail].
Each AD will be assigned to a team, with each Area represented on
each team.  The initial assignment will be that the AD with the
alphabetically earlier first name in the area will be assigned to "blue" and
the later to "red"; this is not expected to be the final assignment
mechanism.  Since the General AD has no counterpart, he will be assigned
to the "blue" team initially.  Alex Zinin will serve as the focus for 
General Area
reviews for the "red team" (his role on the blue team being his role as
a routing AD).  ADs are expected to participate in their team list 
actively; they
are expected to monitor the other team list, contributing when
they have special knowledge or experience to share.




When an AD believes a non-RFC Editor Informational or Experimental
document is ready for IESG ballot,  she or he issues the ballot as
normal, adding a note to the tracker indicating which team will be responsible;
this note is intended to allow those looking at the ballot to determine which
team is responsible for which documents, since notes show on the agenda.
The responsible Area Director then sends a message to the
team list to which she or he  belongs, notifying the team that the
document will be placed on the IESG ballot.  The ADs on that team
then arrange for review of the document, either by conducting the
review themselves, identifying appropriate reviewers in the Area's
directorates, or other methods of their selection.




Documents are considered during regular IESG telechats.  All
reviewers on the responsible team are expected to enter a position.
Those members of the IESG not on the team reviewing a document do
not enter positions for that document.  If all of those reviewing it
enter Yes or No-ob when the document is considered, the document passes.
If DISCUSS positions or COMMENTS are recorded, these are resolved in
the usual way.   If a reviewer must recuse her or himself from review,
she or he should request that the other AD for that area undertake
the review.




After the end of the 3 experimental telechat cycles, any documents
which remain under discussion will be resolved according to the
procedures set out here.  No new documents will be considered
  under these procedures unless the IESG adopts non-experimental
  procedures similar to these.




If any AD on the team initially reviewing the document believes that the
document should be reviewed by the full IESG, that AD can request
full review by sending a message to the IESG list.  This may occur
during the initial review period or at any time after. If the review
request occurs after the initial round of positions is recorded,
a member of the team which did not previously review the document
may DEFER the document from re-consideration for a single telechat.






Initial Blue Team:


Harald Alvestrand, Scott Hollenbeck, Margaret Wasserman, Bert Wijnen,
Alex Zinin, Russ Housley,  Allison Mankin




Initial Red Team:


Ted Hardie, Thomas Narten, David Kessens, Bill Fenner, Steve Bellovin,
Jon Peterson, Alex Zinin (as shepherd for General Area reviews).


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