Comments on draft-arkko-iesg-crossarea-01

[SM <[e-mail]>]

Hi Jari,

In Section 3:

   "In other cases different organizations may have specific expertise
    that is helpful to solve a problem."

Did you mean individuals?

In Section 4:

   "Current IETF scheduling principle is centered around a sequences
    of meetings of working groups in the same area."

There are some area-wide groups meetings.  I'll list the area against 
the areas for the WGs meeting at the same time:

   APP - INT OPS RAI RTG TSV
   TSV - APP INT OPS RAI RTG
   INT - APP OPS RAI SEC TSV
   RTG - APP INT OPS RAI SEC
   SEC - INT OPS RAI RTG

APP and SEC can follow each other.  The other areas have more conflicts.

In Section 5:

   "Cross-area review.  Similarly, expertise is not brought in by an
    area designation, it is brought through the right people
    actually reading the specifications.  Encouraging cross-area
    review is therefore helpful, for instance through directorates
    assigned to review important documents from other areas."

How are important documents from other areas identified?  I rarely 
see messages saying "this might be of interest to your area" with an 
explanation to incite interest (excluding "please review my draft"). 
The cross-area review may be perceived by some people as a burden 
they could do away with.  There is the following question in the write-up:

  "Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from
   broader perspective?"

There are rarely cross-area comments in reply to that question.

The list of directorates and review teams is at 
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/directorate.html     Most of them rarely do 
reviews.  There was a draft with five (or more) listed authors.  None 
of them responded to the review.  The AD provided feedback.  There is 
a document shepherd for each draft.  Only a few of them are 
responsive.  The reviewer ends up trying to explain to the author(s) 
details which the document shepherd could have done.

There should be a checkbox somewhere which says "further review is 
discouraged".  Reviewers would not have to waste their time and 
effort reading a long draft.  They don't have any financial or other 
interest in it anyway.  So why bother?

   "Extensions for a specific application purpose (such as delivering
    location information) must be owned by some other working group that
    is chartered to develop those applications (such as the GEOPRIV WG
    in the Real-Time Applications Area)."

Stephen Farrell posted a question during a Last Call ( 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg73924.html ).  I 
didn't see any feedback from GEOPRIV on that.

   "Scheduling models for the IETF should take cross-area work into
    account in a better way.  Possible tools to improve this include
    ability to specify ADs from multiple areas as interested in a
    working group or the ability to specify entire areas as
    conflicts in the meeting request tool."

The above focuses on how to get the relevant ADs in the room.  It's 
more about AD scheduling than cross-area scheduling.

One could look at this in terms of the relation of the work with 
other areas.  There was a message from ADs in an area requesting a 
summary of what their WGs have been up to.  It's a way for the 
average participant to get a quick view of what has being discussed 
and what are the issues.  The person might also be able to identify 
topics of interest.  That's more fine-grained than area.  It might 
attract a larger number of participants.

I'll highlight an important point from the draft:

   "People matter, organizations do not.  The essence of most cross-
    area work is getting the right expertise to the room and to the
    list.  This does not happen through mere organizational forms,
    people have to be interested about the problem."

Let's take the IESG out of the equation.  How do you get people will 
the right expertise in the room and on the list?  The draft mentions 
"chair and advisor" selection.  That addresses the organizational 
form.  Most people are volunteers and do not have the time to keep up 
with more than a few mailing lists.  Some of them might end up 
following only Area WGs during a meeting.  There isn't much 
opportunity, or maybe it's a lack of incentive, to talk to people 
from outside the area.

The draft is well-written and it covers the challenges.  I am left 
with a sense that the recommendations are viewed more in terms of 
meetings and the IESG.

Regards,
-sm