Re: Question about pre-meeting document posting deadlines for the IESG and the community

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi Keith,
At 03:05 AM 24-03-2024, Keith Moore wrote:
>I don't think it's possible to reliably establish that the people 
>showing interest in a WG's deliverables (for the present or future) 
>are okay with a particular set of practices.   Even if a WG 
>explicitly asks everyone on its mailing list for their consent to a 
>change in the rules, new participants may join at any time, and it's 
>not desirable to exclude or discourage new participants.

There is a misunderstanding of the requirement/rule.  There are 
requirements/rules which I cannot change, e.g. the Last-Call shall be 
two weeks.

Sometimes, a practice (sorry if it is not the correct word) is set by 
agreement when the WG starts its work.  I found it useful as it 
allows the WG to meet its target date for delivering the I-D to the 
AD.  For what it is worth, I have been off by six months on a target 
date.  All the RFCs which I shepherded were published in under three years.

Over the years, I only received one complaint about the exclusion of 
participants.  The person who filed the complaint had a 
point.  However, the point was something to do with IETF policy 
(which is something which I could not change).

The question which John asked for about documents to be discussed at 
a meeting.  A person, irrespective of characteristics, who comes to 
the meeting could protest if a rule was violated.

>I'm not a big fan of use of github by WGs, but at least that 
>particular subject has had extensive discussion within IETF.   I 
>don't think it should serve as a general example of why it's okay 
>for some WGs to work differently than others.

Ok.

>One of my big concerns about working groups, especially these days, 
>is that there seems to be an increasing tendency for WGs to operate 
>as closed clubs.  They can't stop new people from joining their 
>mailing lists or their publicly announced meetings, but they can 
>discourage participation from newcomers in various ways. Holding 
>"interim" meetings (whether remote or in-person) without 
>community-wide announcement in the usual means (e.g. ietf-announce) 
>is certainly one way they can do that.   Having the chair or other 
>designee object to any suggestion by an "outsider" is another 
>way.  It's absolutely NOT okay for a WG to operate in that way, even 
>if some of the core participants think it's ok.

As a comment on interim meetings, there is a decision by the IAB at: 
https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/iab/appeals/artifact/39

There are various ways to discourage participation by not-the-usual 
participants, e.g. setting an online meeting at any inconvenient time 
for a not-the-usual participant.  I attended meeting scheduled in 
far-away timezones.  It is a significant effort, and cost, to do that 
over a very long period.

There is a RFC which discussed clubs if I recall correctly.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy