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

["[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>]

FWIW, opening the queue the week of the IETF only means that updates are released during the IETF itself, rather than up to 2 weeks earlier.

That, coupled with other workarounds (posting drafts to mailing lists or other download areas) suggests that the 2-week rule doesn’t really accomplish much.

IMO, WG chairs can just enforce this by saying that issues not placed in docs before that date will not be discussed. Locking the posting mechanism is just a hurdle to jump.

Joe
—
Dr. Joe Touch, temporal epistemologist
www.strayalpha.com

> On Mar 15, 2024, at 12:26 PM, John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi.
> 
> For many, many, years we have had a cutoff for posting I-Ds
> about two weeks before an IETF meeting starts.  That cutoff was
> established to give people time to read documents (especially
> because, predictably, many documents would be posted just before
> it), figure out which WG meetings they needed to attend, prepare
> comments, etc.    We are now seeing pull requests that alter
> substantive parts of documents posted on Github within a short
> time before IETF starts and during the window when new or
> revised I-Ds are not allowed without special circumstances and
> specific permission from ADs.
> 
> Allowing that seems to contradict, or at least seriously weaken,
> the principle of having documents available well in advance of
> meetings.  If they are announced only to the mailing list of the
> relevant WG(s) (and sometimes not even that widely), it seems to
> me that they impede both WG meeting discussions in which
> everyone has the same starting points and openness to IETF
> participants who have not signed up for the WG mailing list
> (newcomers included).
> 
> Is the IESG considering some guidance on this subject or is it
> considered unnecessary?  
> 
> As an almost-separate question, if the "real" version of an I-D
> that is expected to be discussed in meetings and on mailing list
> is the the draft plus the cumulative effect of pull requests
> (some by other than the listed authors), should that be more
> clear and reflected in the datatracker?
> 
> thanks,
>   john
>