Re: Last Call: <draft-secretaries-good-practices-06.txt> (IETF Working Groups' Secretaries) to Best Current Practice

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Monday, December 08, 2014 11:53 +0200 Bob Hinden
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> i also agree with your suspicion that this is an attept to
>> patch a chairing problem.  one suspects possible iesg
>> unwillingness to bite bullets.

> I agree.  The list of tasks assigned in this draft to the
> secretary should be done by the w.g. chairs.  If they can't do
> these tasks, then they shouldn't be chairs.

Bob, while I agree with Melinda's concern and Randy's
bullet-biting one, I don't think we should go quite as far as
"...shouldn't be chairs".  We apparently do have a shortage of
people who will (or can) take on IETF leadership roles at a
variety of levels.  If someone can take on a Chair role, retain
responsibility and accountability, but spread the work around, I
think we should generally be in favor of that.  Both Secretary
roles and less personally time-consuming Chair roles can be
important tools for leadership development and training -- we do
too little of that, to, IMO, our considerable peril.

I don't think we want anything that looks like a set of rules
that say "there shall be Secretaries" or "the Secretary job
description is...".  Equally, I don't think we want anything
that says "there should not be Secretaries" or "Secretaries must
not get any of the following responsibilities...".  Instead...

(1) We leave 2418 alone.

(2) We continue doing what we have done in the IETF for as long
as I can remember: we give WG Chairs a lot of discretion about
how they get their work done and assume that the limits on that
discretion can, and should, be worked out between Chair and AD
on a case-by-case basis.

(3) We invite the authors of this draft, and others who are
interested, to extract the "if you are asked to do this task,
this is advice about how to do it" material from the draft and
add it to the WG Chair wiki, the Tao, or other sources of
general guidance, as may be appropriate.

    john