Re: Thought experiment [Re: Quality of Directorate reviews]

[tom petch <[e-mail]>]

<inline>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Hinden" <[e-mail]>
To: "Nico Williams" <[e-mail]>
Cc: "IETF" <[e-mail]>; "Michael Richardson"
<[e-mail]>; "Bob Hinden" <[e-mail]>; "Alexey
Melnikov" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2019 4:29 PM

Nico,

> On Nov 6, 2019, at 9:02 PM, Nico Williams <[e-mail]>
wrote:
> …..
>> Secondly, they'd still be the authority for chartering, appointing
>> WG chairs, appointing directorates, and other aspects of overseeing
>> the process. Most of the duties described in RFC 2026 in fact.
>
> Sure, but picking good chairs now becomes essential, but finding
chairs
> as good as ADs will be difficult.

I agree that picking good chairs is essential (it is now too), but a
w.g. chair’s job is not full time.  They only have to manage and review
the documents in their working group.   The biggest issue with finding
qualified people to be ADs is that it is essentially a full time job.
Finding qualified people to be w.g. chairs is easier and there is a
bigger pool of qualified people because it isn’t a full time job.

<tp>
And yet the quality of chairs seems lacking which then puts a greater
load on the ADs.

A general principle of doing anything is that the earlier you fix the
issue, the less expensive it is to fix so a defect that is fixed just
after WG adoption will cost less effort than one that gets fixed at IESG
review.

I see comments from myself and others not acted on even when they are
(to me) basic such as line lengths of 100+ characters which makes them
hard to read; or an absence of any normative references which means I
cannot tell if I should expect to understand this I-D; an IANA section
that registers 'n' YANG modules when the I-D contains 'm' YANG modules
where n>>m or m>>n.

These tend to get fixed before IETF Last Call but less basic ones may
not be; the issues were raised on the WG list and then the person
raising them says 'What about the issues I raised  two months ago and
which are still there?'

I am pointing a finger at WG Chairs who let unresolved issues run and
run; that costs, everyone.  And I see this in several of the WGs that I
track, as well as never seeing it in others; I believe that the
difference lies in the WG Chairs but all I can do is post comments to
the WG List - when they are not acted on, then I am ....ed

Tom Petch

Bob