Re: NomCom 2019 Call for Community Feedback

John C Klensin <john@jck.com> Sat, 09 November 2019 14:12 UTC

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Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2019 09:12:37 -0500
From: John C Klensin <john@jck.com>
To: John Leslie <john@widor3.jlc.net>
cc: nomcom-chair-2019@ietf.org, ietf <ietf@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: NomCom 2019 Call for Community Feedback
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(top post)

Let me add one additional comment to John's description of the
problem, which which I largely agree. He suggested that it had
become "entirely too difficult to say no to any new-group
proposal".   I suggest that it has gotten even more difficult to
say no to anything emerging from a working group, no matter how
ill-conceived.  Statistics about how long documents were sitting
in IESG evaluation, waiting for AD, or waiting for new draft
states might be very illuminating about this.

best,
  john


--On Tuesday, November 5, 2019 10:57 -0500 John Leslie
<john@widor3.jlc.net> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 04, 2019 at 07:54:52PM +0000, Salz, Rich wrote:
>> 
>> I wonder what people think would break if we moved to 5 AD's
>> per area, and they could divide the WG's and IESG concalls
>> amongst themselves?
> 
>    The whole process would break. :^(
> 
>    (I don't know whether that's good or bad...)
> 
>    Beyond question, the workload has become oppressive.
> 
>    Different IETF-Chairs have different approaches. Adapting
> to these changes, IMHO, has been challenging for IESG members.
> 
>    But the long-term trend has been to make it entirely too
> difficult to say no to any new-group proposal. A pair of
> WG-chairs is appointed, and the AD's don't have time to follow
> the actual process.
> 
>    Some WGCs listen very carefully to AD advice; others don't.
> Some ADs give very good advice early; others don't.
> 
>    But there's an endemic problem: enough of the hoi-polloi
> see each WG as the only possible way to "solve" their problem;
> and they develop tunnel vision. Thus anyone other than the AD
> who points out a problem is facing a cliff-like wall of
> resistance.
> 
>    This leads to problems entombed in published RFCs.
> 
>    It is rare for these problems to be solved -- ever.
> 
>    Beating your head against these entombed problems
> _seriously_ reduces the enthusiasm of ordinary IETF-ers to
> devote full-time to our process.
> 
>    :^( :^( :^(
> 
>    (Having basically retired from my full-time job, I have
> perhaps enough time available to work on this, but nowhere
> near enough money to cover $50,000 per year of out-of pocket
> expenses.) (Also, I hate air travel!)
> 
>    But perhaps, somebody else will explore alternatives to
> selecting only employer-sponsored folks for the IESG...
> 
> --
> John Leslie <john@jlc.net>
>