Re: RANT: posting IDs more often -- more is better -- why are we so shy?

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

--On Thursday, March 2, 2017 08:24 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>...
>> I'm not arguing against updating data tracker more often -
>> just saying this 'editor's draft' convention can work very
>> well between official revisions no matter the cadence a WG
>> chooses.
> 
> The details of that discussion probably belong on
> [e-mail], but I must point out that this way
> of working *excludes* from the  discussion WG participants who
> don't grok github. Substantial issues need to be discussed on
> the mailing list and substantial (non-typo) revisions need to
> be posted as I-Ds.

Brian,

It is a bit more than "not grokking".  For any given WG, or
task/document within a WG, there are three plausible ways to
review an emerging document:

(1) Very active participation, including tracking and
understanding all changes, more or less in real time.  

(2) Intermittent review of snapshots, ones that are generally
believed by their editors to be coherent and self-consistent.
Github revision tracking often makes that approach very
burdensome; change logs in documents and diffs between versions
are often more helpful.

(3) Simply deciding it is all or nothing and waiting until IETF
Last Call.

Only the first really makes effective use of the github style of
doing things.

The recent discussion about comments at Last Call rather than
while the WG was actively developing a document, including the
"don't have time" subthread obviously interact with this.

Also, IANAL, but if a change were contemplated, it might be
useful to ask appropriate ones whether, if questions ever arose
about when particular things happened, it would be easier or
more effective to explain an I-D and related WG consensus
discussions to a judge or jury or whether github editing traces
were easier.  

    john