Re: Mashing areas [Re: IETF areas re-organisation steps]

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

On Dec 26, 2014, at 5:23 PM, John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:
> But the differences area assignments make can have effects on
> the Internet that go far beyond the management/steering of the
> IETF.  As an example, at and before the time of RRC 1123, the
> DNS was considered an application.   At some point, it was
> reassigned into the Internet area (I don't remember the reasons
> but recall them being a little bit arbitrary).  A lot of the
> focus since then has been on DNS features and operations as ends
> in themselves. Questions like "how will this be used", "how will
> it affect users", and "what will be the implications on the
> Internet's applications architecture" have sometimes (or often)
> gotten lost in the process.   It is also the case that there has
> never been a lot of deep database expertise in the IETF, but
> there has almost always been more of it among active Apps area
> participants than in the Internet area and that, too, has design
> consequences, especially when discussions break out about, e.g.,
> how far DNS-style aliases can reasonably be extended or what the
> implications are of flattening a hierarchical database
> architecture.  Sometimes those discussions don't even happen, at
> least until it is too late -- I think that is another
> consequence of area choices. 

I find your arguments unconvincing as they relate to the reorg that's being discussed, because there are _always_ blind spots.   Expecting Area Directors to be omniscient doesn't scale--there just aren't enough of us that are.

That said, I think that your observation here is correct, and ought to be addressed.   I just don't agree that it leads to the conclusion you drew.   What you are describing here is the classic cross-area review problem.   If ADs workloads allowed for it, perhaps we would do a better job at this.   I can certainly imagine a change in structure where each working group has a responsible AD, but also a second AD who tries to pay attention to what the working group is doing, from a different area.   What I just said isn't the actual solution, because ADs don't currently have that much bandwidth, but perhaps there's a pony in there somewhere.