Re: Workload constants [was I-D Action: draft-rsalz-termlimits-00.txt]

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 10/22/21 1:08 PM, Salz, Rich wrote:

>>     There was a huge difference in another metric, the time from initial
>      draft to published RFC. Back in 1998, the median delay was one year. It
>      was already more than 3 years in 2008, and still is. Much of the delays
>      happen in the working group, from initial draft to last call.
>
> So the common beliefs that things are taking longer is wrong (for the past 13 years!) and that the delays are because WG's are sending less-good documents to the IESG is wrong.

It's possible that "publishing an RFC" is a poor metric for meaningful 
work accomplished, because not all RFCs are of equal utility or 
importance even though they have more-or-less equal overhead in publication.

Even if less-good I-Ds don't bog down IESG (maybe IESG just throws up 
its hands and gives up trying to fix things that aren't fixable?), they 
might bog down the working groups trying to produce them.   People work 
harder when they believe their work is meaningful and/or get feedback 
from others, and discussions are more productive when there are enough 
interested parties to actively participate in them.

> My theory for the possible increased mail traffic is that folks are doing more business between meetings, and the increased use of GitHub which increases volume because of increased participation.
>
> Always good to have real numbers.

  It's good to have real numbers - you can get some useful insights from 
them sometimes - as long as you don't consider them more meaningful than 
they are.

Keith