Re: AD workload [was Re: NomCom 2019 Call for Community Feedback]

[Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>]

> On 5 Nov 2019, at 22:54, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On 05-Nov-19 22:24, Benjamin Kaduk wrote:
> ....
>> The past few generic IESG job descriptions (as sent to Nomcom) have had
>> some interesting text in this front (quoting from
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/nomcom/2019/expertise/#pos-iesg-members):
>> 
>> % An AD should be able to personally review every Internet-Draft that they
>> % sponsor. For other Internet-Drafts an AD needs to be satisfied that
>> % adequate review has taken place, though many ADs personally review these
>> % documents as well. 
> 
> I'm sure the last clause is true, but maybe it's an error to include it in the job description almost as if it is a duty.
> 
> On 06-Nov-19 05:35, Eric Vyncke (evyncke) wrote:
> 
>> 1) AD are 'responsible' so they do need to check the intensive work of WG, shepherd, IETF last call and directorate
> 
> Yes, but that does *not* necessarily require this:
> 
>> 6) reviews are probably 50% of our time
> 
> And Eric also said:
> 
>> 2) sometimes the directorate reviews come too late for the IESG ballot for approval
> 
> In that case, perhaps the response should be to defer the ballot automatically, and make it public that the reason is a late review.
> 
> Also, do some areas only request telechat reviews? In my experience in Gen-ART, most issues and fixes occur during Last Call reviews, so that the telechat review is often a formality.
> 
> On 06-Nov-19 08:17, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:
> 
>>> Does every AD read all the drafts?  I don't know.  But changing the process to say one AD from each area would reduce the load.
>> 
>> Some divide it up.  Pete & Barry had a split.  If there was a big load, Stephen would start from one end of the list and I'd start from the other.  We both mostly wanted to 'read' them all though.
> 
> The word that stands out for me is "wanted". Similarly, it's because I *want* to track the technology that I've been a Gen-ART reviewer for many years. But if (as people say every year at about this time) we really need to reduce the AD workload to something more like part-time, some things have to change.
> 
> It seems to me that the IESG itself can make such changes, since this is a matter of procedures rather than our formal rules. It's too late for this year, but maybe next year's NomCom could have an easier job.
> 
>   Brian
> 

Maybe we need a larger more formal review team that aims to have a few people read every draft before it gets onto IETF LC?

As I have said before I am not entirely convinced the ADs are reading their own drafts before they go to the telecast. I have a simple barometer for this, how can a draft ever get to IETF LC or directorate review with serious nits errors? That is machine checkable so there should be none of those. 
- Stewart