Re: Thought experiment [Re: Quality of Directorate reviews]

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 11/7/19 11:42 AM, Bob Hinden wrote:

> I suspect that for a lot of documents, broad cross area review beyond what Brian proposes is not necessary.   Not for all, but many things that working groups produce are very incremental.   We could have two tracks, one as Brian proposes, and another where the AD thinks more review is needed.

Sure, I agree that broad cross area review isn't necessary for every 
document.  Though I don't think the important factor is whether the work 
is "incremental", but rather, whether it affects interests beyond the 
narrow scope of the WG itself.   But even with the current process, I 
also don't think that an AD needs to read every document if it doesn't 
touch on his or her area.   So I don't think we need to change the 
process just to allow documents that don't need broad review to not be 
subjected to it.  I just assume that that fewer ADs will concern 
themselves with such documents, and for the documents that have less 
potential to wreak havoc, ADs will be more willing to trust reviews from 
directorate members and others in the community.    Voting "no 
objection" is pretty easy, after all, and ADs are busy enough that 
there's plenty of incentive to avoid unnecessary work.

> I suspect this would significantly reduce the load on the IESG and would not reduce quality.

I don't think it would reduce the load by much, since I assume the 
workload is already reduced for these documents.   And it should never 
be up to "the AD" (as in singular) to decide how broad review should 
be.   That judgment needs to be made by several people from different 
areas, even if the AD, or ADs for the area of the document in question, 
don't see the potential adverse impact.

Keith