Re: Is this an elephant? [Was: call for ideas: tail-heavy IETF process]

[Ralph Droms <[e-mail]>]

On May 16, 2013, at 5:00 PM 5/16/13, "Fred Baker (fred)" <[e-mail]> wrote:

> 
> On May 16, 2013, at 9:40 AM, Adrian Farrel <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> On the whole, I am told that if an AD weighs in with her comments during working
>> group last call, her fearsome personality may overwhelm some of the WG
>> participants and she may dominate the WG consensus.
> 
> There may be places where that happens, but I would be surprised if it happened in my working group. I think it is fair to say that the AD (or an IAB member, or someone who has recognized expertise on the topic) is likely to be listened to more carefully than some others might. Heck, I'm careful when I make a technical comment on a document in my working group, flagging it with "</chair>" to ensure that it is seen as intended - a comment by a competent practitioner of the art, not a process remark or an attempt to trump some other view. Speaking personally, I would prefer to see those comments in the WGLC, not IETF Last Call, if we can make that happen. For example, I'd like to get directorate reviews done (gen-art, security directorate, etc) in the timeframe of WGLC.

I think Fred is returning to an earlier theme here, when he asks for earlier review.

Perhaps, as has been already suggested in this thread, we should think about SIRSbis? 

First, from draft-carpenter-icar-sirs-01:

     The procedure described in this document is intended to
     solve, or palliate, a number of related problems that
     have been observed in the IETF process [PROBLEM]:

          *    submission of documents to the IESG that
               still have significant problems (leading
               to delay)

          *    failure to detect fundamental problems
               and Internet- wide issues at an early
               stage

     Particularly because of the second point, it is
     impossible to resolve these problems simply by
     giving additional responsibility to working groups
     themselves. An additional procedure is needed.

In my opinion, it's important to assign responsibility (and accountability) to all WGs for producing publication-ready documents.  I agree that some additional work is needed before WGs send documents to the IESG.  Perhaps we can accomplish these goals through reorganizing the work we are 

I suggest we might want to combine the need for more responsibility with the discussion of a new "really close to being ready" document state.  However, rather than a new document state, suppose we codify the expectation that a document that has passed WG last call is essentially ready-to-publish?  Correspondingly, any significant problems found in a document after WG last call would be considered a serious defect.

   Discussion:  I realize that, elsewhere in this thread, it has been
   asserted (or at least implied), that WGs already have this responsibility
   and DISCUSSes on document are usually unnecessary.  In practice, while
   there may still be unnecessary DISCUSSes, my experience as AD was that
   most DISCUSSes were appropriate and each one referred to a problem that
   the WG had missed.

Let's get all the expert review possible - directorate, AD, cross-area - in the WG last call review.  What pops out *should* be ready for publication.  Any issues raised by these reviews in WG last call will be exposed to and can be discussed by the WG at large, rather than being buried in the noise of IETF last call discussions or being fixed in more focused discussions among the IESG and the document authors.  This procedure diverges some from draft-carpenter-icar-sirs-01, in that it doesn't add a new form of review process.  Instead, it reschedules reviews that were going to take place anyway earlier in the process, so there is little or no new work added to the document publication process.

Perhaps the WG chairs would want to assign document shepherds earlier in the process, as well, investing the document shepherds with the responsibility of getting the right reviews and advising the WG chairs as to the readiness of the document for advancement.

Any WGs willing to volunteer as experimental subjects?  There is really no new process to invent ... it's mostly a matter of realigning expectations and responsibilities out to 

- Ralph