Re: To "lose the argument in the WG"

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

On 2/14/2017 12:40 AM, Stewart Bryant wrote:
>
> Yes, it is the prospect of a complete re-run of the argument at IETF LC
> that keeps WGs honest.


In theory, perhaps.  In practice, no it doesn't.

What it does do is to help make the IETF process onerous, and therefore 
aid in making the IETF a place to avoid when possible.

Having folk spend months (or years) working on a detailed specification 
and then have to go through a detailed defense at the end is 
disrespectful of their effort.  It is also impractical, because it 
essentially requires re-creating the context for making various 
decisions made along the way, months (or years) later, to folk who have 
no skin in the game.

For those rare cases in which there really is a problem that needs 
fixing, forcing a wg to go through this random defense process mostly 
speaks to failures in oversight and review that should be happening 
along the way, not at the end of the process.

And, again, note that it almost never works.  While it creates 
additional work and pain for those who are tired from the lengthy 
process, it rarely (if ever) produces serious benefit.

For the folk who think this is an essential bit of IETF quality control, 
please produce documentation of the times this defense is required and 
compare when it has produced meaningful change and when it hasn't.  Just 
coming up with stray examples of benefits ignores the larger number of 
cases where it incurs costs without benefits.[*]

To the extent that a working group does need course-correction, then 
let's look for ways to do that that are effective and efficient and 
much, much earlier.

d/

[*] Please remember that the trigger for this sub-thread is a 
sour-grapes effort by an existing wg participant to force review of a 
(potentially much) earlier wg decision they didn't like.  A separate 
case is of fresh, non-wg eyes that might see something none of the 
older, more-tired eyes of wg participants caught.  The former case 
really is sour grapes.  The latter case could be naivete or it could be 
insight.  Mostly of the time it is the former.  That ought to mitigate 
the certitude of the fresh eyes, but it usually doesn't.

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net