Re: To "lose the argument in the WG"

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,
At 07:26 AM 2/18/2017, John C Klensin wrote:
>It can be something else as well.  We could be more careful
>about our vocabulary (but probably won't be), but consider a
>scenario in which someone, even someone who is quite expert in a
>given topic, looks at a WG charter and likely leadership and
>participants and says to herself "This is unlikely to produce
>anything harmful or go off into the weeds or is sufficiently
>narrowly scoped to not pose a general problem.  I do not have
>unlimited time to spend on IETF work, and my knowledge and
>skills are needed elsewhere".  That is an "I don't have time"
>scenario, but it is a vote of confidence in those actively
>participating in the WG (and the WG Chair and AD involved) not
>abusive of them.  If it then turns out that the WG, in her
>opinion, does go off into the weeds, produces someone harmful to
>the Internet or other work, or even produces something outside
>the scope of the charter, I think the community needs her to
>speak up and that any attempt to dismiss the concerns on the
>grounds of "you should have participated more and earlier" are
>not only abusive but pose a danger to the IETF.

There are two message from Ted and Pete about "abusive" [1][2].  Pete 
made an interesting comment: "The process can't depend on a single 
participant's time."  In the above-mentioned scenario, and assuming 
that it is IETF work which I am supposed to do, I would take the Last 
Call comments into consideration.

>The only solution to that sort of time conflict is for the IETF
>to become much less ambitious about how much work can be done in
>parallel, possibly by constraining the number of WGs.  The
>latter has been proposed a few times, but has gone nowhere, I
>think in part because even its advocates want whatever work they
>want to do next to be treated exceptionally.

Isn't the issue about the volume of WG discussions which an Area 
Director has to manage instead of the number of WGs?

>I also note that a Last Call complaint (or appeal, or suggestion
>of intent to appeal) on the grounds that a document on which an
>IETF Last Call has been initiated exceeds the scope of the
>relevant WG Charter has ever gone anywhere.  It isn't clear to
>me how cases like that should be handled because the work has
>typically been completed and there is no obvious basis for
>sending the document back to the WG for technical corrections.
>The community should probably fire ADs who let that sort of
>thing happen, but (without guessing at what discussions occur
>within the Nomcom) there is little evidence of community
>willingness to do that either.

It is up to the Working Group Chair and Responsible Area Director to 
assess whether the WG output falls within the WG Charter.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg101332.html
2. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg101335.html