Re: RFC Editor doc approvals (RE: [mpowr] Mailing List Management)

--On 24. desember 2003 08:27 -0500 John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com> wrote:

>
>
> --On Wednesday, 24 December, 2003 00:29 -0800 Harald Tveit Alvestrand
> <harald@alvestrand.no> wrote:
>
>> changing the subject, since this has gone far away from list
>> management...
>>
>> --On 24. desember 2003 00:13 -0500 John C Klensin
>> <john-ietf@jck.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 	* At the time 2026 was written, the RFC Editor timeout
>>> 	for IESG review of an independent submission document
>>> 	was two weeks.  If the IESG needed more time, it was
>>> 	required to ask for it from the RFC Editor, typically
>>> 	specifying a reason.  And the IESG approval mechanism
>>> 	was a call for objections with an internal timeout.
>>> 	Now, the timeout is four weeks, the IESG apparently
>>> 	routinely simply ignores that timeout, and the approval
>>> 	process requires a formal vote and writeup.   Is this
>>> 	progress?
>>
>> corrections:
>>
>> 1) as far as I remember, the rfc editor never did anything
>> when the timeout expired. not even when it was 2 weeks.
>
> If the RFC Editor is following this list, I'll let them respond. But my
> recollection is that  "never did anything" was the result of a clear
> understanding that the IESG would be very irritated if they did so and,
> perhaps, would even attempt to retaliate.

I hope we have a more cooperative environment now.....

>> 2) the IESG approval mechanism at the moment is "one
>> (shepherding) AD has to have read the document and put it on
>> the IESG agenda, no objection must be raised when he does".
>> 3) no formal writeup is needed for approval.
>
> My apologies for misunderstanding this.  I have been told, by different
> ADs at different times, that the document had not been put on the ballot
> because he or she hadn't gotten around to doing a writeup for said ballot
> and/or that the clearance hadn't gone back to the RFC Editor because no
> one had gotten around to writing up the approval note.  Perhaps I
> misunderstood.

different things .... "writeup not done" is a problem with standards-track 
documents, not RFC-Editor ones.
The other one - "approval note" - can be a problem. Often, the IESG will 
approve a document but ask for an IESG note to be added. In that case, 
someone has to type up the note. That sometimes causes delay - search for 
documents in state "Approved - Announcement to be sent" with substate 
"Point raised - writeup needed".

> At the same time, it would be far more consistent with the letter of 2026
> that, if the IESG does not succeed in doing a review within some fixed
> period of time, the RFC Editor takes that as acceptance and goes ahead
> and publishes.   How would today's IESG feel about the RFC Editor doing
> that?
>
> And you will note that I didn't raise the problem of IESG review going
> far beyond the "conflict with existing IETF WG activity" and "harm to the
> Internet" criteria set out in 2026.  This time :-(
>
>> the appearance of "ballots" for these items in the tracker
>> recently is because it's easier to reuse the mechanism than to
>> be sure we remember who had the objection and why, not because
>> we wish to add more formality or delay to the process.
>
> Again, I picked up the "ballot" terminology from a couple of different
> ADs, not directly from the categories in the tracker. But, again, sorry
> for any misunderstanding.

In fact we just added use of "ballots"  for Informational documents in 
general, as an administrative tool, not because we want to raise the bar. 
So you WILL hear the terminology.
>
> I suspect this again illustrates the importance of the IESG's being much
> more clear to the community about the procedures it has adopted and is
> following.

It does.
And being clear to the community requires writing down the procedures, 
which most often means making them more rigid and harder to change.
Nothing's perfect....

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