Re: [precis] Milestones changed for precis WG

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Monday, March 28, 2016 15:28 -0400 Marc Blanchet
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> Marc, would you like me to submit these as individual I-Ds or
>> WG I-Ds?  (They would be
>> draft-[ietf|saintandre]-rfc[7564|7613|7700]-bis-00.)
> 
> I'm sure that the wg is likely to be ok with wg drafts, but
> let's do the normal process. Please submit first as
> individual draft and we will call later for wg adoption.

Marc,

For whatever my opinion as a participant is worth, that would be
meaningless, time-wasting, ritual for its own sake.   These are
the descendants of WG documents, responding to issues that came
up during or immediately after LC.  The issues should have been
detected earlier (a failing by the WG).  At least some of those
issues arguably should have stopped the relevant documents
pre-publication except that there seemed to be general feeling
that is was better to get the documents out and then revisit the
issues with revisions.  Based on your announcement, the WG has
been kept open precisely to deal with that set of issues.
Remembering that Peter is the author or co-author of the key
drafts being revised, unless you have reason to believe that new
drafts that he might create would be so far out of line that the
WG couldn't use them as a starting point for discussion, the
only things that going through individual drafts and then
calling for WG adoption accomplish are to create extra ritual,
extra confusion, and more delay in getting to substance.

If there really is concern that these documents should be
published first as individual drafts, wouldn't it be reasonable
to see if you could get formal and substantive consensus (and a
collection of committed volunteers and participants) for
continuing with the WG?  As far as I know, that question has not
been formally asked of the participants.  Given the extent,
depth, and number of participants in the review of some of the
documents -- to say nothing of whatever caused the issues that
are now the topic of revisions-- it seems to me that a
determination of whether you actually have critical mass to
continue on a WG basis is a far more important next step than
creating a ritual about WG adoption of a set of follow-on and
correction documents.

     john