Re: [regext] list of documents to consider for working group adoption

["James Galvin" <[e-mail]>]

Patrick,

I want to thank you for your detailed and thorough comments.

First let me say that this working group has a small set of active 
participants, less than 10 at most and less than 5 on average.  So, 
you’re not in a minority since every voice is quite important to this 
working group.

Second, the chairs agree with all of your comments.  However, we also 
believe that the process we’re proposing will achieve the same goals 
you are seeking to achieve.  We’re just choosing to do it with less 
structure and formality, or perhaps different structure.

Every document in this group gets traction from one person, the author.  
Almost no document in this group gets traction from any kind of 
majority, i.e., only a few people are interested.  For example, the 
“fees” document got a lot of attention and a lot of support.  This 
is rare in this group.  The “org” documents got a lot of attention 
because there were concerns.  When the concerns got addressed people 
didn’t support the documents so much as they just didn’t object.  So 
it goes with most documents in this group.

We do not expect everyone to read 20+ documents and pick the 5 
“best” on their merits.  What we expect is everyone to simply select 
the 1-5 documents they happen to care about.

With that information the Chairs will consider many of the other 
criteria you mention to break what will no doubt be many ties in the 
selection process, and propose priorities for document adoption to the 
working group based on our assessment.

We could be wrong but it seems like the process we’re proposing is 
well-suited to the make-up of this working group.  If it fails then 
we’ll just try something else.

Thanks again for your attention!

Jim




On 11 Dec 2018, at 2:44, Patrick Mevzek wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Sorry to be probably again in the minority and the dissonant voice 
> here, but I do not understand this:
>
> On Fri, Dec 7, 2018, at 10:49, James Galvin wrote:
>> The purpose of the list was to include everything that exists or that
>> has passed through the working group.  I have to admit it was more 
>> than
>> I expected when we created the list.
>>
>> In any case, the right thing to do is simply not vote for any 
>> document
>> you do not want to move forward.
>
> To me, this process feel completely backwards :-(
>
> As described, it makes sense to me if:
> - we have a wide community of people
> - with far enough time on their hands
> - to read ~20 technical documents
> - compare their merits
> - and finally select 5 to "promote" to push to the working group
> - of course all in some specific tight deadline.
>
> I believe we are absolutely in the opposite case and I fear the 
> outcome of this process will not have the expected results.
>
> First, I think the burden should be on the authors to at least present 
> the document on the list (which is not even the case for some of 
> them), in order to convince people that there is indeed a problem to 
> solve (first important point) and that their solution or beginning of 
> a solution makes sense. If their arguments are clear and correct, 
> people would then be enthousiastic to add them as working group 
> elements and work on them.
>
> Instead by just trying to be exhaustive and let people choose among 
> everything you achieve two things:
> - you show each document as similar to others in term of usefulness 
> that is maturity, scope of the problem, precise solution to it, etc. 
> (and they are obviously not all equal on these points)
> - you accept that documents are basically worked on elsewhere, never 
> discussed here, and coming late (which means it may be more difficult 
> to work, as a group, on them because many design choices would already 
> be set in stone by then). Which has to me the very unfortunate result 
> that the working group just becomes an IETF stamp for an EPP 
> extension.
> Even if the same people as here are working on the document elsewhere 
> before presenting it here, what is then the value or added value of 
> this working group, if it is basically just to make sure it fits an 
> RFC structure, follows all guidelines, register what needs to be 
> registered at IANA, etc. which is basically no more an engineering 
> task but merely an editorial one?
> This is not the only reason but I think this also explains in the very 
> low participation we see and the difficulty to find editors, 
> shepherds, etc. (and of course it is a vicious circle as the low 
> participation here could be taken by some as an indication that they 
> should work on their documents elsewhere to make progress).
>
> Second, beside authors of course which are already motivated to do so, 
> anyone may be free to promote or vote on any document of couse to be a 
> working group document, but what would that mean (for the working 
> group and the specific documents)?
>
> Instead, why not do like it is done in other working groups and ask 
> people to speak for a document **if and only if** they kind of 
> informally pledge to work on it in some way which may mean:
> - reading it, and the future other versions
> - being at least able to assess if the document is good enough to go 
> to WGLC for example
> and/or to summarize it broadly (problem to be solved, strong points of 
> the solution offered, points remaining to discuss, other options)
> - provide feedback, if possible, at various levels (either just 
> alternate ideas or specific detailed implementation point to work on, 
> etc.)
> - act as an editor (non-technical feedback)
> - pledge or express strong interest into implementating it or putting 
> enough energy to convince a third party to implement it
> - identify that it may be related to some other kind of document (in 
> this working group or not), or that other actors may already have 
> solved the same problem or working on it, etc. and trying to liaise 
> between everyone
> - etc. (there are many ways to participate, sometimes just sending 
> emails to the authors to ask where they are at, what is blocking, etc. 
> can give the authors a boost of motivation - seeing that others care 
> too about the document - to work further on it)
>
> This would also clearly show interest for it: if people are saying 
> "yes, I agree to spend some of my time making sure this documents 
> advance as an IETF document" then it proves real usefulness and 
> support by the "community" for it. A very useful information to be 
> added later on in the shepherd write-up ;-)
>
>
> Also the discussion started already previously (but did not go very 
> far I think) and I think we (I) suggested already that having an 
> Implementation Section or at least clear intentions to work on 
> implementations or asking others to work on some could be used, among 
> other factors, as a basis to see if a document should be considered by 
> the working group or not.
>
> To be honest right now I prefer to devote the little personal time I 
> have to try implementing some of the documents that I find interesting 
> (as implementing them raise all sorts of feedback) instead of reading 
> completely external documents and then compare all of them together 
> while not be sure to even look at some of them again in the future. 
> Which is why I won't vote for any document right now because some are 
> not passing the preconditions I listed and for others I can not 
> guarantee working on them at any level so I believe my vote to be kind 
> of worthless for the working group.
>
> But that is just me so if the process above works for everyone as is, 
> do not loose time trying to convince me, it is not very important, and 
> I can always comment later on the documents I would have time to work 
> on.
>
>
> -- 
>   Patrick Mevzek
>
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