Re: [tao-discuss] Review Request for Possible Revision of the Tao of the IETF

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

Niels, everybody,

I can see the argument for splitting the material in the Tao into more reasonable sized pieces and integrating it better into the rest of the "newcomers" material. I suspect that is best done in many smaller steps rather than in one big effort. My suggested course of action would be to complete the Tao update, which is well advanced, and then create replacement pages one at a time.

I personally think that we don't need an RFC. We have a big mess of process-related RFCs already, and I think the decision to get rid of the Tao as an RFC was the right one.

There's a great danger in "a document people can reference which holds the main processes and procedures of the IETF which is also citeable." The danger is that it will unintentionally be inconsistent with the official process. Yet again I must point to https://www.ietf.org/standards/process/informal/ . (It's out of date, by the way, and I have stopped suggesting 
updates some time ago.)

Jay and Greg are IMHO spot on in their comments.

Rob said:

> I would really like all the IETF process documents to not be RFCs/BCPs at all (RFCs/BCPs should only be the output of the IETF), but instead migrate to a set of web pages/sites, probably with a lower review barrier than full IETF consensus for most of the content.

I understand that desire, but remember that our most formal process documents are essentially legal tracts that have been checked by our lawyers and formally accepted by the ISOC Board. We really can't replace them with 
malleable web pages and any attempt to paraphrase them in simple language 
is problematic. As the informal guide says "To avoid any accidental ambiguity, this guide does not attempt to paraphrase or summarize the contents 
of listed documents."

Regards
    Brian Carpenter

On 15-Apr-22 03:20, Niels ten Oever wrote:
> Thank you for this. I fully agree. The name 'Tao' is not very helpful and the document itself is too long (something which we tried to address).
> 
> However, I do think it is useful to have a document people can reference which holds the main processes and procedures of the IETF which is also 
citeable. This would be an argument to make the Tao (which would then not 
be called 'Tao' anymore) an RFC and have smaller more accessible bits on the website.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Niels
> On 14 Apr 2022, at 16:03, Mirja Kuehlewind <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
>     I would like to note that there is some kind of tradition or cultural identity of this community connected to the Tao. However having said this, Jay, I think your analysis is right: it doesn’t serve the intended audience well and there is not one intended audience. I’m all in to reorganise all content related to participation on the webpage in a more useful way but then let’s do that and just not call it Tao anymore.
> 
>         On 14. Apr 2022, at 16:53, Salz, Rich <rsalz=40akamai.com <http://40akamai.com>@dmarc.ietf.org> wrote:
> 
>         Very nice analysis!
> 
>             While I admire the effort that has gone into the Tao, I think we need to move on from this style of documentation. Replacing it with 
several smaller documents/sites/pages would be much more useful: "Guide to the role and structure of the IETF", "Guide to participating in IETF working groups", "Guide to making the most of IETF meetings", and so on.
> 
> 
>         Works for me. I am happy to completely stop working on it. Although what's on the website is seriously cringe-worthy. How that should be 
addressed I leave to you. I note that the RFC requiring IESG review is informational, not even BCP. Hint, hint.
> 
> 
>