Re: Fix made to https://chairs.ietf.org/en/documents/document-shepherding

[Mahesh Jethanandani <[e-mail]>]

Hi Lou,

I am not sure what problem we are trying to solve here. Has there been a case of conflict that you have observed?

It is hard as it is to find good shepherds. Trying to limit who can be a shepherd would severely limit the ability of chairs to find good shepherds. My understand is that the chairs and the WG always have the ability to override a shepherd view of the document if they do not agree with it. Aren’t these views public for anyone to comment on?

And where does this stop? Should a chair not shepherd a document if one of the authors is from the same company? Should they be recusing themselves from providing comments on documents?

Cheers.

> On Nov 5, 2024, at 10:16 AM, Lou Berger <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Toreless,
> 
> Thanks for both good comments.  based on both comments, does anyone object to the following (I can do the wiki update once we close on the discussion):
> 
>      Per https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statement-iesg-iesg-statement-on-document-shepherds-20101011/,
>     the IESG encourages the working group chair to select an
>     active working group participant that has strong understanding of
>     the document content, is familiar with the document history, and
>     is familiar with the IETF standards process. The Document Shepherd
>     of a working group document should not be an author or editor of
>     the document.
> 
>     Some working groups also avoid appointing Shepherds who are
>     affiliated with an author or editor of the document. Affiliation
>     should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, e.g., individuals in
>     different divisions of a large company  may be considered to have
>     sufficient independence to permit a  Shepherd and a author from
>     the same company on the same document.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Lou
> 
> On 11/4/2024 10:23 AM, Toerless Eckert wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 03:10:22PM +0000, Lou Berger wrote:
> >> In some of my working groups we recuse a co-chair from the Shepherd  role
> >> when that chair is from the same company as any author or editor (but not
> >> contributor). My questions are:
> >> 1) Do others follow this same practice in their groups?
> >>
> >> 2) I think the same policy should be applied to non-Chair Shepherds, do you
> >> agree or disagree?
> >
> > In general, that type of "independence" is a good weighing factor in deciding
> > on a Shepherd, but its really only weighing IMHO.
> >
> > We had a case, where the Shepherd was from the same company as some co-authors,
> > but came from a quite different department and had a good amount of more experience
> > primarily with IETF processes, but also likely some technology. When discussing
> > this, we chairs also felt that being from the same company allowed him to spend more time
> > on the review than might have been possible for other reviewers. And indeed that
> > was used excessivel to improve the text quality. And us chairs
> > also felt that there wher no technical conflict points in the WG and there where/are
> > enough other independent reviews that it was not necessary to select a shepherd
> > more on independence than those other beneficial technical criteria.
> >
> > Maybe in general: These type of decisions will have to be quite different based on the
> > degree of differences of opinion about a draft in the WG. If the overwhelming
> > feeling is that the WG wants this to be as good as possible and there are no
> > specific affiliation based conflicts, then it's a lot less important to
> > weigh independence higher than other factors.
> >
> > Cheers
> >     Toerless
> >
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Lou
> >>
> >>
> >> On 11/4/2024 9:46 AM, Lou Berger wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I'm not sure who is the authoritative owner/source to the "IETF Chairs
> >>> Resources" but there was an error on
> >>> https://chairs.ietf.org/en/documents/document-shepherding - that I just
> >>> fixed.  The text now say:
> >>>
> >>>     It is encouraged for a Shepherd to not be a Chair of the working
> >>>     group.  The Shepherd should have strong understanding of the
> >>>     document content, is familiar with the document history, and is
> >>>     familiar with the IETF standards process. The Document Shepherd of
> >>>     a working group document should not be an author or editor of the
> >>>     document.
> >>>
> >>> Which is based on the IESG statement (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statement-iesg-iesg-statement-on-document-shepherds-20101011/)
> >>>
> >>>     In fact, the IESG encourages the working group chair to select an
> >>>     active working group participant that has strong understanding of
> >>>     the document content, is familiar with the document history, and
> >>>     is familiar with the IETF standards process. The Document Shepherd
> >>>     of a working group document should not be an author or editor of
> >>>     the document.
> >>>
> >>> The page previously said:
> >>>
> >>>     It is considered generally preferable for a Shepherd to not be a
> >>>     Chair of the working group,
> >>>      or from the same organization/company as the Chair.
> >>>
> >>> I figured others may be interested in this change, or maybe even want to
> >>> disagree with it.
> >>>
> >>> Lou
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> 


Mahesh Jethanandani
[e-mail]