Re: Pre-BoF documents and mailing lists

[Fred Baker <[e-mail]>]

On Aug 6, 2019, at 10:22 AM, Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]> wrote:
> So as I understand the rules, no the folks do not have to use the email list.  Doing so would still seem a very good idea.

I would agree. I'll also note, though, that people seem to be using GitHub as a means of discussing documents, and that without the use of the list. My principal comment isn't that it's "wrong" or "untraditional"; it's that it means that there is no one place people can refer to that contains all of the discussions, or all of any particular one. To me, that's troublesome; I might review thoughts in one context, add a thought, and be told "yeah, but that's all wrong; this discussion is happening somewhere else." That's my biggest concern with the GitHub model. 

As a working group chair, I review threads related to a document before sending it to my AD, and in the process of deciding whether it belongs on my agenda. Now I have no way to know whether I have reviewed all of the threads, or whether I have - or lack - consensus around a topic. When talking with newcomers about a working group, I point them to that list of threads (https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?qdr=a&q=%22draft-name%22") and ask them to be familiar with them. What ONE place do I point them to?

From my perspective, I would like to have ONE repository with all of the discussions.  The mailing list has historically provided that, and if we have a new one to recommend, so be it. But an open-ended and unspecified set makes that job pretty hard.