--On Monday, July 17, 2023 08:44 +1200 Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 17-Jul-23 07:26, John C Klensin wrote: >> >> >> --On Sunday, July 16, 2023 16:07 +1200 Brian E Carpenter >> <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >>> On 16-Jul-23 15:50, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote: >>>> Why is attending biweekly con calls exclusionary? >>> >>> It depends where one lives and whether one has a full-time >>> occupation. But really the point isn't there, it's whether >>> the result of such calls (which de facto are design team >>> meetings, not WG sessions) is brought back to a genuine WG >>> plenary, electronically or in person, for an effective >>> debate. >>> >>> I'd probably be more comfortable if these meetings were >>> pitched as open design team meetings; that would make things >>> clearer. >> >> Brian, >> >> I probably would too, except that "open design team meeting" >> seems like a phrase that is likely to mean enough different >> things to enough different people (as much of the discussion >> subsequent to your posting may demonstrate) that it sets us >> on a path toward needing to do a comprehensive procedural >> overhaul. While I think it may be about time for that, >> experience (starting with NEWTRK and continuing) suggests >> that starting down that path does not lead to useful and >> substantive results in finite time. >> >> While I haven't thought about it enough to know if I agree, >> the model phb outlines would almost certainly require such a >> procedural overhaul even though one aspect of it would >> actually take us a step toward where we were 30-odd years >> ago. I would hope that no one would try to institute it by >> IESG Statement. Noting Carsten's comments in response to >> Abdussalam and Keith, it is likely that the use of Github >> should also point us toward a procedural overhaul, the >> existence of RFCs 8874 and 8875 either notwithstanding. Or it >> might be that their publication as Informational rather than >> as updates to RFc 2418 are symptomatic. Still, I hope we >> can keep those issues separate from issues about Interim >> meetings and the processes/ requirements to approve and hold >> them. >> >> Noting the (IMO useful) exchange between Joel and Keith about >> design teams, I believe one of our assumptions about them is >> that they are focused on a narrow range of topics and >> relatively short-lived. If a design team needs to meet >> regularly for months (or probably even weeks) and/overs a >> large fraction of the topics within the scope of the WG >> charter, it is either: >> >> (i) Indistinguishable from the WG itself except for fewer >> requirements for documentation and transparency. >> >> (ii) A sign that the WG was chartered prematurely and hence >> should be shut down until people are ready to propose a new >> charter and to get work done according to WG rules. > > I think there's a 3rd possibility, something like > > (iii) The WG's topics include a lot of relatively minor > technical choices that need to be made but are > non-controversial, > so most people in the WG don't care and will accept whatever > a subset proposes. Yes. No disagreement there. I was obviously thinking more about the really hard problems at the other end of the curve, but your example is equally important and valid. >> It seems to me that the first is a singularly bad idea and the >> second, while appropriate, would be something for which the >> community has no willingness to move on (or the IETF doesn't, >> probably in part because they see no hope for community >> support). As an exercise, think about how many WGs we have >> seen shut down in the last decade because they were not >> actively progressing toward the goals of their charters, >> emitting quality documents into IETF Last Call, etc. >> >> Or did you have something else in mind? > Not really. I just think it would be clearer what is really > going > on if we label discussion by a subset as such. As has been > pointed out, it doesn't really change the rules, except that > "minutes" are replaced by bringing the design results to the WG > as a whole. I'd hope, especially for the controversial cases (matters less when some choice or decision must be made but no one really cares what it is) if those results were accompanied by at least a summary of rationale. If nothing else, that might make effective IETF Last Calls easier... or, if the result is an IETF specification that turns out to be problematic, to help reconstruct where we went wrong as a foundation for the next steps you pointed out in a different thread. > Given the lamentable quality of most WG minutes, that hardly > matters. At the risk of heading off into what probably should be another topic, poor minutes are another way that real-time meetings (interim or at IETF) become exclusionary: those who cannot attend in person have few ways of finding out what actually happened except, possibly, by watching videos. Those may not always be available and, even when they are, may be exceptionally hard to follow. This is not a proposal because it would introduce more bureaucracy and ritual, provide opportunities for DoS attacks, and probably be a bad idea for other reasons, but I wonder what would happen if we required WGs to formally sign off on (or reach rough consensus about) the completeness and accuracy of minutes, made those decisions subject to appeal, and did not allow the WG to hold their next meeting (interim or at IETF) before the minutes from the prior one had been approved? Again, a separate issue and an impractical idea, but it does bring us back to the very high level questions that caused me to start this thread: are our practices, as allowed, consistent with our rules and goals as stated and, if not, do we think that is ok? If we say "there shall be minutes", do we mean "the WG is responsible for developing and position minutes sufficient that a non-attendee can figure out what was discussed, what issues were raised, and what tentative conclusions were reached and why" (even if not the details of who said what) or do we mean "the WG chairs need to post something they claim are minutes, perhaps just an edited copy of the agenda"? Or do we not care or see the difference? best, john
