--On Friday, September 8, 2023 07:44 -0700 Martin Duke <martin.h.duke@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > The IESG proposes to reorganize the areas by merging the > web-related working groups in ART with most of the transport > area to create a new area called either "Web and Application > Transport" (WAT) or "Transport and Web Applications" > (TWA), effective at IETF 119. The IESG invites community > comment on this change. I agree with many of the comments that have been made, particularly Stephen's suggestions that (my words) the problems that are being seen are actually structural problems and that it is time to rethink some basic organizational structures and assumptions rather than shuffling a few WGs and titles around. It has been more then 30 years since the post-Kobe POISED work started and put the current structures into place, a period in which the Internet has evolved from a good idea needing a lot of work to a mature technology. Within the general IETF framework, we have seen, among other things: * Evolution of the IESG from largely technical part-time positions carried out to aid the community, to more of a management role requiring larger percentages of time and leading, even with the additional commitment, to assertions of serious overload and workarounds for it * A situation in which two ADs per Area was still unusual, to larger percentages of time with debates about whether two should be a requirement (sometimes with three) * Expanding responsibilities for the IETF Chair sufficient that we now have draft-eggert-ietf-chair-may-delegate on the table * An externally supported (and largely managed) tiny Secretariat function evolving to the IAOC and then to an LLC with a significant budget and a relatively larger number of employees and contractors. * A document review process that more or less assumed broad community involvement and technical depth along with deep substantive knowledge by responsible ADs in most cases evolving to a model that is heavily dependent on Are review teams and rotating assignments. * Debates over whether, in their extreme form, the IESG should have a technical role at all or whether it should be entirely a management body responsible for delegating the technical work to others and overseeing their efforts. If carried to an extreme, the latter view would suggest that we may not need Areas at all. * Development of a perceived need to review, modernize, adapt, and/or upgrade protocols that have been around for all of those thirty years or longer, with large installed bases rather than almost exclusively doing new work. * A Nomcom model that has evolved from a fairly lightweight time commitment to fill slightly more than a dozen positions on the IESG and IAB based on first-hand knowledge by Nomcom members of the community (including most of the plausible candidates) and those roles to one requiring understanding more roles, detailed (and sometimes negotiated) job descriptions, very significant time commitments, interviews with candidates, and so on, possibly with the result of a declining fraction of the Nomcom voting membership being thoroughly familiar with the community and vice versa. * Arguments about scope of authority for WG Chairs, ADs and the IESG, and the IAB and various organizations and groups we had not even thought about it in 1993. * In the first half of the 1990s, with rare (but important) exceptions, WGs were expected to be quite focused on specific work and relatively short-lived. One implication of that was that ADs inheriting a significant number of WGs that had been chartered years earlier was relatively rate. To at least some extent, a consequence was that the number of active WGs stayed fairly small. Today, we have more very long lived WGs and more ADs who did not personally agree to, and sign off on, the charters under which those WGs operate. * And, because I can't resist, a shift from getting things done with a combination of mailing lists and three f2f meetings a year (with _occasional_ interim meetings (mostly f2f) of some WGs) toward significant online or hybrid participation, new collaboration tools like Github, more interim meetings (mostly online), and so on. I'm sure there is disagreement about that list, including things that I omitted and others that should be dropped. I make no claim about whether any given change is good or bad --in several cases I don't even know how to think about that. But that list, or ones like it, seem to me to make a very strong case for a comprehensive review and reevaluation, not just, e.g., moving a few chairs around on the deck and hoping it makes a difference. In the hope that anyone (especially busy IESG members) has read this far, two comments specific to this proposal if you are considering going ahead despite the above and other comments: (1) Despite a few suggestions on the list about treating this move as an experiment, such an experiment would actually be high-risk rather than zero-cost. It would either make things somewhat better (for reasons given by others, I have trouble imagining hugely better, especially in the near term) or they would make it worse. Due only partially to the huge number of WGs and despite superhuman efforts on Murray's part, several (perhaps even many) of the WGs in the ART Area are arguably in trouble (e.g., out of sync with other work in the IETF included completed work and/or with very small numbers of active participants other than the chairs). With Francesca's return and the (IMO, long overdue) addition of a third AD, I have high hopes about that situation getting under control, maybe even well on the way to being under control by March. But disrupting the situation by shuffling WGs into new Areas, with new review teams, possibly directorates, and ways of doing things, seems to me to be an invitation to disruption of work and/or important issues slipping through the cracks. If this change is worthwhile (I obviously have my doubts), this feels like the wrong time to make it. (2) While the estimates about length of time differ, most newly selected ADs who have not been on the IESG before have observed that getting up to speed and being able to work effectively takes a significant amount of time, with the lower estimates I've heard recently being in months, not days or weeks. If we stay the current course, the new, third, ART AD will have Francesca, and possibly Murray, to help get them read in and fill in any temporary gaps. But, under the proposed plan that moves Francesca to the new area, unless the IESG has somehow cut a deal with the Nomcom and Murray that guarantees his return, there is a risk of ending up with an ART (or whatever it might be called) Area with two ADs, both of whom are new to the job with expectations of support (on technical issues as well as administrative/management ones) from a newly reorganized area that is still trying to sort out its own organization and way of doing things. Perhaps a miracle would occur, but that seems to me to be a recipe for disaster. best, john
