On 9/13/23 12:25, Paul Wouters wrote:
And IETF is already overly bureaucratic, and this would appear to make it worse.I don't think IETF management needs more ways to insulate decision-makers from complaint. IMO IETF management is already too insulated, is far too able to violate the IETF Consensus rules that have been established for its operation.The first item hints at too many rules. The second hints at not enough rules. How would you address one issue without making the other issue worse?
Transparency and accountability. And IESG should stick to
technical review and get out of the business of, for example,
deciding which participants to marginalize based on their presumed
prejudices.
But I also think IETF/IESG is running into a wall that I saw back
when I was an AD, which is that the structure of IETF has some
inherent scaling limits that are not easily fixed by simple
changes like adding more ADs.
One example: the more ADs there are, the longer IESG discussions
can take, and the more people there are who can block or delay a
document's progress. Sometimes blocking or delaying a document
is a Good Thing, because someone catches an important flaw that
others missed. But broadly speaking, there's a point at which
more opinions produce diminishing returns.
As for directorate or other people’s review causing you more time in the past, that is correct. Reading more opinions takes more time for an AD, but arguably does leave the AD with a more informed opinion and thus ends up with a better result. If they reviews were bad and didn’t add value, it’s only cost is to the AD is time. That is, I would be happy to encourage people to leave me more reviews to read.
I agree that more opinions (including more Last Call comments)
can lead to better informed decisions. I just don't think this
should be regarded as a way to reduce AD workload or speed up the
process. Also, I wonder if fewer ordinary participants submit
Last Call comments because they trust the directorates to do the
reviews. I have more confidence in the organization when the
community believes it is empowered to provide input, and believes
that IESG listens to that input.
Keith
