--On Friday, September 29, 2023 12:07 -0400 Paul Wouters
<paul.wouters@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 10:56 PM John C Klensin
> <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>> And, fwiw, if there were clear community consensus that this
>> particular rearrangement of ADs and Areas was a good idea, I
>> wouldn't be investing the time to worry about this. But,
>> while I can accept that IESG's determination of rough
>> consensus on the topic, enough apparently legitimate concerns
>> have been made about the reorganization itself to predict a
>> less than completely smooth and seamless transition, thereby
>> adding to the concerns about moving ADs around.
>>
>
> I don't think I agree with having seen "enough apparently
> legitimate concerns" (and I
> read that as "enough legitimate concern", because the word
> 'apparent' normally enlarges
> a possible scope whereas here it seems to be used as "assumed
> without verification by me").
Paul,
I don't believe that hair-splitting about my particular phrasing
is helpful. I could turn around and say that I used
"apparently" because I was concerned that someone (whether on
the IESG or not) might say "what gives you the right to
determine what is 'legitimate' or not?". I used "legitimate" at
all because I've seen a few comments on the decision (in its
proposal form and more recently) that, in my sole opinion
because I have not discussed it with others, I believe are
fairly close to noise and I did not want my comment to be
associated with those. Nor do I intend to identify them, if
only because I'm sure someone would then accuse me of violating
the Code of Conduct.
I just don't think that discussion, in either form, moves us
forward. You obviously (to me) get to disagree.
So let me say this (what I believe to be the same thing)
differently: I have seen several people, including former ADs,
question whether this particular rearrangement, with this
particular timing, is a good idea or the best solution to "the
problem" and, implicitly, whether the IESG's apparent
interpretation of "the problem" is consistent with that of the
community and the best interests of Internet as a whole.
> But even if you believe you have seen those concerns,
Before I move on, if you want to question my statements, do you
think it is appropriate for you to question what I believe? I
didn't stay "I think there might be concerns" or "I believe
there might be concerns", I said "enough ... concerns have been
made" (I should have said "raised", not "made", but I hope that
was obvious enough that we don't need to get hung up on it).
> have you evaluated them against
> not doing the re-arranging of the areas?
The answer to that question is "yes" and included several
discussions with Murray and Francesca long before the
reorganization proposal was announced. That does not imply that
they agreed with me --I'm making no assertion at all about that
in this note-- but, if the question is whether have I evaluated
this particular rearrangement against a number of other
possibilities (including doing nothing, which, by the way, I do
not favor), the answer is, again, "yes".
> The question is not "will this be less than completely
> smooth and seamless transition".
We very slightly disagree about that because, unless there is
evidence that the transition will not require extra effort and
perhaps setting of priorities about where efforts should go, all
I said (more briefly) was that that aspect of the transition
deserved consideration ("added to the concerns"). While I was
not explicit about it, I believe (!) that consideration is, at
this point, more the responsibility of the Nomcom than that of
the IESG (and the whole discussion of where the boundary lies
interactions strongly with this discussion).
> The question is "will this end up with a more balanced AD
> workload that reduces publication time of documents". As the
> IESG came up with this proposal,
> we do seem to think this would be better.
Ok. And, again, I do not question that the IESG has the
authority to make this reorganization. That includes deciding
on any basis which it concludes would be appropriate (including
that criterion). I suppose someone could appeal that decision
on either the basis that the criterion you state above was
incorrect or that issues of fairness to various affected groups
were not adequately reflected. Personally, I believe that would
waste a lot of time (including messing up the Nomcom's schedule)
because, given the strength of the defense of the decision by
you and others, I have trouble imagining the IESG changing its
mind. But others might disagree. If they do, I hope they don't
wait the allowed two months, which would be _really_ disruptive
to the Nomcom.
That said (and without knowing whether Keith Moore and I are in
agreement or not), I wish the IESH had been more open and
transparent with the community about the criteria that were used
and what alternatives were considered. For example, if the goal
that is more important than any other is "making the Internet
better", an even more effective way to improve throughput _and_
quality would be to start saying "no" to more proposed working
groups or WG document proposals that are not clearly justified
in terms of broad impact on the Internet. But that is an
entirely different topic until you say that the question is
about reducing publication time. At a different level,
publication times could be improved if IESG members started
aggressively pushing back on members who were blocking
publication of documents for extended periods because of
disagreements about terminology and phrasing when those choices
in the documents had cleared IETF LC without comments.
However, if in asking the question state above, you start out
with the a priori assumption that a more balanced workload is
the only reasonable way to get there, you of course get the
answer you got plus or minus some tuning. And that still does
not fully answer the question of timing.
> Note also that when I just joined, Francesca was _great_ at
> helping me starting up my AD role, and
> she was not even in SEC. The other ADs in the IESG, as well as
> the IETF Secretariat, IANA and the
> RFC Editor, and even former ADs, did an excellent job helping
> me, and I'm sure that will happen
> again this time.
The Francesca was a big help is no surprise to me and reflects
as well on her as I would have predicted. It also suggests that
she would help the appointee in the new area if she were kept in
Apps/ART. The rest is great news, especially if all possible
incumbent ADs are returned. I suggest you make that
recommendation to the Nomcom or, if your remarks reflect the
IESG decision-making process [1] that the IESG do so publicly.
john
[1] I am, again, disappointed that, while the IESG records
positions and "votes" on ever document considered for
publication in the IETF Stream, decisions like this one are
simply announced as IESG decisions with no community visibility
into comments, positions taken by individual ADs, etc.
