--On Sunday, March 17, 2024 12:25 +1000 Pete Resnick
<resnick@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 17 Mar 2024, at 11:41, John C Klensin wrote:
>
>> --On Saturday, March 16, 2024 19:17 -0400 Keith Moore
>> <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> On 3/16/24 17:20, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>>>
>>>> The current times (close 2 weeks before, open 1 day before)
>>>> are exactly what is needed in a good number of cases, and
>>>> their consistency helps people who want to do work across
>>>> WGs.
>>>
>>> Nothing's perfect, but IMO the current 2 week deadlines are a
>>> good compromise most of the time.
>>
>> I agree. Two weeks is about right...
>
> So, as I said earlier, many things have changed, and in this
> case I disagree that the 2-week moratorium on posting is
> needed anymore. As Keith pointed, there were two reasons we
> set up the moratorium in the first place: (1) The secretariat
> had to hand-process I-Ds back in the day and was swamped
> before the meeting; and (2) In order to be prepared for the
> meeting, you wanted to have people to read the same version of
> the document so that everyone was on the same page. Only
> later, as a side effect, did we get reason (3): People act
> well in the face of deadlines, and this one was conveniently
> imposed due to other considerations.
>
> However, several things have changed. Justification (1) has
> completely gone away; the tools take care of things.. But even
> in the case of (2), I think the justification has mostly gone
> away. It used to be that posting a changed version would
> really be a problem: If some edits went in late, you would
> have to re-read the whole document and try to figure out what
> changed, and you'd had better kept the old version, because
> once the new version was out the old one was deleted from the
> server. But nowadays, we keep the old versions on the server,
> and we have a perfectly reasonable diff tool, where you can
> choose any version and get the diffs from the current version
> in an easy to read format. It's no longer such a big deal to
> read whatever version is available when you are preparing fore
> the meeting, and then look at the diffs just before the
> meeting. (And again, remember that the moratorium ends now at
> the beginning of the week, so it is not even effective for
> purpose as it stands.)
>
> That leaves the "deadlines are useful" reason. And that's a
> perfectly good reason, on a WG-by-WG basis, to allow chairs to
> close the submission for their WGs if they want to impose a
> deadline. But it doesn't justify shutting the queue for all
> WGs (some of which might not be meeting f2f) or all documents
> (some of which might not be associated with any WG or RG), or
> all chairs (some of whom might have good reasons for a late
> add).
Pete, ok to most of that, with one concern that I mentioned
recently, I think in a thread on the tools list and that is a
variation of something I've tried to raise with you before in
one of your other capacities.
Over the years, we've had a few WGs that operate most or less as
private clubs, with (although never said explicitly) anyone who
is not part of the club, or who disagrees with club conclusions
treated as an unwelcome outsider. If a WG operates that way,
the chairs are, almost by definition complicit (or maybe just
tuned out) because, if they noticed the behavior and found it
troubling, they have more than enough authority to take action,
escalate the issue, or both. I suggest there is some evidence
that the number of such WGs is on the rise, but that is purely
an impression.
If a WG and its leadership are operating in those ways, then
giving the chair(s) complete (or effectively complete) control
over timing of events, meeting announcements, frequency and
timing of interim meetings, availability of materials including
agenda and meeting materials, etc., essentially creates a zero
accountability situation. Back in the days when we expected ADs
to actively monitor the activities of "their" WGs, read
documents, follow mailing lists, attend meetings, etc., the
accountability was there because, in most cases (and community
expectations) ADs in a position to notice actual or potential
problems and deal with them proactively. That expectation
became unrealistic when the number of WGs ADs were expected to
track rose and ADs started acquiring responsibilities other than
WG management and document consensus evaluation.
For me, at least, that is a fairly scary IETF to contemplate,
especially if we are going to make assertions about community
understanding and informed consensus about the work that is
being produced.
>> and, at least last I checked,
>> we had procedures for ADs to make exceptions. I assume that,
>> if we needed exception procedures for other streams, we could
>> probably make them up in a hurry (if they don't already exist
>> without my noticing).
>
> But this seems to me too high a burden. If a chair wants to
> make an exception, they should be empowered to do so and not
> make this depend on an AD OK, particularly right before a
> meeting where ADs have lots of other things to deal with. And
> if a chair or an AD is not directly involved, there is no
> reason an author shouldn't be able to submit a document that
> has nothing to do with a WG.
I mostly agree with the latter even though I am concerned that
posting of non-WG documents during the meeting period could be
distracting to others and impede the efficient and effective
functioning of the meeting. As to the former, see above.
> We are using the accident of an old set of circumstances to
> drive procedures rather that discussing what we really want
> out of the tooling. Please let's stop doing that.
Again, agreed. But it is not just about the tooling. It is,
IMO, about the integrity of IETF processes, our openness to
participants who are interested in watching a broad range of WGs
but not to sign up for full involvement in all of them, and our
claims of community consensus in the documents we publish.
> (During a chat last night, Barry reminded me that when a
> change was proposed several years ago, some chairs objected to
> the change because they did not want the responsibility to
> allow exceptions and instead wanted it to be an AD override so
> they could claim powerlessness to insistent authors. I find
> such an argument a sign of complete dysfunction.)
No disagreement there either. But, in recent years, when issues
of WG Chair (or even WG) dysfunction have been raised with
responsible ADs, the response has often been that WG Chairs are
hard to find and replace and/or that they (the ADs) don't have
time to deal with it. To me, those are signs of complete
dysfunction too, but of the IETF, not just an individual WG
chair or WG.
>> The question that started the thread is whether other
>> mechanism of getting documents posted --other than, e.g.,
>> mailing list discussions-- frustrate the intent of that two
>> week limit and, if so whether they are reasonable. I had
>> intended to open up, and ask for community consideration of,
>> the much broader set of questions and was not asking about
>> localized patches. Pete clarified that point and said what I
>> should have said more explicitly -- that we need to look at
>> the whole collection of interrelated issues rather than
>> applying isolated small patches. I would add that we should
>> not get distracted by possible patches to the point of losing
>> sight of that collection of issues. I don't know that it is
>> what either Keith or Carsten intended, but a discussion of
>> any of whether the cutoff should be two weeks before the
>> meetings start, what "starts" means for that purpose, whether
>> it should be 14 days, 20 or 10 days, one day, some other
>> number, or abolished entirely would be, IMO, just the sort of
>> distraction from the larger issues that I think Pete and I
>> are concerned about.
>
> Indeed, even talking in terms of a "posting cutoff" is a
> mistake. If mailing list discussion within the moratorium
> period comes to consensus (with text) on a particular issue in
> a document, that is just as problematic (or not) in keeping
> everyone on the same page preparing for f2f discussions. Does
> that mean that we should have an IETF-wide 2-week moratorium
> on mailing list discussions before f2f meetings? Of course not
> (I hope). But some chairs may wish to say, "On issue X, let's
> close discussion on the list until the f2f meeting, as I think
> a more interactive discussion (perhaps with people with
> Transport/Security/I18N/whatever expertise present) would be
> more helpful." And that would be fine. Again, let's discuss
> what we actually want to have happen, and then decide if we
> need some grand principle or rule imposed, at an IETF/Area/WG
> level, for that and what tooling (if any) we need to make it
> happen.
Sure... as long as there is some reasonable expectation of
oversight and none of those things act to keep those whose
participation is at a low level or whose perspectives disagree
with the WGs mainstream from understanding what the WG is doing
and providing input to its documents.
>> So, btw and IMO are discussions on the tools list about ways
>> to make Github more or less efficient for document review and
>> whether it is time to prohibit some I-D preparation tools or
>> formats. They are probably all part of the larger set of
>> questions but, like others of those questions, they raise
>> important policy questions including, again IMO, just what
>> they IETF means when we talk about being open, welcoming,
>> transparent, etc., and what we all mean when we say that
>> something represents IETF community consensus.
>
> Yep. See above.
>>> I'm less sure about opening submission to new drafts one day
>>> before a meeting. I might prefer that they be opened again
>>> the day after the meeting closes.
>>
>> Again, part of the broader problem (with interactions with
>> other parts), as are the questions of when WGs are expected
>> (or required) to firm up agendas and organize and post meeting
>> materials.
> And questions about who/what is imposing the
> expectation/requirement (e.g., the chair, the AD, the IETF as
> a whole, the tooling, etc...)
Yes. Again, see above.
john
