Pete, (top post) I think where we disagree is that I'm at least a little more concerned about working groups that become too homogeneous and resistant to "outsider" views and input. Now, I think such WGs are quite rare in the IETF, but I have seen a few situations that I have trouble interpreting in any other way. Ideally, I'd like to see ADs actively monitoring such groups but the ADs have become sufficiently busy that they may not know what is going on unless someone tells them... and no one within such a WG is likely to tell them. I also have what I gather has become a rather quaint notion that ADs should be accountable for the behavior of their WGs even though I see and sympathize with the overload problem. So I see "AD must approve" as a possible small way to alert an AD that someone out of the ordinary _might_ be going on. I'd be almost as happy with "WG Chair can decide, but AD must be notified in a timely way and has the right to override the decision". As far as groups not meeting at the IETF, I agree with you but with one caution. Suppose there are people participating in one or more not-meeting groups but also actively involved with groups that are meeting. I don't know whether activity in the not-meeting groups might distracting them from things during the week but we should at least be asking the question. And, fwiw, another part of the larger picture is our traditional prohibition on interim meetings during, or right before or after, IETF meetings. That is another area in which it might be reasonable for a chair to decide to waive the rules but where I think the responsible (interesting term, that) AD should at least be aware that the meeting is happening and that the chair(s) should be aware that participants in that WG might also be participating in others. I also see one of the main values of IETF meetings being the opportunity for people who are not actively part of a WG to drop in, find out what is going on, and maybe learn something. Who knows, they might turn into active participants. Even at this meeting, very remote and with some time zone disability, I managed to sit in on a few meetings that left me with the feeling that there are some issues to which I should be paying more attention. As I have not been the only one to point out, documents and/or agendas and/or meetings materials posted very close to the meeting may tend to frustrate that sort of open participation and openness to newcomers to that WG. If it happens at one IETF meeting, I think "perceived emergency" or "special circumstances" likely justify it. If it happens time after time, then IMO someone external to the WG should be taking a look at the causes of such a pattern and whether something needs fixing. I don't see it as an absolute but as one of many tradeoffs we need to make. But, again, I see WG accountability to ADs and AD accountability to the community as crucial to avoiding abuses or even the appearance of them. If the IETF has stopped caring about those things, my views are irrelevant to anything but the question of how long it will survive or deserves to do so. best, john --On Friday, March 22, 2024 19:48 -0700 Pete Resnick <resnick=40episteme.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 22 Mar 2024, at 15:02, S Moonesamy wrote: > >> Hi Pete, John, >> At 07:25 PM 16-03-2024, Pete Resnick wrote: >>> 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. >> >> The WG Chairs are allowed to make an exception. If I >> remember correctly, the AD may have to "push a button" to >> release the I-D from the queue. > > As far as I know, the WG Chairs still have to ask permission > of the AD, and then the AD must manually ask the secretariat > to process the document; there is no button to push. One part > of this is the tool, and I should probably "put my money where > mouth is" and help at the Code Sprint to write the tooling to > make this possible. But the other part of it is policy, which > I think should be made more flexible. > >>> 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. >> >> Yes. >> >> Some of the side effects of the accident of history is that >> the two-weeks no-I-D window prevents non-WG I-D from being >> posted and the I-D flood at the beginning of the meeting >> week. > > Yep. And the fixed two weeks means that there is a flood two > weeks before, where some WG chairs might be OK with one week, > or require three weeks, or be OK with two days before. The > accident of history should not constrain us. > >>> (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.) >> >> It's a bit politically unfriendly to take such a decision. > > Yes, that's why they "pay us the big bucks". Chairs sometimes > have to make unpopular decisions and say no to pushy authors. > I promise to be supportive. > > pr
