> I haven't gone through all of the e-mails, > but at least I'd like to register an opinion. > > I think the cut-off policies need to be changed. > > Here are some reasons: > - There are many revisions of working-group drafts > posted to private websites after the cutoff > - I have had drafts miss the cutoff because > of some unpredictable slowness at the last > minute > - The extreme panic at the last minute seems to > encourage mistakes. > > I do understand the benefits of having a deadline, > and setting deadlines has a way of improving > productivity. But we need a structured way to > overcome the flaws also. I think the problem is a tad more fundamental than that. There's a disconnect between our mailing list discussions and the face-to- face discussions. From a computer geek perspective, the mailing lists and document updates are in some sense pipelined, until a meeting approaches, and the sync between active mailing list participants and occasional f2f meeting participants results in a pipeline stall. I suspect that this disconnect is inevitable, and what we really need to realize is that the mailing list and the f2f discussions inherently have somewhat different participants and different purposes, and modify our procedures accordingly. For instance, instead of trying to get a new draft out before the cutoff date, perhaps the authors should just produce a list of proposed changes to be made from the last published draft. Then f2f attendees could be expected to read the (somewhat older) draft along with the list of proposed changes. Keith p.s. I'd actually argue that our deadlines are too late, as there is not enough time the week or two before the meeting to read all of the drafts. So people show up at the meetings unprepared. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf