On Apr 28, 2005, at 2:12 AM, John Loughney wrote:
Keith,
You've raised these points, over a number of years, but I wonder if it would be useful to explore implications of some of your comments:
2. IESG's scaling problems are a direct result of low-quality output from working groups, and we can't do much to address that problem by changing how IESG works.
3. I don't think we can make IESG significantly larger, I don't think
we can dispense with final document review and keep document quality
up, and I don't think that additional reviewers can signficantly
relieve IESG of the need to do final review. I do think that
additional reviewers could be very valuable in giving WGs feedback from
early drafts, keeping them on the right track, and keeping IESG
informed about the status of the WGs. I also think that a document
that has enjoyed such review and feedback throughout its life cycle
will be much easier for IESG to review, and that (without any changes
to IESG's organization or process) it will be harder for IESG to reject
such documents without sound technical justification.
Here, in the Problem WG and other places, you've raise the point that increasing the IESG probably won't help. You've implied that we probably have too many working groups and too many drafts in the working groups. The implications of these are that the IETF has too much work in too many areas to be effective.
I believe the IETF could perhaps take on more work if it improved the process by which working groups operate. This would lessen IESG's burden by giving them better documents to work with; it might also reduce the average duration of a WG, making more room for others. The industry wouldn't mind that either. One of the problems that some WGs have is that they take on too many drafts, which both hinders the ability of the working group to finish its more important work and imposes additional burdens on IESG.
I also think that IETF could use its resources more effectively if it exercised more care about which working groups it chartered. For instance, IMHO we've wasted a lot of effort trying to come up with short-term workarounds for NATs, without any of them providing a migration path away from NATs.
If I understand some of Dave's and John K's comments, they are willing to entertain thoughts on how to do things better (& differently) in order to ensure that the IETF remains relevant.
As am I. But I would like to see attention focused on working group operation, which I believe is our biggest source of problems.
Keith
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