John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > Going back almost to the dawn of IESG time, the IESG has had one > constant and primary responsibility. That is to manage the WGs > and the WG process. Under today's rules, they determine or > ratify which WGs get created, who chairs them and how they are > otherwise managed, what tasks and benchmarks go into charters, > how many and which documents a WG can work on at a time (and > whether they work on documents serially or in parallel), and > when to shut them down. They have _huge_ latitude in how to > manage WGs and the decisions they make about that management > process, including a wide range of options about reporting, > review of benchmarks, actions or the lack thereof when targets > are not met, and so on. You've covered an awful lot of territory there: - creating / shutting down WGs -- clearly must be IESG responsibility. - who chairs WG -- feels more like an Area Director responsibility. The IESG should require ADs to report on WG progress; the AD should have the right to deal with WG chairs s/he trusts. - how they are otherwise managed -- whazzat? WG chairs should be responsible to ADs. End-runs around WGCs (other than formal appeals) tend to be harmful. - what goes into charters -- the IESG must take responsibility for the initial charter, but not all updates should need IESG action. - how many documents a WG can work on -- silly-season... Clearly, taking on a new task should be a charter revision, which might require IESG action; but splitting a task between two Document Editors shouldn't even require notice to the AD. - whether documents can be worked on in parallel -- micromanagement. For the AD to specify this would be seriously unwise: for the IESG to even talk about it is a waste of time or worse. > WGs, and WG leadership, have no independent existence: the IESG, > and under some circumstances, individual ADs can dispose of them > as needed. I've never been comfortable with the idea that the IESG can "solve" a problem by dissolving a WG. That said, there is a clear need for something like a probationary status, where a WG loses (temporarily) its right to submit documents as WG submissions until some defect is corrected; and at some point, actually loses its right to any AD oversight at all. IMHO, "surprise" dissolutions of WGs are not helpful. > Personally, I think that is as it should be. While the > community has periodically discussed constraints on WG behavior > and management (including one or two that I have written), none > have ever been approved: the IESG continues to be able to look > at WGs and their work on a case-by-case basis and to make > case-by-case decisions. My personal view is that they (the > IESG) should have a little more guidance from the community to > aid them in making tough decisions and to assure them of backing > when such decisions are made, but that wouldn't change the > essential nature of the situation very much. I'm not really sure what the community _could_ do to offer much guidance here; and I don't think community "support" of IESG decision has much meaning. The question is whether an IESG action is going to result in a long-winded appeal process; and there's remarkably little that anyone can do about that. > But, from that perspective, there is no "WG problem" or "problem > WG". There is only an IESG management problem. Either the > number and complexion of WGs is such that the IESG can manage > them effectively, or it isn't. If it isn't, only the IESG can > be responsible. Except that I see the bottleneck at the AD/WGC interface, I agree. > Either WGs are sufficiently well chartered and managed so that the > review processes we have work adequately well or they aren't. > Either way, the IESG bears ultimate responsibility: they determine > the charters, the management structure, the review requirements or > lack thereof at various intermediate points, and so on. I'm not sure it's helpful to look at it that narrowly. I think I quite agree with John Klensin that if charters, structure, and review requirements are done right, corrective actions will become obvious. I don't agree, however, that our selection process for IESG members does anything to ensure sufficient expertise to get charters, structure, and review requirements right on the first try. I think we need a mechanism to notice that something needs correction, and get independent review of charters, structure, and review requirements when problems appear. > Now, it is reasonable to say "the IESG doesn't have bandwidth to > do that job well and still review documents for standardization". Certainly a reasonable question: but I don't choose to give an opinion on it at present... > But it doesn't seem to me that saying "we have all of these out > of control WGs and need to concentrate on fixing them and not on > looking at the IESG" or even "focus our attention on WG > operation" is productive: if the WGs are not under control, > then, IMO, the IESG, as the body with the management > responsibility, needs to acknowledge that fact and then either > needs to fix it or make suggestions to the community as to how > we can fix it together. If they are not convinced that "working > group operations" is the problem, then there is either no > problem or an IESG problem. This view is entirely too "top-down". Obviously, both WG-problems and problem-WGs exist: almost as obviously, the problems are not all the same. It's fine to say that in theory, all these problems belong to the IESG: but it's not particularly helpful. If we expect the IESG to fix all WG problems, we severly constrain the number of WGs we can have -- leaving no satisfactory method for getting increasing amounts of work done. The _best_ this view has to offer is stagnation. :^( If, instead, we view the situation as groups of folks that want to work on problems, and the _issue_ as whether they should associate with IETF or work somewhere else, I believe much more can be accomplished. -- John Leslie <john@xxxxxxx> _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf