I never shared in an IETF F2F meeting because too expensive - and I do not see the interest if it is not universal. So, I only see the IETF-on-line. I am dismayed by some narrowness of its vision. I fully accept its structural quasi-impossibility to innovate (innovation calls for a step ahead, consensus takes time). I am impressed by the simplicity of the Internet standard process methodology. The only real problem is the NOMCOM issue - actually the number of IESG candidates: I submit that this problem could resolve by itself if the other problems were on the way to be addressed. This calls complete review of the logic.
I see all this as a standard press/publisher process (and this is why I am surprised that the IASA project was not thought as financially self sustaining).
It offers two possible tracks:
1. an author has an idea for an editorial series/article which can come from the continuation of a previous article, to make a "standard" of it or to keep reporting on a common practice.
2. he contacts a specialised editorial manager (like sports, economy, leisures, fashion, etc. in a magazine) and his partner.
3. if interested the editorial managers talk to the editorial committee
4. if interested the committee create an editorial staff and team and define the charter of the planned deliverables.
5. the editorial team starts delivering
a. a free-lance sends an article - often reporting on something existing - to the editorial committee
6. deliverables are reviewed by the editorial committe
7. deliverables are circulated to every journalist and freelance for final review and QA
8. deliverables are sent to the publisher for final massaging, formating and publication through the RFC track (magazine) or the IANA database (associated radio station).
At every step, everyone, through the editorial committee, can call on the advise/arbitration of the editorial board and use the in-house tools and procedure, using a few web sites and a large number of independent mailing lists. The publishing entreprise is a cooperative structure. A selection committee is in charge of feeding the structre (managers, editorial committee and board) with appropriate members.
Am I wrong reading it this way?
If not, I see several flaws in the editorial governance policy (the way it works, not the way it is built)
1. the editorial board does not maintain an editorial line everyone (readers alike) can refer to. A network architecture model.
2. there are constant track violations. Once the opord of an editorial team has been given, understood and possibly commented, it should be respected or updated. But not whimsically changed by editorial managers or the editorial committee. They should only consider if the deliverables fit the order. Or change the order. This is what this thread is mostly about.
3. authors/journalists are not paid enough. Their salary is recognition and usefullness. The magazine does not promote its editorial horde (hoard?). What is wrong because recognition means exposure and exposure leads to self-quality control. As a whole exposure and recognition also means public interest and sponsors.
4. audience is not monitored. People start being bored with the Dallas-like IPv6 saga and the NAT/noNAT love story.They would like new topics on their real daily life, sometimes totally unknown to the magazine 'experts' as I just experimented in the languages area.
5. the editorial culture is still very confuse and provincial. The magazine is still very rooted as a Californian local publication. It should open itself to the world and get multilingual (spirit, editorial concerns and culture, languages, structural organization and concerns) and multinational (local list should help people to know each other, outreach and start innovative projects)
6. the tools (internal and external) have become confuse and outdated The website is very low relational quality. With a Washingtown Times 1990 look. I used a better mailing list system in 25 years ago.
7. the Radio Station (IANA) has grown-up out of control, yet the Internet standard process is still only magazine oriented. Control over the IANA or its replacement should be organised and a IANA standard process defined. Same for web site.
8. other side services like innovation (IRTF?), training, catalog, statistics etc. exist in a way. They should be considered and organized/managed the same.
9. PRs are poor. Every new RFC should be promoted to be made understood and the authors exposed and recognized. There should be a press release explaining its interest, etc.
10. there should be a "year book" summarising the state of the art in the different area of interest of the magazine, readers could refer to.
Once this is solved, or on commitment to be solved, I suppose that people ready to accept nominations will me more numerous. There is no risk in publishing the list of the nominated persons (by an least n persons including x from IESG?) who have accepted to be candidate. There would already a strong recognition in it.
jfc
At 07:19 07/05/2005, Pekka Savola wrote:
On Fri, 6 May 2005, Ralph Droms wrote:What is the context of technical astuteness? How do you compare people with different technical focuses? You can't.
Giving ADs a private veto (private in the sense of not discussed in public) seems to compare technical astuteness and assign more weight to ADs. I suggest public discussion avoids giving ADs' technical astuteness undue weight.
If an AD raises an issue about a document (from area X) that it conflicts or causes serious problems (from the perspective of area Y), how do you ensure that the more technically astute people (particularly on Y but also a bit on X) participate in the discussion?
By making the discussion public...[...]
There is nothing to prevent making such discussions public. Many groups already do so so; the comments are already recorded in a public database, and when the WG (chair or document editor) follows up on those, e.g., by discussing the Discuss, it can be done Cc'ing the mailing list.
Or do you have the problem that the discussion is held on the WG list (and not on a wider forum), and for individual submissions, probably in private? (individual submissions are problematic in this sense, but they _are_ individual..)
So I don't see what problem you're seeing. To me, a Discuss is a flag an AD can raise "I think there may be a serious issue here, and we need to discuss it in case you disagree".
In principle, I consider that reasonable given the responsibily of the IESG for technical quality.
However, sometimes this has some issues. Specifically, sometimes ADs seem to be very busy and do not have time to respond to attempts at initiating dialogue or the round-trip time between messages is high. (Also, there are cases where the WG drops the ball for months, and then gets back later -- by then the AD has probably already forgotten what (s)he said and has to re-read parts of the spec.) This is a particular problem if the WG thinks AD's issue is not really relevant or is flat out wrong; it may take a while to convince the AD (though the responsible AD may be able to help in these scenarios).
Maybe _this_ is something where we should consider how to increase the timeliness and effectiveness of the dialogue.
-- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings
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