(catching up on old stuff)
Eliot Lear wrote:Margaret,
The words I hate most when I am in a WG meeting are these:
"take it to the mailing list"
That is usually short for "we can't agree in person so we'll now continue to disagree by email".
Sometimes it's short for "We are out of time." In fact, I think that's the common case. Other times it's "We here today can't form a consensus, but in the IETF consensus is formed on the list anyway, so let's try that way when we've all had time to think."
Sometimes I have come to treat "take it to the list" as:
"we don't seem to have enough people in the room that actually care about this, as nobody comes to say anything on the mike. We'll just put the document (or the issue) on the pending list until anyone gets interested on the list, or until the next meeting when we'll have this discussion again."
Yeah, that's a problem, but it's not clear which is better: the chairs more aggressively pursuing a timeliness (even though sufficiently many people don't seem to be paying attention or voicing strong opinions) so that issues or documents can be finished, or intentionally delaying work which hasn't garnered sufficient momentum (or the momentum has been lost).
My personal take is that it's very important to finish the work that has been started on a timely fashion, but we might be more strict on accepting new work if we see a loss of interest.
-- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings
_______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf