Thomas, I won't attempt to speak for Ned, but I think there is some confusion here about what I, at least, intended by "checklist". It is not, for me, tied up with the form of the list or what content it has, but goes back to questions of WG responsibilities (not just authority). The issue isn't whether something is listed somewhere, it is who, if anyone, is taking formal responsibility for asserting that the list has been checked and is correct. When I've talked about a "submission checklist", it is less "something the WG ought to check before sending something to the IESG" or "something the IESG checks after receiving something". It is, symmetrically with the WG Charter, an formal assertion by the WG and its Chair(s) that things have been reviewed, checked, and are correct... an assertion on which they are willing to commit their reputations (at least). And that is what has been missing from the picture. It is trivial to check whether an IANA Considerations section (or a Security Considerations section, or an Internationalization Considerations one, or any of the other things that have been asked for) is present. But, if it says "none", or contains a collection of words that are irrelevant to the document at hand, checking becomes very hard --independent of whether the words are a section of an I-D or appear on a submission document somewhere. IMO, the key to making progress in this area is not to expect omniscience from the IESG, it is getting the WG Chair to formally sign off that the section has been seriously reviewed by the WG and found to be complete. I'd expect that the responsibility for making that sign off would, itself and by making the responsibilities clear, improve things. I'd also expect that, if problems are later found that the WG should have detected and didn't, or would have found had there been a meaningful review but that review didn't really occur, that the relevant AD would deal with that situation somewhat more sternly than, e.g., a WG missing a benchmark deadline: once the assertion is made that the review occurred and was diligent, a bad or no review is a sin of commission, not omission, and, absent external circumstances, I'd expect intense review of charters, changes of chairs, even closing of the relevant WG... or having the community hold the AD formally responsible for not taking those actions. If that didn't help, we would be in very bad shape indeed. john --On Friday, 10 June, 2005 07:35 -0400 Thomas Narten <narten@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Ned Freed <ned.freed@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> Like it or not, careful reviews and review checklists, while >> quited flawed in their own right, are the best tool we have. >> When I was on the IESG I had my own private review checklist; >> it was the only thing I found that worked. > > I agree careful reviews are necessary. What I find surprising > is your logic, which seems to say: > > IANA considerations sections in IDs are not sufficient, > therefore they are useless (or worse). > > Is that really what you are advocating? What exactly is it > that you think should be done (in addition to careful reviews) > that would help reduce the odds that the careful review find > issues with the IANA instructions (or lack thereof)? > > Note that having IC sections is all about improving the odds > that they contain the Right Thing before the document is > approved by the IESG. In my mind that means: > > 1) IANA reviews an (essentially) final version, to be sure > what it says is consistent with their understanding of what > needs to be carried out. But, IANA does this review during > Last Call. Thus, the IC section really needs to be complete > _before_ the full IETF review. > > 2) Well, the Shepherding AD can do the "careful review" during > the AD review phase, but there is already plenty of > pressure to skimp on the AD review in order to send a > document the WG says is finished to IETF LC ASAP. I.e., to > get the IETF LC started and "fix any issues that come up > later". Plus, in my experience, plenty of IC issues are > caught by ADs other than the shepherding AD. So relying on > them to catch all such issues is far from ideal. > > 3) Voila, have a checklist item that alerts WGs to things they > should take steps to make sure their documents have already > addressed prior to advancing a document out of the WG. > > Thomas _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf