- Original Message ----- From: "John Loughney" <john.loughney@xxxxxxxxx> To: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 11:47 PM Subject: what is a wg chair's job was: Simplistic metrics Re: WG management > Harald, > > Your mail prompted me to write a mail I have been contemplating (but I'm > actually sending this via my phone, so I'm keeping this brief). > > What is a wg chairs job? I can think of several tasks: > 1) cheerleader (go wg, go!) > 2) mediator (Mr. x, you need a time-out!) > 3) task manager (draft-foobar is 1.8 weeks late.) > 4) key contributor (I think the header field should be 2.1 bytes long.) > 5) big-picture type (the internet needs a protocols for signaling > morality.) For me, this list of items misses the point of having a chair, which IMO is to focus the discussion, the work, on the tasks in hand, so that they get done in a timely fashion. Ironically, I see precisely this not happening at present on this list (which I see as unchaired - IETF chairs may contribute but I do not expect them to chair this list). I refer to the thread on 'Last Call: 'Email Submission Between Independent Networks' to BCP - Clarification' which has wandered over many interesting topics, few of which have been directly relevant to the last call in question, few of which actually contribute to the task in hand which is to determine whether or not the document in question is ready to be advanced. And a lesser point; I think that the more effective WGs are those where the chairs are not key contributors, rather it is the I-D authors who are the key contributors and the chairs ..... well they chair:-) Tom Petch <snip> _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf