--On Tuesday, 20 September, 2005 17:02 -0700 David Kessens <david.kessens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I am very worried about the discussion on the new proposed > area. Most mails are along the line that it sounds "nice" to > have a new area formed. > > Forming a new area comes at a cost for the IETF, while there > are also potential benefits. I believe it is very important > for the community to consider and understand the costs versus > the benefits for the creation of a new area. >... David, I've been silent on this one, not because I didn't understand the tradeoffs but because I am willing to accept an IESG conclusion that they work out in favor of doing it. I do share your concern about the IESG becoming too large an unwieldy, both in terms of numbers of members and in the number of people with an opportunity to object to things and nit-pick them. There is also the question of whether a new area and a couple of new ADs will be seen as justification for taking on even more work, rather than spreading the existing work around. There is a case to be made that we have passed several of those points already, but also a case that nothing works in the case of IESG overload. If it is possible, I'd be most happy to see this viewed as an experiment in the general spirit of RFC3933 but without some of the trappings. Treat it as a real area, appoint AD(s) as appropriate, but go into it with an agreement and the expectation that it, and the area structure more generally, will be carefully reviewed, and these tradeoffs reexamined, in a year or so. If it turns out to cause more problems then it is worth, perhaps we could then get rid of it --with no assumption of poor behavior on the part of the ADs-- and try something else. I don't know a better way to sort out the answers to the questions you are raising (and which, again, I share): debating them further is unlikely to be very informative. regards, john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf