At 17:14 14/10/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
--On fredag, oktober 14, 2005 16:58:11 +0200 Brian E Carpenter
<brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think we should look at new collaboration tools, for example has
anyone tried using a wiki to maintain an issues list?
Quite a few WGs use issue trackers of various kinds.
The Global Grid Forum uses a web tool based on sourceforge
for Last Call comments (which they call Public Comment). That
of course prevents self-feeding mailstorms.
the "of course" part being that it's so cumbersome to use that folks
don't check it that often, so they don't react to others' comments?
mailstorms have their positive sides....
agreed.
A few years ago we had a DNSO/GA task force to improve the working
methods of this now defunct structure. One interesting extremely
simple feature we discussed and I implemented positively later on in
a few cases (for complex private thinking, report preparation) was
the "position statement link".
The charter and the current status of intended the deliverables are
documented on a single simple site with a link with all the
participant pages (could be the IETF WG Page), lurkers do not need to
have a page. On their page, participants maintain their own
_different_ positions on the currently discussed topics (when they
agree with the advancement of the deliverable, they remove their
position). They can keep archives, historic, back-ground, quotes, links, etc.
The interest is that anyone entering the debate can have a full
understanding of the pending issues in minutes. And the matters can
be organised. So you can consider Chapter 17 only, without having to
read everything.
Also, a consensus is only to reduce the differences between
propositions (no need to repeat the differences ad nauseam - when you
update them everyone seens it). In different groups I experimented
different page formats, reporting tools, etc. From this I am sure:
the concepts may support many variations, may support many different
WG styles, make the difference/blocking points plain to everyone,
help to agree or agree we disagree (people not documenting a position
on a topic have no reason to interfere), etc. It is very near from a
wi-ki but far easier to implement, and it permits everyone to be the
master of his presentation (ppt, jpeg, etc.). Also, position sites
can be collective. Tools to establish compared position reports can
be developed, if there is a common format (can be very simple and
cover only one summary block per topic on each page).
One of the most interesting (disturbing?) "feature" is that everyone
can assess the competence/ignorance and humility/arrogance of every
participant. This tends to reduce the debate to the people who have
real experience, without preventing new suggestions. This also
permits small groups to form on an issue to work a common position,
without splitting the working group: the result is put online in
common - through a specialised link, or to support the position of a
person, etc. It also permits external guest specialists from a side
aspect to comment and to be listen to. They have not to follow all
the debate, just to comment on their own part. Once their
presentation is agreed, the group can refer to it (or ask for more details).
Experience shown it takes time to start (new concept, it was not a
real product, people must know how to maintain an HTML page, etc.).
But afterwards it permits to go much faster, to rise the quality
standard, etc. and also to support large period of inactivity or of
separate thinking (experimentation). Also, the "it told you"s which
were never told do not work. When someone discovers a yet not solved
problem, he just describes it on his site. Only him can remove it. So
we are sure we have a consensus. This is not the WG-Chair who orders it.
A good point is that it also simplifies multilingual common work. The
entries can be crafted by participants. Explanations can be attached
and reviewed if not understood. Once, I saw opponents reviewing texts
of their adversaries - just to make sure they understood the
objection correctly. This can be very simple, quick and rewarding
(when helping editing, one understand better). Once the only mailing
was to announce the updated pages (so only the organiser sent mails
to the list). It could have been automated in any language. Inventing
a RFC 3683 PR-action is very difficult in such a context.
for what it is worth.
jfc
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