Lakshminath, Just commenting from my own experience with & views about the BOF process... I don't think the fact that someone is in the I* means their opinions necessarily carries more weight than other opinions. This does not imply that all opinions carry the same weight. Informed, well justified opinions are taken more seriously. We listen more to people who are involved in an issue or whose networks are affected than outsiders. We care about management concerns, e.g., completing existing efforts before starting new ones, so we listen to the involved managers. When considering a BOF request, I personally try to think about what will happen at the BOF and after it. One way of doing this is to contact experts in the field, managers (chair, AD, external SDO manager, etc) of related efforts, customers of for the proposed functionality, etc. And listen to what they say. This gives you a pretty good prediction of what the mike line in the meeting would say, and helps you determine whether the effort is ready for a BOF. The readiness level is important, particularly for a 2nd (last) BOF. Now, some subset of the people listed above are likely to be found in the IESG or IAB. As you probably know, the IESG and IAB have a teleconference where proposed BOFs are discussed, and we get both the type of input falling in the above categories, as well as generalist/architectural feedback. When there is significant discussion about a proposal from some members in this call or when I know someone is a key expert on the topic, I try to get them involved on the list, conference calls with the proponents, etc. Because, clearly, there needs to be a discussion, but also because we need to keep our discussions out in the open. This is not always possible, but in those cases the AD has to understand the issue well enough to take his or hers own position, be able to explain it to others, etc. But at the end of the day, the AD has to make a decision based on the input he or she has gotten and own views. He needs to weight the different inputs appropriately, understand if there are any significant technical issues, etc. The own views are important, too; the ADs should be guiding the effort towards an improvement in the Internet, not merely observing opinions of others. In any case, the AD has to justify the decision on his own, not by merely referring to expert opinions. Anyway, my experience is that I often find myself torn between (a) granting a BOF request because which is what the proponents want and (b) asking them to do something else such as re-scope or write documents because that is what I feel would take us to the desired end result sooner. The desired end result is, of course, published specs and a better Internet, not merely having a meeting. Jari _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf