I guess I have a tendency to local-optimize when I post here, so the
conversation has broadened enough that it's worth sending a clarifying
note...
Where I chimed in, in this thread, was on a specific problem - want to have
exceptions for drafts that would be advanced - not discussed in the
meeting - if we could submit them, but we couldn't submit them, and it would
require tools development to automate exception handling.
My local optimization was to stop enforcing a rule that seemed to be
leaking, and required AD intervention for exceptions. I've spent almost
every Thursday for more than two years listening to ADs do AD work on
telechats. They seem busy.
I don't actually mind a two-week cutoff (it's in 2418). The relevant text in
2418 says
7.1. Session documents
All relevant documents to be discussed at a session should be
published and available as Internet-Drafts at least two weeks before
a session starts. Any document which does not meet this publication
deadline can only be discussed in a working group session with the
specific approval of the working group chair(s). Since it is
important that working group members have adequate time to review all
documents, granting such an exception should only be done under
unusual conditions. The final session agenda should be posted to the
working group mailing list at least two weeks before the session and
sent at that time to agenda@xxxxxxxx for publication on the IETF web
site.
So I don't know where the "must have AD approval for exceptions" thing came
from, unless it's a misplaced need to have ADs approve everything.
If ADs do discover copious and uncharted spare time, I would MUCH prefer
that they spend it steering their working groups, and specifically noticing
milestone offsets so we can move away from the current situation, where many
so many milestones are expressed in terms of ID cutoffs for the next
meeting, more than half the updates are posted within two weeks of the ID
cutoff, and we're floundering through the drafts getting ready for the
meetings.
I am particularly irritated when I see a draft that I submitted comments on
immediately after the last IETF meeting (which was a long time ago), updated
for the first time within a week of the ID cutoff for the next meeting. This
does not give us timely publication - we can't even remember what we were
talking about, in some cases.
I do, of course, appreciate working group chairs that do stagger their
milestones, and I do, of course, wish that Eric and I thought about this
more often in mediactrl.
I hope this is clearer than what I posted, as a local optimization, earlier.
I'm not opposed to global optimization.
Thanks,
Spencer
ned+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
That said, exceptions should definitely be possible, and I would
delegate that to WG Chair level.
Well, that's a step forward, but instead of delgating an exception
process
why not delegate the authority to decide on an appropriate draft handling
policy?
Oddly, I think it really doesn't. By keeping the view that it is an
"exception", it enforces a cumbersome, IETF-wide, Procrustean model with
an exception, rather than a simple model with no need for exceptions.
Either working groups know how to run themselves on a daily basis --
that is, excepting real crises -- or they don't.
If they do. then we do not need one-size-fits-all-except-when-it-doesn't
rules. If they don't, then we need to be much, much better about writing
and enforcing rules. (And all the evidence says that we won't be.)
As of now, we fail to enforce rules that exist and we have enforcement of
rules that don't. The underlying problem is that folks who are active in
the IETF are not really all that fond of following strict rules.
Personally, I think that's a Very Good Thing. However the persistent Bad
Thing is that we keep pretending that we need lots of rules.
What we really need to be is reasonable, open and accountable, with
"local" control for local activities.
Fewer rules, more working group self-management.
Oversight should be just that. And that's quite different from
micro-management.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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