On Aug 31, 2011, at 11:06 AM, John Leslie wrote: > Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> The biggest problem with the current voting system (other than >> misleading labels, which do cause real problems of their own) is the >> presumption that the document should go forward no matter how few >> IESG members read the document. > > Keith makes a good point here; but I wouldn't agree to any rule > that a particular number must "read" a document. Some ADs quite > properly defer actual reading to review teams. I disagree that that is "quite properly". I believe that the AD's name goes on the vote, so an AD whose vote is actually counted as contributing toward yes or no has some responsibility to read the document. Having said that, I'll readily admit that I read some documents more thoroughly than others when I was an AD. >> So No Objection votes from ADs who didn't read the document count as >> Yes votes, > > No, they don't. (But I can't ask folks posting to this thread to > actually _understand_ the difference.) In practice, they do, because the difference between Yes and NoObj under current voting rules is never significant. > Roughly, the rule says "enough" ADs must enter a "position" before > a document can be approved. Basically, "No-Objection" says the AD is > "somewhat" familiar with the document and actively consents to approving > it. > > These "positions" are _NOT_ "votes". Call them what you will, they're still explicitly enumerated. >> but there's also a presumption in the rules (as well as pressure from >> other ADs who want to get documents off the agenda) to clear Discuss >> votes in favor of moving a document forward whether or not the >> identified issues have been adequately addressed. > > This is somewhat true, but the "pressure" is highly variable. The > agendas _are_ too crowded (IMHO); but in most cases sufficient progress > will have been made before the telechat that only a few seconds are > needed to agree to "AD-followup" status. That, of course, is how things should work. Most drafts should not be controversial. It's what happens when things are controversial that I'm concerned about. >> (One thing that I didn't mention that also needs to be fixed if >> it's still the case is the presumption that the responsible AD >> votes Yes for the document. I don't know what the tools do now, >> but this Yes vote used to be automatically filled-in.) > > We're seeing a number of cases where the responsible AD holds a > DISCUSS at the time of the telechat -- generally because LastCall > hadn't ended yet when the document was placed on the agenda. > > IMHO, there's nothing there that needs "fixing". Maybe that's been fixed since I was on IESG. If so I'm glad to hear it. >> Arguably when a poor quality document gets to IESG, it's a failure >> on the part of the WG to do due diligence. > > IMHO, there _are_ poor-quality documents that get on the IESG agenda. > I'm not sure it helps to allocate blame... > > But there is a huge variance between WGs on diligence. I am alarmed > by the sheer number of COMMENTS saying in essence, "This document is > not specific enough to guide an implementor to an interoperable > implementation." To me, that's really-close to DISCUSS territory... To me, it's more than adequate grounds to reject a document. It should be considered a duty to vote DISCUSS on such documents. > However, we really don't have a process for improving situations > like that -- other than for it to be a DISCUSS and for authors to > actually be responsive (which would probably require repeating at > least one LastCall). :^( > > In the absence of such a process, I really can't blame ADs for > reducing such issues from DISCUSS to COMMENT, and entering ABSTAIN > if they think the issue is serious. And again, the idea that an AD should be compelled to label such an objection as an abstention, is harmful. >> But the problem is actually deeper than that - it's partially >> structural (in that IETF partitions almost all work into narrowly >> focused WGs who don't represent a sufficiently broad spectrum of >> interests), and partially due to a failure to consistently apply >> good engineering principles across all of IETF. > > +1 > > This problem, of course, is endemic in organizations that depend > on volunteers. And I really don't have suggestions on how to ensure > sufficient wide-area review, though review teams certainly help. > > I wonder if there's some room for process-improvement by formalizing > some role for review teams... perhaps. >> IESG's assuming that the WG has produced a quality result basically >> works to mask the other problems with IETF's way of doing work. > > I don't agree that's what IESG members "assume" -- they IMHO instead > presume that documenting ideas (even not-fully-baked ideas) is a > mostly-unmitigated good-thing. I don't think it's what individual IESG members assume; I think it's what the voting guidelines and other aspects of IESG's process assume. And that process has been around without many changes since before I was on IESG, which is to say for 15 years or more. It's not a valid assumption, and it hasn't been a valid assumption since the IETF grew to more than a few hundred active participants. (When I first started working with IETF circa 1990, cross-area review was much less of an issue because the affected community was so much smaller, the protocols were much less complex, and the installed base was so small that it was relatively easy to fix mistakes.) >> But even if WGs generally did produce high quality results without >> issues (which I don't think is the case now), IESG review should >> still not presume that they do. There will always be some failures >> at the WG level, and the IESG's job is to try to catch those. > > I don't think we have universal agreement on that as a goal. Perhaps not, but I want to explicitly state that some form of area-independent review, independent of the WG, is an appropriate and necessary goal. There are other ways to achieve that goal than having IESG do the review. But the idea that nobody should do the review and the WG's output should always be considered adequate is ridiculous. Keith _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf