On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 12:58 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If we want the statements of support to be meaningful, they need to have the creator of the statement do some real work -- more than mechanically checking boxes -- demonstrating the 'understanding' that Lloyd suggests. Multiple guess questions don't demonstrate understanding; worse, they are too easily plagiarized as part of a campaign.
We want understanding, of course, but I think requiring Russ to demonstrate that by writing a paragraph or six on the finer points of the proposal would be daft.
One of the unfortunate realities in the current IETF is periodically seeing patterns of support that have more to do with politicking for a draft than for commenting on a critical review of it. There is no perfect protection against this, but asking each statement of support to demonstrate the commenter's own understanding will help.
If the politicking is from multiple organizations who all want to implement and deploy, then I'm all in favour...
If there's only one implementer willing to say as much, then even quite a slew of deployment wannabees would have me concerned for the viability of the protocol.
I'd note that the XSF's questions are only concerned with implementation rather than deployment - maybe that helps, I'm not sure either way.
We also sometimes have drafts that have had little working group activity. This is independent of the quality of the work, but it means that there's little sense of community need or interest. It's not supposed to happen, but it's become more common in the current IETF. Again, there's no perfect protection against that, but seeing public activity during IETF LC that demonstrates enough community interest to do the minimal work of offering a capsule commentary on the draft will help.
Perhaps having a shepherd-style write up included in the last call announcement? (Or available via a URL there).
Dave.