On 30/07/2013 06:18, John C Klensin wrote: > > --On Monday, July 29, 2013 01:37 -0400 Brian Haberman > <brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> ... >> One of the things that I ask the Internet Area chairs to do is >> send in a summary of their WG after each IETF meeting. Those >> summaries generally give folks a good idea of the current >> state of each WG. I post those summaries on the Internet Area >> wiki. An alternative that would work as well is to have each >> WG post summaries to their own wikis. Each WG has a wiki >> available via their Tools page (e.g., >> http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/6man/trac/wiki). >> >> I like seeing the summaries from my chairs and I have gotten >> feedback from participants that they find them quite useful >> for keeping up with WGs that are tangential to their primary >> focus. I would encourage every WG chair to periodically >> summarize the state of their WG/drafts. > > Dave and a few other ancients will recall that there was a time > when there was a requirement for ADs to put together per-meeting > "Area Reports", which went into the minutes. These were put together from WG Chair's session reports, which were (and are) mandatory under RFC 2418 (BCP 25): Immediately after a session, the WG Chair MUST provide the Area Director with a very short report (approximately one paragraph, via email) on the session. That's not quite the same as a WG status report, but makes a good start. Brian Unless ADs were > masochists who wanted to do all the work themselves, that pretty > much required that sort of status reports that he and Brian are > talking about. It also ensured that ADs were aware of what was > going on in all of the WGs for which they were responsible and > that, if there were two ADs in an area, they were talking with > each other. If those expectations were not met, someone > observing that would presumably have something very concrete to > tell the Nomcom. > > In the context of the current discussion, a set of well-written > and frequently-updated area reports could also be a big help to > a newcomer trying to navigate WG names and acronyms. I agree > that it would probably help to be more descriptive about WG > names rather than looking for things that will make cute > acronyms. Whether we move in that direction or not, most > newcomers and isolated/remote participants are going to find it > easier to identify an Area of interest than a specific WG. A > well-written Area Report that includes brief descriptions of the > main focus of each WG along with current status information > would be, IMO, a huge help in matching people and specific > interests. > > I think a Wiki or equivalent would be a fine way to maintain > such pages but, given how well we do about keeping benchmarks > and similar information up to date and the advantages deadlines > seem to bring, I'd like to see at least snapshots or the > equivalent in meeting minutes. > > john > > > > >