On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Adrian Farrel <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,
Mutter.
> > The IESG defines the job and the IESG 'operates' the model. So yes,
> > formally the IESG controls this issue.
I suppose the seated IESG defines what it does.
Or more precisely, each member of the IESG decides what (sadly) he should do to
best serve in the role.
But don't see the "job requirements" put out by NomCom as the IESG placing
requirements.
The NomCom asks the IESG what skills and tasks are needed in the view of the
current IESG.
The IESG serves up this information and NomCom can do with it as it likes.
More important, the community can and should tell the NomCom what it wants the
IESG to do and not do.
How can the community know what is happening on the table of NomCom or on the table of IESG. They need to announce information of such requirements, opportunities, questions, decisions,
I don't know what I want IESG/NomCom to do or not to do if I don't know (i.e. receive announcements) why they are doing things in such way and why they are not doing things in such way. We need good statistics information of the past history (community discussions and IESG decisions and reasons), we have a week history documentations but still we have old participants discussing and can be good advisers (will take longer time in process than documenting issues) today but not sure of tomorrow. The General Area has no WG, that means the IETF is weak in documentations of its decisions reason history.
Which cuts into what Peter says since from where I sit there are many calls on
> > It would be better for the IESG to take the initiative here and formally
> > and publicly re-define the job, but it has so far ignored such requests.
the time of an AD and it would be useful to know which tasks the community would
like me to not do (I think that I and my chief sponsor would both be happy if I
spent more time working for them and less working as an AD).
I don't think I want to distroy few tasks of ADs, it is better to know what makes them do what they are doing, did the past community ask them to do it or it is the need of the job nature. We should be careful if we start to think to reduce tasks, because there may be many consequences, I prefer delegating tasks and AD just reviews and signs outputs,
Right. Ask:
> It might be helpful to talk about what could change, such as:
>
> 1. Less/no time on document reviews.
Do the reviews currently done by ADs make a difference to the quality of
individual documents or the overall canon?
Yes, IMHO, the ADs review is a MUST in the process.
Would we be happy to publish RFCs with lower quality?
NO, any low quality output means low number of users/trusts, which will distroy the IETF future,
Are there other ways to reliably improve the quality (like, for example, the
community doing proper reviews of their own work)?
This is true, the community SHOULD do more work, but don't forget that we need more leaders, to direct the community which means we need more diversity and quality.
Could discussions of Discusses go more smoothly and take less effort?
Yes, but if every one respects each other, and if each WG chair never ignores inputs to meetings/WG-list, and if ADs never ignore comments on documents.
Note:
I spend more time (factor of more than 2) reviewing I-Ds when publication is
requested (from a WG) than I do reviewing at IESG evaluation.
That is the key of IETF good quality and quality of Area outputs, so each AD reviews all related Area documents.
Right. Ask:
> 2. Less time managing working groups.
Does the management of working groups improve the output?
Yes, they SHOULD be responsible, as does the AD select the Chairs and can fire them,
Would we be happy to allow WGs to "muddle through"?
The WG is already responsible, so they should always comment on related issues. I was always commenting in MANET WG, but some day I got a message from the Chair saying that my messages on the list are very high and it is disturbing the WG, which I think is reducing efforts and discouraging me to add value. Some Lists in IETF still have personal response and some WG documents are not acknowledging efforts, because their editors still think the document is theirs not owned by WG.
Could WG chairs somehow (magically?) take more responsibility and get stuff done
(some chairs do)?
I think there should be more chairs if possible, but that depends on the AD strategy or management,
Note:
A few of my WGs/chairs take most of my management time.
I don't put a lot of time into managing WGs unless something goes badly wrong.
Things go wrong when the manager/Chair responsible ignores issues, and leaves things for the future,
Right. Ask:
> 3. Fewer working groups to manage.
Should an AD close a WG with a small number of people doing productive work
slowly?
No, but a warning is good to encourage them to bring more people into the WG. There is not person that cannot bring more interests in the IETF, because IETF is a friendly environment and accepts remote participants, not only f2f participants. Please note I understood that you mean small number of all participants not only f2f participants.
Should we refuse to open new WGs until we have finished other work?
No we never SHOULD discourage work for the Internet community, but recharters of old WGs SHOULD not happen often, I prefer changing old names and making joints between WGs when the time of charter expiry comes. I prefer reducing numbers of individual documents not WGs, because don't forget if you stop new WGs you may get many individual work into IETF.
Could we reduce the number of WGs per AD by increasing the number of ADs?
Yes that might be but needs a good reason, this depends on IESG decisions. I prefer creating assistant ADs and leaving only two ADs per Area.
Note:
Even if management of the WG is not issue, each WG produces documents to be
managed, so reducing the number does have a direct impact.
Agree
Frankly, with the new tooling, this doesn't take more than a few hours per IETF
> 6. Less/no involvement with creating the schedule.
meeting cycle.
And that does point up a good question to ask the IESG in general - what
additional tools could significantly reduce your work load?
Agree
And, since I do track my time at quite a fine granularity...
> Perhaps some time and motion studies are in order to figure out how ADs
> spend their time. In my experience, document reviews required a major
> time commitment.
Email takes up a large lump.
Got to skim the mailing lists for each of my WGs every week.
Got to skim the mailing lists for other WGs in my area every month.
Got to skim IETF-announce and IETF-disgust daily.
Another 15 or so IETF lists that I skim weekly.
A few related lists (such as NANOG) that I skim when I can.
Emails directed to me that need attention "at once".
That is a good list of tasks, and I encourage not only ADs to do that but ALL participants to do that,
Please don't assume we ADs want this to be full time work.
Please do tell us what you don't want us to do, and what you would like us to do
less.
The AD SHOULD do less job in managing WGs, because WGs should not fight in arguments, but they should be responsible to find the way without directions from an AD. All participants should behave like the Chair in the WG, this make the AD happy.
Consider whether the "IETF management" could be separated from the "document
quality".
That will be great if it is possible, but still the IETF SHOULD work harder on its mentoring and marketing to get to that stage. Having participants acting working hard like ADs will make WG quality which will make that separation true ( separate of managment quality from document quality).
AB