Hi Dave, Adrian,
At 07:14 03-01-2014, The IESG wrote:
The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
the following document:
- 'Creating an IETF Working Group Draft'
<draft-crocker-id-adoption-05.txt> as Informational RFC
The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
Thanks for writing this document. Over a year ago there was a
discussion on the a working group mailing list about the (WG)
adoption of a draft. It highlighted that a significant number of
participants do not share the same view of what they are being asked
when there is a call for adoption of a draft. The lack of
documentation, whether formal or informal, makes it difficult for
someone new to understand what is being asked. I don't have a strong
opinion about whether the documentation should be in a Wiki or a RFC.
From Section 1.2:
"A core premise of IETF working groups is that the working group has
final authority over the content of its documents, within the
constraints of the working group charter. No individual has special
authority for the content."
This can be interpreted in different ways. It has been stated that
the document editor is responsible for ensuring that a draft
accurately reflects the decisions that have been made by the working
group. The above text can be read as meaning that the document
editor does not have any authority over the editorial changes. An
alternative would be to drop the "no individual ..." sentence.
In Section 3:
"NOTE: The distinction between an 'author' and an 'editor' is, at
best, subjective. A simplistic rule of thumb is that editors tend
to do the mechanics of incorporating working group detail, whereas
tend to create the detail, subject to working group approval."
The word "authors" may be missing before "whereas tend ...".
In Section 4:
"Absent charter restrictions, a working group is free to create new
documents."
Such decisions can be controversial. It is stated (in another
document) that a charter
is a contract between a working group and the IETF to perform a set
of tasks. As an example, a charter might not mention that the
working group can work on standardizing X. The working group Chair
posts a message about the intent to adopt a draft about standardizing
X. It might not be clear to some participants that the working group
intended to take on such work as that task was not mentioned in the
charter. To say it differently, a person may consider the new
document as something minimal where the administrative overhead is
not worth the effort; someone else might consider that he or she has
not been given a fair chance to submit a proposal (see competing
draft discussed in Section 5.2).
In Section 4:
"It is not required that all drafts start as the effort of an idividual."
There is a typo for "individual".
In Section 5:
"If the working group has already adopted an I-D on a specific
topic, the posting of a new individual I-D on the same topic
could be seen as an attack on the working group processes or
decisions. However, posting an I-D is often a good way to put
new ideas into concrete form and into the public domain for
consideration and discussion."
As a nit the draft is not in the public domain. That term is
sometimes read as "no one owns or controls the material in any
way". The quoted text mentions that posting a new (individual) draft
can be seen as an attack but it is a good way to put ideas in
concrete form. It is like saying doing X is good but if a person
does X the person will look bad. It is not clear what the guide to
common practice is.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy