On 8/12/2014 5:17 AM, Stephen Farrell wrote: > > Ray, > > On 12/08/14 11:10, Ray Pelletier wrote: >> We just lost another 10% (?) from this list. At Plenary in Toronto >> several folks admitted to unsubscribing years ago from this list. >> Without judging whether or not the community needs a list for all the >> varied discussions that take place here, isn't it time for a Last >> Call list? > > FWIW, I'm not convinced. Those already go to IETF-announce and > I bet a LC-discuss list would have all the same issues. I also > think there's a bunch of folks who'd object and haven't seen > their objections discussed, but I could be wrong there. > > Adding the #subscribers to the Narten numbers might be useful > though so we could see the evolution of list-size. I've been resistant to a separate list, primarily because the benefit of the IETF-wide last call process is broad and frankly accidental review. Unexpected folk looking at a document can find unexpected issues. This is goodness, IMO. A separate list would be expected to have much smaller and narrower participation and thereby reduce that benefit of happenstance review. However this IETF list mixes many topics, including one of serious review. Worse, the lack of discipline in the conduct of discussions on the IETF list ensures very poor signal-to-noise. And having its membership drop off precipitously certainly undermines any expectation of broad review... If a separate list were created with an explicit charter to be for review comments and discussion only, and if the list were operated with explicit and active management to ensure discussion focus, tracking of issues, and the rest of what is needed to create a serious tone of serious discussion, then it well might be able to achieve meaningful improvement over what we have now. This would mean explicitly declaring who the facilitator is for each review request. (I doubt it is viable to have a single person do it for all reviews.) d/ ps. Reviews are not only for document last calls. we have some other items (charters?) that have comments solicitied. Whatever the list is called and whatever is written into its charter, it should be careful to state what is in scope and what is out. And announcement notes should be careful to point to the alternative list. -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net