Scott, Thanks. You have summarized the reasons why I get the creeps each time a suggestion is made that we lower the expectations for area-specific technical skill in the AD job, turn the AD role into one of process management and checking, or give WGs final authority over standardizing decisions (all of which, at least on this dimension, amount to the same thing). However, while performing or ensuring cross-area review is the most important aspect of the IETF's almost-unique approach, a strong and technical AD review role also provides some protection against a WG that becomes dominated by a narrow set of organizations or interests and that therefore produces results that are favorable to those interests rather than the Internet more broadly. Standards bodies that do not have technical review beyond the WG (or equivalent) that develops the proposal typically deal with that issue by scrutinizing WG membership and insisting on various statistical measures of balance. No one has figured out how to make that work (insofar as it works at all) without organizational, rather than, individual membership and participation, so the implications are fairly wide-ranging. best, john --On Sunday, November 15, 2015 15:10 -0500 "Scott O. Bradner" <sob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Maybe I missed it, but I do not recall seeing mention in this > thread of a significant aspect of an ADs role – reviewing > documents from outside there area – i.e., the > cross-jurisdictional review step that the IESG review > represents. > > This is a major differentiator between the IETF and most other > IT standards development organizations. In most other > organizations the only technical expertise applied to a > proposal comes from within a working group (working party > etc) – a group that will always have a limited scope of > expertise > > The IESG's cross-area review ensures that proposals undergo > review by experts in areas that will likely not be represented > within a particular working group. > > Documents, no matter how clearly written, produced by an > individual working group, no matter the level of subject > matter expertise, can benefit from careful review by experts > who have expertise outside the scope of the people > participating in the working group. > > When I was an AD (a rather long time ago now) I saw many > documents where inadequate attention had been paid to > security, congestion control, manageability, etc. > > i.e., it is not sufficient to say, as has been said during > this thread, that the onus should fall on a working group > chair to ensure the quality of the documents that are > produced by a working group, the best documents can be made > better, in terms of being used on the Internet, by the > cross-area review done by the IESG.