--On Monday, October 1, 2018 09:27 +0000 tom petch
<daedulus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> The weakness, for me,
> manifests itself in the lack of input by WG Chairs. Thus I
> would like such chairs to be discouraged from creating I-Ds,
> rather focussing on helping other people's I-Ds progress.
> When a chair creates an I-D, then they are spending less time
> on managing the work of others, they cannot themselves perform
> the role of the chair w.r.t. the I-D, they may have a conflict
> of interest between the ideas in their I-D and those of other
> I-Ds, all bad news for progress. I think, too, that chairs
> should be restrained in their comments, being more in the role
> of a casting vote, rather than cheer-leader for any particular
> idea.
>...
Tom,
Out of curiosity and to test your reasoning, how do you feel
about ADs creating I-Ds? Your argument would seem to apply even
more strongly to them, at least unless the I-D reflects an
already-mostly-established IESG position. In the latter case,
there is a question of whether the IESG (or especially those
AD-authors) can adequately and fairly judge IETF consensus about
their own documents. Perhaps that is a different topic, but,
given your cheerleader remark, perhaps not.
Along the same lines, do you think we need explicit guidelines
about any or all of:
* AD creates document, then processes it as AD-sponsored? If
yes to this one, does it make any different if some other AD
sponsors it as a favor?
* Person in AD's department at work is the listed author for a
document the AD then sponsors?
* Document author is the spouse, significant other, or best
buddy of an AD who then AD sponsors the document? Or said
person is appointed as a WG Chair?
While I'm aware of several of those scenarios having occurred,
I'm not aware of any actual abuse or unfair treatment of others
or of dissenting opinions. However, the optics are not
wonderful and, if there was abuse and it were tolerated, it
might give some organizations an incentive to try to "stack" the
Nomcom in order to get people on the IESG who would give them
power.
If your answer is "yes" to any of the above, does it make a
difference if the documents are standards-track or Informational?
best,
john
