Sarah, My apologies, but my frustration level with aspects of this process was getting sufficiently high that I needed to take some time off lest I say something offensive or that I would otherwise regret. In addition, I had a couple of standards track documents in the IESG's processing queue and needed to give them priority. Ignoring (and eliding) things that I can remember others covering and some that seem completely OBE, inline below... --On Friday, September 13, 2019 09:34 -0700 Sarah Banks <sbanks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi John, > Let me answer inline. SB// with <snips> > >> On Sep 13, 2019, at 7:44 AM, John C Klensin >> <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > <snip> > >> >> First I think Mike's "try this" effort to recast the SOW is a >> step in the right direction but skips over, probably wisely, a >> key point. If the comments and suggestion in this note go >> nowhere, I think his draft is a better starting point than >> your/ the RSOC's original proposal. > Speaking for myself, I do not think the SOW as written by Mike > holds true for me. You can't beat up the IAB and RSOC for > steering the process in some (potential) nefarious way, then > effectively do the exact same and ask the community to bless > it in the week left of a comment period. The community did not > agree at the mic about what to do, or even what we disagreed > on as a whole, and so the IAB outlined a plan for giving the > community time to do it's thing, but keep docs flowing is > something I believe firmly in. With my own community hat on, I > WANT that. IMO we clearly need that. And while I haven't yet > shared my opinions on what should happen next, cramming it > into a weeks review of the SOW is wrong. Sorry. It's very > important to me that we agree, or get rough consensus called, > and I just don't see how that can happen in a week. I'd argue > it already hasn't. We've had a few folks +1 Mike's SOW, but > that's hardly indicative of the community as a whole. Others have commented about part of this. Your line of reasoning above essentially makes a call for community comments useless because someone (or a committee, board, or other group) can always say "we made a proposal, there wasn't very clear and obvious support for something else, and therefore we are going with our proposal". A few years ago I would have argued this was unnecessary, but it may be time that the IETF considers a rule that, if a proposal originates with a given body, that body is not allowed to be the determiner of consensus on that proposal or alternatives to it. Equally important and reinforced by experience in the last few weeks, we end up with late review --not only in the last week but even after the Last Call on a document ends-- and, however inconvenient that is, we consider them on their merits rather than discarding them because someone didn't make them early enough. Even later, IESG members can (and often do) show up with comments within the 24 hours (or much later) before a telechat and require that the issues raised be considered. So, as a community, we do what you suggest is unreasonable and do it all the time. I recognize that we are in a bit of a crisis here and that you need to keep the documents flowing. But I'm not sure that is much different from a technical specification on whose approval organizations and other work are depending getting held up because of late comments from the community and the IESG. And messing this up in a way that reduces the quality of the documents coming out of that flow wouldn't be wise either. Remember that the RSOC and IAB do have a choice in this: the main thing that really requires critical leadership in the next few months is the transition to v3. It would be sad to put that process on hold, but probably sadder to mess it up for the long term by putting people and a structure in place that cannot make competent long-term decisions the community will be comfortable with. I'm not suggesting doing that; I'm only suggesting that the RSOC and IAB should not pretend it is not an option. >... Because I've been attacked recently for writing notes that are too long, I'm just going to stop here rather than addressing the rest of your comments on my comments. I do want to point out one thing that I think others have said as well -- the SOW (the RSOC's, Mike's, or a different one) and whatever process follows it had best find someone with sufficient knowledge, and knowledge-based opinions, to be able to do the job. Otherwise, the decisions that need to be made on a day-to-day basis are just not going to happen (at least consistently) unless they are actually made by the RSOC or IAB by micromanaging. But, if you get someone with that level of knowledge and the community discussions lead to the conclusion that the job description and, hence the person appointed, were wrong, you would be headed into a management mess of very severe proportions with a high risk of the appointee working in perfectly good faith but in a direction to which the community is opposed. So I know you are in a hurry and I understand and sympathize with the reasons, but I'm not sure that justifies the kind of haste that could lead to an even worse situation. best, john
