One more comment and then an alternative thought experiment: On 08-Nov-19 08:44, Nico Williams wrote: .... >> But my guess is that the only way to get buy-in for Prototype specifications >> would be to convincingly promise faster development. > > Yes. That includes faster RFC-Editor turnarounds. If we remove the > other bottlenecs, then RFC-Editor queue time will become the next > bottleneck to address. In my experience (i.e. I have not run stats) the long delays are mainly caused by missing normative references, i.e. are a result of IETF rules and IETF slowness, not a problem caused in any way by the RFC service. The quickest way to improve the RFC queue statistics would be to abolish the rule that I-Ds cannot be used as normative references. Anyway: my new experiment would be one that the IESG could decide to start tomorrow. It's simply that the IESG would only ever issue one form of DISCUSS ballot, which would look like this: Pat Areadirector has entered the following ballot position for draft-ietf-somewg-somedraft-99: Discuss .... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCUSS: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There are still open issues from the following reviews: <links to reviews> In other words, the IESG simply busy-waits until all review issues have been resolved, rather than finding and fixing the issues personally. (If an AD wishes to post a review for a given draft, that would be a personal choice, not part of the IESG workload.) This is a procedural change, and would not prevent a substantive DISCUSS in unusual circumstances. Brian