Re: are we willing to do change how we do discussions in IETF?

[Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch at muada.com>]

On 24-jun-2006, at 4:26, Keith Moore wrote:

> IETF is already plunging toward irrelevance at terminal velocity.   
> The only way to
> arrest the descent is for it to start producing better quality and  
> more relevant
> specifications.  A good start would be for it to actually pay some  
> attention to the problem definition and rough specification phases  
> and to conduct them in an environment where they can get meaningful  
> review outside of a narrow community.

I don't think the solution is more hoops to jump through. Unless I'm  
mistaken, the IESG already has significant lattitude in rejecting  
protocols or imposing additional requirements. Building in stuff to  
save the day in the cases where the IESG gets it wrong is a waste of  
everyone's time, IMO. Lightening the IESG's load so they can reflect  
on the errors of their ways sooner would be more helpful in those cases.

I don't know about "narrow community", but I agree that good reviews  
are essential. Reviewing is hard, especially with long documents /  
complex specifications (unfortunately it still seems some RFC writers  
are paid by the word) and also when there are many dependencies. And  
there's essentially nothing in it for the reviewer, so only people  
who are very much in favor or very much against something bother,  
with the former probably not being in the best position to uncover  
hidden problems.

In my opinion, if the IETF could make it worth someone's while in one  
way or another to do a thorough review, that would help a lot.

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