Re: are we willing to do change how we do discussions in IETF? (was: moving from hosts to sponsors)

[Michael Thomas <mat at cisco.com>]

Keith Moore wrote:

> > There's already a means for "external reviewers" to do so: read the drafts,
> > make comments, add issues to the issue tracker. It's really  not rocket
> > science.
> >    
> That's not quite sufficient, because most WGs aren't proceeding according to good engineering discipline (e.g. they're doing things in the wrong order, like trying to define the protocol before the problem space is understood), there's little external visibility of what the WG is doing (so it's difficult to make timely input without actually following the entirety of the mailing list discussion), and often, nobody with any authority over the WG is checking to see whether the WG is actually responding appropriately to such comments.  A more formal process is necessary.
>  

By whose standard? If you think that's going on, I'd think it would be
appropriate to take it up with the relevent WG chairs and AD's. Last
I heard, they're the stakeholders.

> > Having some new sclerotic "pipeline" involved with the life 
> > blood of a
> > working group sounds like a recipe for working group infarction to me.
> >    
>
> In other words, we don't want to distract WGs with useful input ... better that they should keep their heads in the sand for the entire 2-3 years of their existence and then produce irrelevant or even harmful output.  And that way, maybe a few influential people within the WG can coerce the WG into producing something that favors their employers' short-term interest even if it harms other interests or glosses over important limitations.
>  
I repeat:

> There's already a means for "external reviewers" to do so: read the drafts,
> make comments, add issues to the issue tracker. It's really  not rocket
> science.
>  
What you seem to want is some sort of cabal of dilettants who
don't actually have to pay very much attention, but by their
rank alone get to exercise veto power. Yuck. I don't suppose 
you have anybody in mind for such an IETF version of landed gentry?

		Mike

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