Spencer,
I want to express slight disagreement on one of your points (the
others are clearly, at least to me, on-target)...
--On Thursday, 19 April, 2007 08:03 -0500 Spencer Dawkins
<spencer at mcsr-labs.org> wrote:
...
- We have been encouraging greater separation of roles (an
extreme case of non-separated roles is a document editor who
is also the working group chair, the document shepherd, and
the responsible AD for the working group). We've been saying
that having ADs chair WGs in their own area is not a good
thing. We've been saying that having WG chairs edit major
documents in their own area is not a good thing. We may want
to provide guidance that having ADs chair WG meetings in their
own area, especially where there is no other person acting as
chair, is not a good thing, and that the ADs really need to
find someone else who is willing to chair the meeting, and who
is not involved as the next step on the appeals ladder.
If a WG is in trouble -- not in terms of the peculiarities of a
particular meeting, but more generally -- and especially if it
is showing signs of long-term deadlock or paralysis about
particular issues, and the usual chair(s) are not available,
then my first preference would be to have someone in the chair
who has a good knowledge of the issues and a responsibility both
for balance about particular issues and, as you point out, for
balancing fairness and progress. In many cases, that finger is
going to point to the relevant AD(s). I'd hate to make a rule
that would prevent their sitting in the chair for a particular
meeting if, in their judgment, that was the best way to
facilitate both fairness and progress. If they had to recuse
themselves from later IESG decision-making discussions on the
subject, I think that is a reasonable price to pay: if the WG
doesn't manage to reach conclusions, the IESG won't have the
chance to examine the relevant documents.
...
In summary - not a good situation, but one that is being
handled correctly at this point. Let's let the WG chairs, and
the ADs, do their jobs and see where we end up.
indeed.
john
