The IETF General Area

The General Area also hosts several ongoing teams, which are listed right at the bottom of the IESG page.

Additionally, the General Area Review Team provides generalist reviews for the General Area director, giving an additional set of eyes checking documents as they are being considered for publication.

Relevant links

• The official General Area page
• The IETF Chair's page
• The General Area review team

Recent drafts of interest to the General Area

Also see current draft IONs.

• draft-carpenter-rescind-3683 (in IESG discussion, but probably dead in this form)
• draft-carpenter-rfc2026-critique (personal opinion)
• draft-klensin-nomcom-term
• draft-galvin-maillists
• draft-carpenter-ietf-disputes (personal opinion)
• draft-carpenter-newtrk-questions (personal opinion)
• draft-carpenter-ietf-chair-tasks (personal opinion)
• draft-klensin-chair-empowerment
• draft-klensin-norm-ref (in IESG discussion)
• draft-davies-pesci-initial-considerations
• draft-davies-pesci-next-steps
• draft-narten-iana-considerations-rfc2434bis
• draft-palet-ietf-meeting-network-requirements (IAOC responsibility)
• draft-narten-successful-bof
• draft-palet-ietf-meeting-venue-selection-criteria (IAOC responsibility)

Recent IONs and RFCs of interest to the General Area

• ion-procdocs
• Procedures for Protocol Extensions and Variations (BCP)
• RFC 3978 Update to Recognize the IETF Trust (BCP)
• Requirements for IETF Technical Publication Service
• IETF Operational Notes (Experimental)
• Guidelines for Acting as an IETF Liaison to Another Organization
• The Tao of IETF: A Novice's Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force
• Experiment in Long-Term Suspensions From Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Mailing Lists (Experimental)
• Getting Rid of the Cruft: Report from an Experiment in Identifying and Reclassifying Obsolete Standards Documents
• BCP 101 Update for IPR Trust (BCP)
• The IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) Member Selection Guidelines and Process (BCP)
• Requirements for an IETF Draft Submission Toolset
• IAB and IESG Recommendation for IETF Administrative Restructuring
• Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) (BCP)

Tasks of the General Area Director

1. The General AD has the tasks of any AD for his or her own area - remain attentive to emerging ideas, foster BOFs and WGs as appropriate, manage those WGs, shepherd their drafts and any relevant independent submissions. Although the General Area is in theory for any work not covered elsewhere, it is in practice limited to non-technical topics, i.e. IETF process topics. This does create a curious meta-problem, which is the constant concern about conflict of interest for an Area Director shepherding and advocating work that affects (positively or negatively) his or her own job.
2. By convention, the General AD oversees several ad hoc teams chartered by the IESG.
3. The General AD also has the tasks of any AD - reviewing all drafts, WG charters, and any other matters under consideration by the IESG. In a busy fortnight, this can represent 20 or 30 documents to review. Recent General ADs have successfully delegated much of the review load to a General Area Review Team, without which most drafts would remain unread in the General Area.