Subject: Re: Please Review Draft IESG Statement on Activities that are OBE

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:43:04 -0800

Thomas Narten said:

"At the 20k level, I pretty much agree with everything John has said.
This smells to me mostly of a way for the IESG to have an friendlier
way of shutting down a WG without huring people's feelings. Sorry, but
I think this missed the point. (I would be fine with individual cases
being closed due to OBE, but even then the reasons will be nuanced and
not covered by a broad statement.)

OBE is not well defined, and folk will just start arguing about
whether something really is OBE or not. I.e, we're just moving the
problem elsewhere. In some cases, the problem may be easier to solve
this way, but in others I doubt it."

I agree with this.   The IESG should have the right to close a WG for
a wide variety of reasons, including lack of progress.  Whatever those
reasons might be, they should be subject to a approval by the IESG
as a whole, as well as confirmation by IETF consensus.  

Given this, I don't believe that this draft IESG statement really 
helps much.  If the IESG feels unable to close WGs that
need to be closed, then they should write a document addressing
this issue and bring it to IETF last call.   This doesn't necessarily
require RFC 2026bis (though getting that done is also necessary,
but a subject for another discussion).