Subject: Re: Is this an elephant? [Was: call for ideas: tail-heavy IETF process]

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 14:38:45 +0200

On May 15, 2013, at 4:30 PM, Adrian Farrel <adrian at olddog.co.uk> wrote:
> The claim (or one of the claims) is that some ADs may place Discusses that
> are
> intended to raise a discussion with the authors/WG that could equally have
> been
> raised with a Comment or through direct email. This, it is claimed, may
> unnecessarily delay the document from completing the publication process.

Discussions should have a time limit (can be one week), like we have
in meetings (2hours), if there is time we can know when things are
needed to respond to, I usually ignore when there is no milestones or
planing-time. Does IESG have milestones for documents
processing/discussions?

>
> Now the dangerous bit,
>
> Suppose the AD raised her concern by writing a Comment or sending an email
> and
> balloting "No Objection." That would mean that the I-D would be approved
> for
> publication.
>
> At this point either:
> - the discussion goes on, but the document becomes an RFC anyway
> or
> - the responsible AD holds the document pending satisfactory completion of
> the
> discussion.

That AD SHOULD not hold for unlimited time, also should discuss the
issue with the WG related in limited time.
>
> I suggest that the former is a bad result. Not that the authors/WG will
> ignore
> the discussion, but if they disagree on something the AD considers very
> important, the authors/WG have no incentive to participate in the
> discussion.

Only community rough concensus will decide the final result,
> Of
> course, all participants in this thread so far would never behave like that,
> but
> there is a possibility that this will happen for some authors.

Yes only if there is no time limits for work that should be done,

>
> I also suggest that the latter introduces exactly the same amount of delay
> as
> the Discuss.

There is always possibility of large delay in systems that have no
time limits for processing or responds. Our time/work used is
important for IETF, IMO, no one should hold work/time only if able to
decide/notify/plan when/how to leave it go for all reaction
possibilities.

AB

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 15:55:49 +0200

On 2013-05-16 14:38, Abdussalam Baryun wrote:

> Discussions should have a time limit (can be one week),

I totally disagree, DISCUSSES are our friends, they need to be
discussed until we have rough consensus; it seems to be a
manifestly bad idea to draw a deadline after seven days, if
someone come up with a satisfactory solution on the eighth.

99,9% of the DISCUSSES improve our documents or the understanding
of them.

/Loa

like we have

-- 

Loa Andersson                        email: [email-masked]
Senior MPLS Expert                          [email-masked]
Huawei Technologies (consultant)     phone: +46 739 81 21 64

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 10:07:34 -0400

Please distinguish between (1) making the system efficient and (2) making
individual documents go through it quickly.  If you put time limits on
parts of the process, you're not allowing them to function correctly.
 Putting arbitrary time limits on will hurry things up but it will not
produce higher quality results.

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 16:08:28 +0200

Hi Loa,

I agree with you discussions are our friend. I was focusing on
processing time, not document quality. No dought if you stay longer
time you will get better quality, but what about progress. So I mean
call for discussions is for a time limit, as if no discussion happends
then the call matures and the holding of the work stops as well. If
DISCUSS is continue I never like to close it as long as it is
continuous, but not delayed. In practice I never seen that DISCUSS of
ADs with the WGs are having much continuous communication, it is delay
with no time schedule.

> 99,9% of the DISCUSSES improve our documents or the understanding

I know that DISCUSSES with WGs improves our documents (don't forget
that WGs are following milestones and WGLC periods), but DISCUSSES
that have no time limit makes more delays. I hope we see similar times
of WG into the IESG, so the communication can improve the processing
time.

AB

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 16:11:12 +0200

> produce higher quality results.

Ok, so do you agree, that if who holds the work, at least should tell
us HOW long he is holding or what is the time PLAN. Do you think
working without plan is efficient and gives good quality.

AB

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 2013 10:22:59 -0400

> working without plan is efficient and gives good quality.

We generally rely on judgment in this regard, not on time limits and
deadlines.  We do sometimes set deadlines (milestones in charters,
timeouts on last calls, fixed telechat dates, alerts when things take
too long), but we also give leeway (we know how solid charter
milestones aren't, and no one will ignore important, useful input just
because it came in after last call).

Someone is always responsible for determining when a discussion is no
longer productive (shepherds, chairs, responsible ADs), and someone is
responsible for moving things forward.  Reminders to those who are
responsible, telling them that things seem to be dragging, are fine.
Strict time limits are generally not how we prefer to work.

Barry