Subject: WG adoption threads

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2015 03:09:26 +1200

I've been watching several "WG adoption" threads since Prague,
and I have a question.

Is it useful for authors of a draft to send messages saying things
like "I support the adoption of this draft as a WG document." ?

I'm not asking whether it's right or wrong, just whether such
a message helps the WG Chairs in evaluating consensus.

(I see similar messages from non-authors, and I am definitely
doubtful about them unless they start with something like "I have
read this draft and...".)

   Brian

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2015 11:23:45 -0400

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> writes:

    Brian> (I see similar messages from non-authors, and I am definitely
    Brian> doubtful about them unless they start with something like "I
    Brian> have read this draft and...".)

I guess I generally assume the non-authors supporting adoption are
familiar with the draft and its approach even if they have not read the
full content.
I definitely think it's useful and necessary to get support from
non-authors.

I generally assume that authors support adoption of a draft.  I'd
certainly find "I don't support adoption of my own draft because blah
blah blah," a very informative comment in such a discussion:-)

---

From: Hosnieh Rafiee <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 15:25:59 +0000

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Brian E
> Carpenter
> 
> I've been watching several "WG adoption" threads since Prague, and I
> have a question.
> 
> Is it useful for authors of a draft to send messages saying things like
> "I support the adoption of this draft as a WG document." ?

> I'm not asking whether it's right or wrong, just whether such a message
> helps the WG Chairs in evaluating consensus.
> 
> (I see similar messages from non-authors, and I am definitely doubtful
> about them unless they start with something like "I have read this
> draft and...".)
> 

That's a good question... 

I also saw a few cases that they also included their reasons which was sometimes not strong enough and it was equal to the case where a person say only "I support" or "I do not support". e.g. very generic reason.
So, for me, it is helpful when the supporters say that what they like about a draft and why they think it is important to follow it further and non-supporters also bring the same reason on how they do not like the document and why they think it is not worth to follow it. 

I also saw sometimes that co-authors or authors also responded to such message from WG. I think it is like complement .. because never someone who worked or wrote the draft says "no".. and I don't know this is a fair voting..

Best,
Hosnieh

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 11:29:05 -0400

Brian,

As a chair, what I look for are any signs of non-consensus. I don't have a
problem with authors publicly supporting the adoption of their draft, it
helps to show consensus among the authors that the draft is ready for
adoption. As for non-authors, while the assumption is that someone has read
the draft before posting support, you can't always know that unless they
specifically mention it. However, that's less important to me than anyone
saying that a draft shouldn't be adopted, that usually leads to a good
discussion of the reasons why the draft shouldn't be adopted, followed by
an update to the draft to improve it prior to adoption (or perhaps a
discussion about updating the charter if the reason for non-adoption is
that it's out of scope).

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 08:38:19 -0700

Brian,

> On Aug 3, 2015, at 8:09 AM, Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

I think support is assumed by having their name listed as an author.  So it would be redundant in my view.  If an author said didn’t support adoption, that would be something to pay attention to.

Bob

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 10:44:57 -0500

> like "I support the adoption of this draft as a WG document." ?

As others have said, it's not quite noise.  How much signal there is
depends on whether the authors themselves sought adoption of the draft:
if they didn't then it's pure signal, otherwise it's noise but expected
and mostly harmless.

FWIW,

Nico
--

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 18:13:06 +0200

Hi Brian,

> like "I support the adoption of this draft as a WG document." ?

My gut/initial feeling when I started co-chairing a working group was 
also to really challenge the relevance of these answers.

Unfortunately, there are cases where authors appear on a draft but don't 
care really about its progress, or initially cared but do not anymore .
In such contexts considering them implicitly as supporters can lead to 
an unprecise evaluation of the support for the work.

Additionally, in some working groups the practice has been established 
to ask, along with the call for adoption, a reminder question to authors 
about IPR disclosure to help avoid that nothing has been delayed or 
forgotten.  When such a question is asked to authors, most of them also 
reply to the adoption question.  When from authors we got neither an 
answer on the IPR reminder question and on the adoption question, we end 
up considering they are not strong supporters of the work. ;-)

Best,

-Thomas

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ce message et ses pieces jointes peuvent contenir des informations confidentielles ou privilegiees et ne doivent donc
pas etre diffuses, exploites ou copies sans autorisation. Si vous avez recu ce message par erreur, veuillez le signaler
a l'expediteur et le detruire ainsi que les pieces jointes. Les messages electroniques etant susceptibles d'alteration,
Orange decline toute responsabilite si ce message a ete altere, deforme ou falsifie. Merci.

This message and its attachments may contain confidential or privileged information that may be protected by law;
they should not be distributed, used or copied without authorisation.
If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this message and its attachments.
As emails may be altered, Orange is not liable for messages that have been modified, changed or falsified.
Thank you.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2015 12:46:49 -0400

--On Tuesday, August 04, 2015 03:09 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Is it useful for authors of a draft to send messages saying
> things like "I support the adoption of this draft as a WG
> document." ?
>...
> doubtful about them unless they start with something like "I
> have read this draft and...".)

Brian,

I think there are some other, related, questions that may be
more relevant in different scenarios.  As a result, the answer
to your question may be "it depends on the WG and circumstances"
or just "it depends".  Some of those scenarios raise questions
for me about whether this whole business of WG adoption as a
major milestone is actually the right idea in all cases.

(1) Suppose, reflecting particularly on a comment about further
improvement in the document prior to adoption, someone says "I
think the document, as  it now appears, is garbage but that the
work area is important and the WG should adopt it so it can fix
it".   I contend that is _very_ useful input, but raises other
issues.

(2) Suppose, as suggested by another comment, some of the
authors have lost interest.  Should the "adoption" process also
be taken as an opportunity to review authorship... given that
authors/editors of WG documents are supposed to be appointed by
the WG Chairs and responsible to the WG and that our procedures
give the authors who did the initial versions of a document that
evolves into something adopted by a WG no rights to authorship
(or anything else) on the resulting document if the WG Chair(s)
believe they are not optimal for the "finishing" job. 

(3) Suppose the content of the document falls well within the
scope of the WG and does so clearly enough that, were it to
appear as an Individual Submission on IETF Last Call, there
would be demands for an opinion from the WG (either in its own
right or acting as an "independent technical review".   Is
avoiding that sort of issue at Last Call sufficient reason for
the WG to "adopt" the document as a triage measure?

(4) Suppose the authors prefer that the WG not adopt the
document because they really want to avoid the type of review
the WG would provide and therefore remain silent in the hope
that the adoption question will just go away?   Would a WG ever
wish that they have been obligated to explicitly take a position?

Really, I don't see this as any different from any other
consensus call as discussed in RFC 7282: "I'm in favor" and "I'm
opposed" statements are fairly useless as anything but
confirmation of decisions already tentatively made unless they
are accompanied by the reasons.

    john

---

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 12:56:23 -0400

> a message helps the WG Chairs in evaluating consensus.

Personally I find them annoying -- to me it always feels like "Me
too!", or a desperate attempt to make it look like there is support
for the document.

Obviously, if you do NOT support adoption (or WGLC) and are an author,
that is really important, and you should speak up, loudly!

As with everything, "it depends", but I assume that, if you are an
author of a document, that:
A: you wrote it for some reason
B: you'd like something to happen with it sometime and
C: you have been in contact with your co-authors. By the time there is
a CfA there should have already been some discussion on list, and so
both the WG and chairs should have some idea what's going on....

W

-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 10:13:57 -0700

> like "I support the adoption of this draft as a WG document." ?

As the thread of responses show, one can consider your question in a
number of ways.  My own is to suggest entirely ignoring who is sending
the note of support (or non-support) and instead ask about the substance
of their note.

WG adoption should be for material that is appropriate to the group and
that has rough consensus of support.  I'd hope that postings during an
adoption query help with both of these basic criteria.

Mindless 'me too' (per Warren's phrasing) smacks of politicking rather
than informed (non-)support.  So we should really press to have all
postings reflect helpful substance.  At the least:

   RFC 7221, Section 2.2

gives good guidance about the nature of the desired substance.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2015 16:41:43 -0800

> a message helps the WG Chairs in evaluating consensus.

I raised this last year on the wg chairs mailing list.  I personally
don't find it very helpful, although others have indicated that a
*lack* of support from authors would be interesting.

I generally don't like things that smack of voting, and that includes
"I support" messages that contain no other information.

Melinda

---

From: Benson Schliesser <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2015 23:43:09 -0400

Reading this thread makes me think of two points:

First, as a WG chair, I don't usually count messages. Or if I do, it's as
trivia more than anything else. I do care about the collective sentiment
(I.e. Consensus) and I care deeply about anything that might qualify as a
material issue. An adoption poll is really just a semi-organized period of
time during which I'll evaluate these more concertedly.

Second, when I ask the WG about adoption of a draft I try to indicate
whether I think consensus exists to adopt. I interpret responses in that
context. So, if I say that I think there is consensus to adopt then a bunch
of people agreeing with me doesn't mean much. But it's an opportunity to
hear material objections. I don't usually waste the WG's time on polls
unless I think there is consensus, but I suppose variations on this process
could work for other chairs.

Cheers,
-Benson

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2015 10:05:59 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
To: "IETF discussion list" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2015 4:09 PM

Brian

The case that interests me, not that I am ever involved in evaluating
consensus, is the I-D that has eight or ten authors listed on the first
page, an increasingly common occurence in the Routing Area.  How many of
those respond and what does that tell me about the likelihood of the
Working Group being able to agree and get incorporated changes?  I like
the model of an editor incorporating WG consensus so when only a
minority of the listed authors support adoption, I am tempted to oppose
(not that it makes any difference)!

Tom Petch

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2015 09:32:08 -0400

Tom,

WG adoption is also a great time, if necessary, for a WG chair to have a
conversation with the authors about reducing the number of authors on the
front page by moving some to a contributors section, and also have them
agree on who holds the pen as the primary editor, as a condition of WG
adoption.

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2015 17:40:44 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
To: "t.p." <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>; "IETF discussion
list" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 2:32 PM

> agree on who holds the pen as the primary editor, as a condition of WG

Yup, and every attempt I have made to make that happen has failed, as
some of the WG Chairs on this list will know:-(

Tom Petch

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2015 17:38:46 -0400

+1,  the few times I have it happen, it wasn't impressive at all, but 
made you more cynical of the recent more tolerated IETF process of 
"rubber stamping" and "fast tracking" documentation production,

RFC documents are made pretty fast now, and now a good bit are 
proposed standards!  Why bother with Informational and Experimental 
any more -- a waste of time.

-- 
HLS

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2015 17:50:43 -0400

I think the proposed standard push is probably due that we don't have 
proper modern documentation statuses for today's avalanche of 
communications methods.  I had once suggested that we might need a 
status called "Internet Method" (IM) that is not a standard but its 
also not an experiment and we wish it to be stronger than information 
status.  The current PS status generally trumps all other ideas and 
work within the IETF.  There is no competition any more for ideas. 
However, we have brilliant folks out there that simply wish to 
document, get on the record, and/or propose a new or enhanced method 
of doing things.  It really doesn't have a "standard" per se that 
requires such a high bar and threshold of endorsements across the 
board.  Because of that high threshold, I believe there has been a 
tendency to "rubber stamp and fast track" things that has became 
highly skeptical for many.

My view.

-- 
HLS

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2015 19:03:50 -0400

> read this draft and...".)

Define what is "read this draft?"   One can have a critical view of 
the document's idea without have to waste time "reading" it.

What I have found as a concern is when bad ideas are initiated, 
promoted and pushed by authors which often does start the chieftain 
syndrome by fine folks who really haven't "read" the document.

Thanks

-- 
HLS

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 16:28:55 +0200

I agree that  the adoption process/practice needs to solve that issue you
pointed out for. The way WG adopts may need some suggestions.

I think it is not useful, because it could encourage no comments. The focus
should be on non author's opinion, as they should answer the question is
the work ready/acceptable for adoption?

I agree. I understand that signals of authors announcing their adoption as
saying  '' come on WG let us adopt and discuss later any changes'', they
should include writing in those threads ''please discuss if there are any
comments''.  I think authors' announcement does not help me think nor
discuss with the WG. Specially it does not help me discuss with them
because they already announced as adopted. Not all authors like to discuss
their work, they may prefer WG adoption so they can move on.

Adoptions need to be discussed within meetings and list (both are
important) and evaluated. I agree that there is less quality in readings of
the majority of WG participants, many chairs do ask us to read all drafts,
but I hope we get more time or discussions.

AB

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 17:05:04 +0100

This might help http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/group/edu/attachment/wiki/IETF78/IETF78-WGchairs-Adrian-Farrel.ppt?format=raw

---

From: Larry Masinter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 15:23:21 +0000

“do you support the adoption of this draft as a WG document.”

isn’t the right question;  chairs should be asking:

“Does this draft meets the criteria for adoption in this WG”

I think it matters what you ask for in a “call for consensus”;
and much better to focus on the reasons and not individual’s
opinions about the action.

The criteria should include “in scope for the WG” but also
some recasting of the criteria of RFC 2418 section 2.1; here’s

a rough cut:

“Criteria for adoption of new work in an existing working group"

* Is the work within the scope of the charter of the group?
  (Some “catch-all” groups have broad scope, others more narrow.)

    - Are the goals specific and reasonably achievable, and achievable
  within a reasonable time frame?

    - Is the level of effort required (based on an estimate of
  the risks and urgency of the work) consistent with the
  working group’s schedule?

    - Does the topic of the new work overlap with those of another
  working group? If so, are there sufficient reasons to
  take on the work and the coordination required?

    - Is there sufficient interest (within the working group and
  the IETF as a whole) in the new work’s topic,
  with enough people willing to expend the effort to
  produce the desired result (e.g., a protocol specification)?

- Quality work require considerable effort, including management
  of process (e.g., a “document shepherd”), editing (document
  editors), and review by the expected community of use.
  The interest must be broad enough that the work could not be
  seen as merely the activity of a single vendor.

    - Is there enough expertise within the working group in the 
  work’s topic, and are those people interested in contributing
  to the work?

    - Does a base of interested consumers (end-users) appear to exist
  for the planned work?  Consumer interest can be measured by
  participation of end-users within the IETF process, as well as by
  less direct means.

    - Does the IETF have a reasonable role to play in the determination
  of the technology?  There are many Internet-related technologies
  that may be interesting to IETF members but in some cases the IETF
  may not be in a position to effect the course of the technology in
  the "real world".  This can happen, for example, if the technology
  is being developed by another standards body or an industry
  consortium.

    - Are all known intellectual property rights relevant to the
  proposed work issues understood?

    - Is the proposed work plan an open IETF effort or is it an attempt
  to "bless" non-IETF technology where the effect of input from IETF
   participants may be limited?

    - Is there a good understanding of any existing work that is
   relevant to the topics that the proposed working group is to
  pursue?  This includes work within the IETF and elsewhere.

    - Does the work overlap with known work in another
  standards body, and if so is adequate liaison in place?

Working group members are encouraged to express opinions about
these questions, so the working group chair may determine
if there is rough consensus that the work being proposed meets
the criteria for adoption.