Specific suggestions to improve San Diego agenda [Was RE: San Diego Agenda issues]

["Vishal Sharma" <v.sharma@ieee.org>]

Adrian and Kireeti,

Continuing with my previous email.... per your request
below, here are some specific suggestions on how the
agenda for San Diego can be improved to remove the
pressure on it, thus benefitting the WG as a whole.

-Vishal

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ccamp@ops.ietf.org [mailto:owner-ccamp@ops.ietf.org]On
> Behalf Of Adrian Farrel
> Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 4:01 AM
> To: ccamp@ops.ietf.org
> Subject: San Diego Agenda issues
>
>
> All,
>
> At the risk of seeming petulant...
>
> You CANNOT [RFC2119] have both all drafts discussed and a
> reasonable length discussion on
> any draft.
>
> After Seoul we were told in the strongest terms by WG
> participants and by the ADs that we
> MUST facilitate discussion at the face-to-face meeting. Thirty
> five-minute slots may fill
> the time, but will achieve nothing.
>
> We have made a draft agenda which is now full. We completely
> understand that the work that
> you are doing in your drafts is more important than anything
> anyone in the world is doing
> at the moment, but we do not understand how you propose to cover
> your drafts on the agenda
> as it now stands.
>
> Of course, the chairs are only your humble servants, and if it is
> the will of the WG to
> change the agenda that is fine with us so long as:
> - it fits within the priorities and milestones in the charter
> - it conforms to the requirements passed to us by the ADs
> - we do not end up with tiny slots and no discussion on any draft
>
> So, ask yourselves:
> - why does my draft need discussion in SD?
> - why can't the discussion be on the list?
> - what will I recommend to be axed from the agenda?
>
> It may be of interest that to you to know that the ADs issued
> some guiding principles:
> - don't discuss any 00 draft that was only published a short time
> before the meeting
> - don't discuss any draft that has not had discussion on the list
> - only discuss drafts where there are open issues
> - build the foundations first
> - prioritise charter work above other work
> - prioritise meeting the milestones above other charter work


I have examined the agenda in the light of the above questions, and
have looked at the drafts currently on it.

The following is meant to be a neutral assessment, based on closely
following the development of a good majority of the work on the agenda.
[Disclaimer: It _should not_ be interpreted as reducing the importance
of any of the work.
Rather, it is a serious attempt to take up the Chairs' request to
solve the agenda crunch (that we seem to be getting into more and more
of late), so that the WG as a whole benefits.]


i) First, I do not believe a mention by the Chairs, in less than
30-odd seconds each, of over 15 drafts buys the WG anything.

By removing this, the WG saves a full 5 minutes right away.

-- If the Chairs, in fact, want to draw attention to these documents, why
not
post your comments/urgings/admonitions with the pointer to these drafts
directly to the ML?
That is the right place to make the majority of the WG aware of these
important documents anyway.

-- Also, I noticed in some of your emails that you intended to "take a sense
of the room" for some of the drafts on this huge list.

I think that _should not_ be done.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to get a sense of multiple drafts
in under 30 seconds each, and surely no fair sense can be got that way.

It it much better for the sense to be taken on the ML (which is the best
place anyhow) where people have time to think and reflect, and then respond.

ii) Second, given that the ASON Routing Design team has just been
constituted, and has only just begun its work,
it is difficult to see why 10 minutes are being given to discuss this.

Their composition and charter have already been posted to the list and
examined
by all, so none of those bear repeating.

It should suffice for the Chairs to spend 2 minutes or so (if that)
updating the WG on it.

So we are now at +18 minutes (possibly 20).

iii) The end-to-end recovery document was already mature a while back,
and has been discussed at practically every IETF for the past several
IETF's.

The issue of misconnections (for the purposes of this draft) has also been
adequately addressed to the satisfaction of the people who debated this
issue
(which includes me). AFAIK, that was the only substantive addition made.

What other open issues are still left that cannot now be satisfactorily
resolved on the mailing list and that require 5 minutes of the agenda?

It would seem that the last call can easily be done on the list (and is
probably best done there), bringing us to +23 minutes (possibly 25).

iv) The segment recovery document was made a WG document after Seoul,
but I don't recall seeing any discussion on it since.

Clearly, either the WG has not found time to focus its attention on this
work
between Seoul and now, or sufficient discussion has not been initiated on
it by the authors.

Either way, without any debate/discussion on the ML, this draft does not
satisfy multiple criteria listed above, and it seems fair that
the authors should attempt to generate discussion on the list, or summarize
things so it can move forward.

We are now at +28 minutes (possibly 30).

v) I am not sure I saw the graceful shutdown draft discussed (maybe its
a split off of some related work), but if it's new work with no discussion
yet, I would say we do not need 5 minutes for it.

vi) The comments for the L2 GMPLS draft say "what it's about?".

It seems that any draft for which this question needs to be answered at a
WG meeting probably first needs to be discussed on the list,  and
automatically does not meet multiple criteria from those you listed earlier.

Maybe I missed it, but can anyone point out where on the ML this draft
was discussed? And, what the outcome of those discussions was?

So it seems we can save a full 33 minutes (possibly 35, or 38 without
graceful
shutdown) from the agenda with substantial consequent benefit to the WG, by
freeing up time for various other important activities
(debates, discussions of other drafts, issues, etc.)

It would be good to hear if the WG believes that the above suggestions do
not benefit the WG and/or should not be implemented (and why).

Looking forward to seeing a revised agenda.

Thanks,
-Vishal