RE: "Stuckees?"

["Lisa Dusseault" <lisa@xythos.com>]

If we don't have any other way to recognize key contributors, some will
insist on draft authorship, and some will stop participating.  Since we
now seem to have a policy limiting authorship on IETF documents, this is
an actual problem for me.  I have been asked by a valued contributor to
add his name to a draft because otherwise his manager might reduce the
hours he gets to work on this (unfortunately, the draft now has more
than the allowed limit of authors).  So for some people, it really is
about getting a permission slip. Do we lose these people because we
aren't willing to write permission slips?

So what if chairs put a "Key Contributors" on a working group home page
or in drafts or something? The benefit of this is that it helps people
show their managers they are recognized as contributers and thus they're
meeting their review goals. It may help them get travel budgets - the
WebDAV WG has many key contributors who rarely get to travel to
meetings.  The recognition alone may motivate people (even independent
contributors) to act responsibly and think of themselves in this way.
It might keep somebody contributing long after their initial job-related
impetus is over (I know draft authorship does the same thing for many
people). It's a pragmatic commitment consistency tool.

A "Key Contributors" list could be started by just one WG, but it
wouldn't have the same force of recognition. Some IETF-wide guidelines
as to what makes a key contributor (technical/process participation in
the past year, for example) would help give it the force of recognition
to make it a powerful tool for chairs.  

Lisa

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-wgchairs@ietf.org 
> [mailto:owner-wgchairs@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
> Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 12:07 PM
> To: wgchairs
> Subject: Re: "Stuckees?"
> 
> 
> 
> I have 2 issues:
> 
> - I don't really think there is a need for a special
> name for strong contributors.  It is a state that
> some people reach defacto when they become members
> of special teams (e.g. design or editing).  Perhaps
> some extra effort in recruiting people onto these
> teams is warranted
> 
> - I think that people should be responsible for their
> own time commitments. The idea of asking someone if
> they specifically have their boss's permission is akin
> to getting a parent's permission slip for a school
> trip.  In addition it doesn't make sense to me.  Some
> participants are independent contractors and some are
> willing to put in time outside their jobs to meet IETF
> commitments.
> 
> a.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>