Re: Comments on draft-iesg-charter-02.txt

[Margaret Wasserman <mrw@windriver.com>]

Hi Scott,

> in most (but not all cases) the IESG is in consensus that there
> is a problem and the DISCUSS is a way to delegate the writing up of the
> issues and checking the resolution - in those cases chaging from
> the current process to some other one wiuld just make things harder to get
> resolved and add more work to the other IESG members.
In cases where the IESG has consensus that there is a problem, I do
think that it makes sense to have one AD write-up the issue.  Then,
the response should get sent to the IETF Announce list, returning the
document to the WG with suggestions.

In the current situation, the IESG reaches consensus about the
problem(s) with a document, and then the responsible AD engages
in an informal negotiation with the WG chairs and document authors
to try to resolve the problem, cycling the document back and forth
until the responsible AD thinks the problem is resolved, without
the WG having much visibility or influence over this process.

I'd prefer that the AD review comments and/or the "discuss" comments
were sent to the WG, and that the WG could decide, on a consensus
basis, how to deal with the suggestions -- argue with them, make changes
based on them, etc.

> see previous note about openness - *everything* should go into the
> tracker to make sure that there are no backroom discussions
Having an open discussion on the WG mailing list would be much
more visible to the typical WG member than putting messages in
the I-D tracker.

As a long-time WG participant and recent WG chair, it has often
by my experience that documents just seem to "disappear" when they
are sent to the IESG.  The documents might emerge as RFCs eventually,
with or without substantive changes, but it can take quite a long
time, and there is very little WG visibility into what happens in
between.  I think that we should do something fix this (both the
amount of time it takes and the WG's visibility into the process).

I agree that the I-D tracker is a good step in this direction, at
least in the visibility area, but we still have a long way to go.

Margaret