Re: A concept resurrected(?) - WG secretary?

[Leslie Daigle <leslie@thinkingcat.com>]

My takeaway from this thread is that we need to give a better
definition of what is expected/required of minutes (and,
as Aaron suggested, some samples of *good* minutes would help),
and any other WG documentation that is expected to persist
beyond the scope of any given WG Chair.

I don't care how a WG chair does this -- either randomly picking
a scribe at the beginning of a session, or having a standing
secretary position -- but IMO it is the WG chair's responsibility
to see that the minutes get into the proceedings, and are
useful for future purposes of determining what happened at that
meeting.  And I can say that as former WG chair, with minutes
recorded for URN & CNRP WG's that I don't believe meet that bar --
my fault, I was going with the flow at the time, I didn't know
any better...

The truth is that there are myriad reasons to come back to the
meeting minutes -- WG participants that could not get to the
meeting, future chairs (of the same WG) trying to detect what
has passed, appeals, WG revision of WG decisions.  They are a critical
part of getting our work done (and audio recordings of multi-hour
sessions, while helpful in creating such minutes, are not a 
replacement for them).

So -- if you had to live with the fact that "whatever happened
in the room, it doesn't count if it isn't in the minutes", what
problems do you have to creating such minutes, and how can
we solve them?

Leslie.


Margaret.Wasserman@nokia.com wrote:
> There has been a fairly negative response to the idea of allowing WG 
> chairs to officially name WG secretaries.  I am surprised by this for 
> three reasons:
>
> 	- There was nothing in this proposal that required
> 		all WGs to have WG secretaries.
> 	- This proposal was offered as a constructive way to 
> 		solve a set of evident, IETF-wide problems.
> 	- There are few, if any, alternate proposals on the
> 		to address these problems.
>
> What are the problems?
>
> From my perspective, a WG secretariat could add much-needed
> cycles to help solve the following problems:
>
> 	- WG minutes are not submitted, submitted late, incomplete
> 		and/or of such poor quality as to be completely
> 		useless
> 	- WG agendas are not posted, posted late, incomplete and/or
> 		of such poor quality as to be completely useless
> 	- WG mailing lists aren't well-managed, and summaries
> 		aren't sent after lengthy discussions.
>
> Now, I'll admit that there may be some WGs for which all of these
> things are being done, and done well on a timely basis...  But, can
> you name one?  These problems apply to a large enough majority of
> the IETF groups that I think they can be considered IETF-wide 
> problems.
>
> Why are minutes, agendas and summaries important?
>
> We assert that it is possible to be a full contributor in the
> IETF without attending meetings.  Bad or missing meeting minutes
> make that more difficult.
>
> The minutes are the only long-term, archived record of what was
> discussed and decided in our meetings.  They can be very important
> later, if it is necessary to know what a group decided and why.
>
> Agendas allow people to prepare for meetings and to know which
> meetings they should attend. 
>
> And summaries could help to make WG mailing lists productive, 
> breaking us out of the make-progress-every-four-months cycle 
> that most WGs seem to be locked in.
>
> I am the first to admit that my WGs have not been exemplary at
> these things.  Have yours?  If not, do you think a WG secretary
> might help?  
>
> The responses on this list have generally been of the form:
>
> 	- I prefer to pick scribes at the meetings, because...
>
> or
>
> 	- I (the chair) find a tape recording more useful
> 		than notes from scribes or a secretary...
>
> If these things are working, then why are our minutes so late and
> so poorly done?  Why are so many minutes missing altogether?
>
> Margaret


--

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"Reality:
    Yours to discover."
                               -- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
leslie@thinkingcat.com
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