Subject: Thoughts on Progression of Routing Area Drafts

From: Ross Callon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2006 18:52:45 -0400

Bill and I have been thinking about how to speed up progression of routing
area documents without adversely affecting quality, and would like to
suggest two initiatives that we feel will help to improve document quality
and speed up progression. We specifically would like to solicit comments
from routing area WG chairs and from the routing area directorate on
these ideas.

First of all, we are requesting that when documents are submitted for
publication, that the WG chairs answer the questions from the PROTO
WG chair writeup in email to the ADs. The appropriate set of questions
is found at: http://rtg.ietf.org/area/procedures/proto_wgchair_writeup
While answering these questions is optional, it will help the ADs to
review documents and submit them to the IESG more quickly, and
thus is strongly recommended (and if not already completed, would
be helpful even for documents already submitted).

Also, we would like to consider having WG chairs solicit document
review at a relatively early stage. The idea is that the WG chairs would
determine when documents are ready for wider review (this could occur
any time between publication of a -00 working group document, and
working group last call, and should occur when documents are relatively
complete), and would send a pointer to the document to the routing area
directorate and ask for review. The intention is that by having documents
reviewed by experienced routing experts prior to submission, this will
improve quality, and thereby make AD and IESG review quicker and
easier (and hopefully also improve quality of the eventual RFC).

If the WG chairs feel that there are issues that warrant review by other
area directorates, then we can help coordinate with the ADs from other
areas.

One question is who should the review go back to? It has been suggested
that the reviews go to both working group chairs and authors, and that
the WG chairs help the authors to respond appropriately to comments
(which includes avoiding over-reaction, with the understanding that there
will be some cases where some members of the routing area directorate
may disagree with document authors, and this does not necessarily
imply that the document always needs to be changed).

Comments are appreciated.

Thanks, Ross and Bill

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 14:43:14 +0100

Hi Ross'n'Bill,

> area documents without adversely affecting quality,

That's good.

> be helpful even for documents already submitted).

No problem with formalising what has become a defacto process for CCAMP, 
L1VPN and PCE.

FWIW, a typical write-up takes about 15 minutes, tops.

> easier (and hopefully also improve quality of the eventual RFC).

Of course, all review input is welcome, and having a pool of experts 
available to call on is great. But is this something we would do for every 
I-D or just those with some sort of cross-over? For specialist I-Ds produced 
by a WG either:
1. The expertise is already in the WG
2. The Directorate member who does the review is already
    in the WG.

Perhaps I'm missing something?

> area directorates, then we can help coordinate with the ADs from other

That coordination would be good, otherwise we just float requests into the 
void.

> imply that the document always needs to be changed).

I strongly feel that WG I-Ds are the product of the WG. Therefore, all 
comments should be addressed to the WG mailing list. This then makes it the 
responsiblity of the chiars to moderate the input and guide the responses.

Cheers,
Adrian

---

From: Ross Callon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 15:06:14 -0400

At 02:43 PM 5/27/2006 +0100, Adrian Farrel wrote:
>...
>I-D or just those with some sort of cross-over? For specialist I-Ds 
>produced by a WG either:

Well, I agree that in most (or all?) cases some members of the routing
area directorate are likely to be participating in the WG effort. However,
there are likely to be other members who either have been busy
elsewhere, or who are not paying close enough attention to know
when the drafts have gotten to the point that it is appropriate to spend
the time to do a detailed review. Also, the directorate is more likely to
actually contribute if explicitly asked to do so. Having more than one
person review the document can be valuable, and the small set of
people who have been working on a document from day one are likely
to be so close to the document that they can miss errors (if only due
to having been looking at the error every day for so long).

The hope is that by having detailed review by a wider set of experts,
prior to submission to the IESG, then many of the things that the
IESG catches will have been fixed ahead of time (hopefully both
speeding up review and improving eventual quality).

I will agree that at least initially this would be an experiment.

>>...One question is who should the review go back to? ...
>
>comments should be addressed to the WG mailing list. This then makes it 
>the responsiblity of the chiars to moderate the input and guide the responses.

I think that this is sensible. Perhaps editorial nits should go to
the chairs and authors (we don't need 200 people debating the
relative meaning of "affect" versus "effect"), and any comments
of substance should go to the full WG.

Ross