Subject: Re: [mpowr] Re: Getting Bad Ideas to Fail Early

From: Mark Allman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 23:44:07 -0500

David-

Thanks for the note!  I think we are agreeing more than we are not.  I
think that any sort of early review mechanism needs to be a "first
class" IETF citizen.  It must explicitly have the respect and backing of
the IESG.  That's not to say that the IESG will always agree with every
review produced by some early review entity (whatever that might look
like).  But, the IESG has to buy into the early review process in a way
that everyone knows that the reviews do, in fact, carry some weight and
that they are to be taken seriously by WGs and WG chairs.  And, the
expectation should be that issues raised during such reviews should be
dealt with before documents are forwarded to the IESG.  (And, of course,
if the WG / WG chair is having a problem working through these issues
the IESG should be willing to help manage that process.  But, that is no
different from the current system.)

That said, I do not think that we need to assign any special "authority"
to these reviews.  For instance, I don't think such reviews would be
more or less important than a high quality review received by a random
person who read an i-d and decided to send some comment on it.  All
issues raised should be dealt with by the WG using due diligence.  The
major change I see is in the more explcit gathering of reviews from
different perspectives - not in any special status they might have.

My $0.02 for tonight.

Thanks!

allman

--
Mark Allman -- ICIR -- http://www.icir.org/mallman/

_______________________________________________
mpowr mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpowr

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 22:13:27 -0600

I agree with Mark on each point. One note below.

Spencer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Allman" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: [mpowr] Re: Getting Bad Ideas to Fail Early

> different perspectives - not in any special status they might have.

Are we still talking about mechanisms to identify early reviewers? I
think such a mechanism is a significant, and important, change.

---

From: David Partain <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:02:55 +0100

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments, James.  I've cut out previous
conversations since this discussion seems to live on its own.

On Friday 30 January 2004 22.57, James Kempf wrote:
> I think we need to make a distinction between the IESG approving publishing
> a document, as currently, and a change where an individual AD could approve
> a document. I can see a process where, if the reviews come in good and the
> WG agrees to make any proposed changes, an individual AD is allowed to
> simply approve publication without requiring the entire IESG to review or
> even to have to read the reviewers comments. This could save the IESG a lot
> of work.

This is certainly worth considering.  As long as we can assure
credible cross-area review and subsequent consensus with the
working group, the streamlining effect of this might be a
very good thing.  It might be good in such a process if the
IESG at least gets a heads up and 5 minute rundown on the
document during the telechat before it goes through.  If it
raises any red flags at that point, the person who's concerned
gets X days to look at and comment on the document or it just
moves on.  Maybe I'm endowing the IESG with too much wisdom,
but it seems very important to me to have some entity with
the Ultimate Sanity Check authority.

> I can't see a case where the document gets approved automatically
> without the AD's involvement.

We agree.

> I believe there will always be an element of
> judgement in deciding whether the reviews were adequate, the WG's response
> was appropriate, etc. that one would want to have a knowledgable human in
> the loop for publication approval.

Absolutely.

Cheers,

David

-- 
Text after this signature is inserted automatically in
accordance with Ericsson corporate policy.  It's not my fault.

This communication is confidential and intended solely for the addressee(s). Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you believe this message has been sent to you in error, please notify the sender by replying to this transmission and delete the message without disclosing it. Thank you.

E-mail including attachments is susceptible to data corruption, interruption, unauthorized amendment, tampering and viruses, and we only send and receive e-mails on the basis that we are not liable for any such corruption, interception, amendment, tampering or viruses or any consequences thereof.

---

From: David Partain <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:32:33 +0100

Folks,

Mark, thank for the summary of your view, with which
I agree.

On Monday 02 February 2004 05.44, Mark Allman wrote:
> Thanks for the note!  I think we are agreeing more than we
> are not.

Actually, I think we're in agreement.

> I think that any sort of early review mechanism
> needs to be a "first class" IETF citizen.  It must explicitly
> have the respect and backing of the IESG.

Absolutely.

> That's not to say
> that the IESG will always agree with every review produced
> by some early review entity (whatever that might look like).

Put two engineers in two different rooms with the same
problem to solve and you're likely to get two pretty different
solutions :-)

> But, the IESG has to buy into the early review process in a
> way that everyone knows that the reviews do, in fact, carry
> some weight and that they are to be taken seriously by WGs and
> WG chairs.  And, the expectation should be that issues raised
> during such reviews should be dealt with before documents
> are forwarded to the IESG.  (And, of course, if the WG / WG
> chair is having a problem working through these issues the
> IESG should be willing to help manage that process.  But,
> that is no different from the current system.)

This looks great to me.  Please don't mistake my voicing of
concerns as disagreement.  I believe _strongly_ in the IETF
concensus process and will oppose any attempts to undermine that
fundamental philosophy of cooperation.  It's just important
to me that we understand how fragile that is and do whatever
we can to preserve it.

> That said, I do not think that we need to assign any special
> "authority" to these reviews.  For instance, I don't think such
> reviews would be more or less important than a high quality
> review received by a random person who read an i-d and decided
> to send some comment on it.  All issues raised should be dealt
> with by the WG using due diligence.  The major change I see
> is in the more explcit gathering of reviews from different
> perspectives - not in any special status they might have.

Good.  This is entirely in line with the way I think things
should work.  Is there a way we can collectively say "Ship
it!" at this point? :-)

Cheers,

David

---

From: David Partain <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:36:27 +0100

Folks,

> think such a mechanism is a significant, and important, change.

Now that _is_ an ICAR discussion.  Perhaps we could ask the
same question there? :-)

David

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 07:40:00 -0600

... and this line of thought, which I happen to agree with, has a
decent amount of overlap with something like a Working Group Snapshot
(the concept, not the current proposals), being discussed on NEWTRK...

Maybe the right number of ideas, but spread over too many mailing
lists! I understand the desire for modularity, but modularity also
required low coupling between modules.

Spencer