Subject: Re: MARID back from the grave?

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 22:34:08 +0100

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> 
> 
> --On lørdag, februar 26, 2005 21:22:36 -0800 Christian Huitema 
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> In fact, we only have two points of contentions: old personal drafts
>> submitted as version 00 of WG drafts; and old WG drafts submitted as
>> version 00 of new personal drafts.
> 
> 
> now that we know that the secretariat keeps track of drafts that claim 
> to obsolete another draft, we could make this Real Simple:
> 
> drafts that say they obsolete another draft get the later deadline.
> 
>                          Harald (who won't have to decide that)

That would only work if it was "said" in metadata that can be automatically
verified.

     Brian

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From: Dave Singer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 21:42:21 +0000

At 10:34 PM +0100 3/1/05, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>>now that we know that the secretariat keeps 
>>track of drafts that claim to obsolete another 
>>draft, we could make this Real Simple:
>>

Isn't that the point of a non-00 version number, 
and that can be verified by looking inside the 
document at the change log I suggested which 
tells you the previous I-Ds, and their existence 
can be independently verified.  And for the truly 
paranoid, one could do an exhaustive search of 
all ID-s to assure that only one I-D is claiming 
descent from any given ancestor.  (Under what I 
suggested, -00 is only used for new, fresh, 
drafts, and changes of name DO NOT reset the 
version number to 00.)
-- 
David Singer
Apple Computer/QuickTime

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 08:26:10 +0100

> That would only work if it was "said" in metadata that can be

Today, this procedure (letting one I-D obsolete another) is carried out by 
the secretariat, manually. I believe the verification step consists of 
making sure the draft name is spelled correctly.

In an automated submission tool, we would have to have this be part of the 
submission to the tool, of course.

                   Harald

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 06:14:42 -0600

> Today, this procedure (letting one I-D obsolete another) is carried 
> out by the secretariat, manually. I believe the verification step 
> consists of making sure the draft name is spelled correctly.
>
> In an automated submission tool, we would have to have this be part 
> of the submission to the tool, of course.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like we were solving at 
least three problems with the I-D cutoff dates, which were:

- Most important - we expect people to read the drafts before 
discussing them at face-to-face meetings, and thought that considering 
drafts submitted this morning didn't give working groups enough time 
to do necessary homework before having really confused and confusing 
discussions

- There is a blizzard of draft submissions, both new and updated 
drafts, in the two weeks or so before a cutoff - I believe the 
statistic from the last few IETFs is that something like a third to 
half the IDs submitted between two meetings are submitted during those 
two weeks

- Related to the second problem, in the dawn of time, the 
secretariat's ability to process submitted drafts from a meeting 
location was limited (so having the flood of drafts arrive for manual 
processing at the exact time when their ability to do manual 
processing was at its lowest seemed wrong)

Is it just possible that a draft cutoff is no longer necessary to 
solve any of these problems?

For the first (I would argue, "the real") problem - 2418 says

7.1. Session documents

   All relevant documents to be discussed at a session should be
   published and available as Internet-Drafts at least two weeks 
before
   a session starts.  Any document which does not meet this 
publication
   deadline can only be discussed in a working group session with the
   specific approval of the working group chair(s).  Since it is
   important that working group members have adequate time to review 
all
   documents, granting such an exception should only be done under
   unusual conditions.

So, if a working group follows the "IETF Working Group Guidelines and 
Procedures", it doesn't matter whether we have a draft cutoff or not.

The second/third problem goes away for automated submissions, because 
it matters much less how many drafts are submitted (for any reasonable 
number of drafts) or when they are submitted.

Please remind me what problem we will be solving by closing down an 
automated submissions mechanism for a total of four weeks during each 
IETF cycle?

(For extra credit, explain how working groups that choose to blow off 
2418 and consider Internet Drafts that were announced on working group 
mailing lists with pointers to private websites - you know who you 
are - are affected by the draft cutoff :-)

It seems to me that the questions of approval for initial submissions 
of working group drafts, and of draft revision history, should be 
solved without assuming a draft cutoff at all.

See you in Minneapolis,

Spencer

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From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:39:45 -0500

I'd like to add-on to Spencer's point...

At 6:14 AM -0600 3/2/05, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>discussing them at face-to-face meetings, and thought that 
>considering drafts submitted this morning didn't give working groups 
>enough time to do necessary homework before having really confused 
>and confusing discussions

Having the draft available two weeks in advance does very little good 
if the WGs don't have agendas posted that tell you what drafts to 
read in preparation for the meeting.

At this point, less than one week before the meeting, only 14 WGs 
(not counting BOFs) have agendas posted.  I'm at a loss for a 
suitable adjective.

Margaret

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:23:21 -0600

My LORD, it's like I read Margaret's mind... I hadn't seen this post 
when I sent my own whine to the list!

Spencer

> Having the draft available two weeks in advance does very little 
> good if the WGs don't have agendas posted that tell you what drafts 
> to read in preparation for the meeting.
>

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From: Colin Perkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:02:33 +0000

On 2 Mar 2005, at 12:39, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
> if the WGs don't have agendas posted that tell you what drafts to read 
> in preparation for the meeting.
>
> At this point, less than one week before the meeting, only 14 WGs (not 
> counting BOFs) have agendas posted.  I'm at a loss for a suitable 
> adjective.

You might start by asking the secretariat why all the agendas which 
have been submitted haven't been posted... I know of two working groups 
which have sent in their agenda that don't appear on the website, and I 
suspect they're not the only ones.

Colin

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From: "Charles E.Perkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 09:35:36 -0800

Hello folks,

I haven't gone through all of the e-mails,
but at least I'd like to register an opinion.

I think the cut-off policies need to be changed.

Here are some reasons:
- There are many revisions of working-group drafts
  posted to private websites after the cutoff
- I have had drafts miss the cutoff because
  of some unpredictable slowness at the last
  minute
- The extreme panic at the last minute seems to
  encourage mistakes.

I do understand the benefits of having a deadline,
and setting deadlines has a way of improving
productivity.  But we need a structured way to
overcome the flaws also.

Maybe a working-group chair should have the ability
to submit a late draft on behalf of the authors,
when it is important for the improved operation
of the working group.  I think this would go a
long way towards solving the abovementioned problems.

No system is going to be perfect, but the current
system needs to be improved.

Regards,
Charlie P.

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From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 09:43:08 -0800

>>counting BOFs) have agendas posted.  I'm at a loss for a suitable adjective.
>
>You might start by asking the secretariat why all the agendas which have 
>been submitted haven't been posted... I know of two working groups which 
>have sent in their agenda that don't appear on the website, and I suspect 
>they're not the only ones.

ditto.

Bob

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:34:50 -0500

> productivity.  But we need a structured way to

I think the problem is a tad more fundamental than that.  There's
a disconnect between our mailing list discussions and the face-to-
face discussions.  From a computer geek perspective, the mailing 
lists and document updates are in some sense pipelined, until a 
meeting approaches, and the sync between active mailing list 
participants and occasional f2f meeting participants results in 
a pipeline stall.

I suspect that this disconnect is inevitable, and what we really 
need to realize is that the mailing list and the f2f discussions 
inherently have somewhat different participants and different 
purposes, and modify our procedures accordingly.  

For instance, instead of trying to get a new draft out before
the cutoff date, perhaps the authors should just produce a list
of proposed changes to be made from the last published draft.  
Then f2f attendees could be expected to read the (somewhat older) 
draft along with the list of proposed changes.

Keith

p.s. I'd actually argue that our deadlines are too late, as there is
not enough time the week or two before the meeting to read all of
the drafts.  So people show up at the meetings unprepared.