Subject: [Icar] Tagging drafts

From: "Michael A. Patton" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 21:16:12 -0500 (EST)

As someone who actually tries to provide some cross-review, the
biggest problem I run into is knowing when a draft is in a state for
this to be useful.  I usually pick out one or two of the announcements
not in my WGs, but often all I can say after reading them is "get back
to me after you actually think about this" and even more often "this is
obviously far enough along that I need to spend hours to understand it
enough to comment", and I much less often find one at the stage where
I can do a useful cross-review.

This could be helped a lot if there was something in the I-D ACTION
message which indicated this.  Without ANY changes to the tools, a
first cut at this could be done by the draft authors by a sentence at
the start of the Abstract.  That might be good enough to get some
initial test feedback, get a few authors to start trying that and see
if they get more feedback from more IETFers (although that might be
hard to measure, so we'd have to rely on anecdotal evidence).

Longer term, a good technology might be having a token in the draft
that the I-D ACTION posting could extract.  We can discuss the best
way to present it.  At first impression I'd like it in the message's
subject so scans of headers could show it, but the subject lines are
already pretty crowded, but maybe that should also be addressed.

	-MAP

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

---

From: Alex Zinin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:34:31 -0800

Michael, Spencer-

  If we say that the IETF LC is the means for soliciting "late"
  cross-area review, can we have a similar notion for early review?
  Let's call it "Call for Review". Using this analogy, figuring if a
  document is sufficiently mature would equal to checking if the
  review call has been initiated for it, or, in other words, the
  review call would be an implicit indication of the transition to
  a mature state.

  Requests for early review should be initiated by the WG chairs, I
  believe. Having ADs do that would introduce an unnecessary level of
  indirection and state to be maintained--the ADs would still need to
  get the recommendations from the WG chairs. Also, someone needs to
  keep track of the comments and how they are resolved, and this
  scales better if pushed closer to the edge (WGs).

  Finally, to put this all in perspective, this would address the
  "unstructured" type of review, as I call it. Here, I don't think we
  can get rid of the "general appeal" problem as long as we want to
  preserve openness of the process in general, and subscription to the
  review request mailing list in particular. More targeted review
  requests would need more structure, such as directorates or area
  review teams, I believe.

-- 
Alex
http://www.psg.com/~zinin/

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:20:03 -0700 (MST)

On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Alex Zinin wrote:

> believe.

Despite the recent trend to make Chairs responsible for everything, I
believe that such review requests should be initiated by a document
author/editor. The working group must be informed and can object, of
course. Document authors/editors must represent WG consensus, not
their own will (on any non-editorial issue).

The author is the right person to provide additional information and
clarifications to reviewers. S/he is also the right person to manage
pending issues and inform WG of progress.

This approach also solves a problem for documents that do not have a
WG and, hence, do not have a WG Chair. We do not need any special
exceptions for such documents because they always have authors or
editors.

Alex.

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:06:57 -0500

For individual documents, clearly the author is the person who is best able 
to determine when a review would be helpful.

It would seem that for working group documents, the chair is in the best 
position to state what portions of the document (structure, core ideas and 
approaches, basic protocol mechanisms, bits on the wire, whole document) 
reflect working group consensus and should be reviewed.  It may even be 
useful to request a review of something that does not reflect working group 
consensus (or review of several competing proposals).  Even then, it would 
seem to help the reviewer and the working group if there was a clear and 
accurate statement of the current status.

Another way of looking at this is to ask for whom the review is being 
done.  For working group documents, the review is for the benefit of the 
working group rather than the benefit of the individual author.  One would 
expect to see reviews requested at times (in terms of process and state of 
agreement) that will help the working group.  The chair ought to be in a 
good position to make that judgement.  And if we can define ways to make it 
easy for chairs to ask for and receive useful reviews this becomes practical.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 13:17:14 -0700 (MST)

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Joel M. Halpern wrote:

> It would seem that for working group documents, the chair is in the
> best position to state what portions of the document (structure,
> core ideas and approaches, basic protocol mechanisms, bits on the
> wire, whole document)  reflect working group consensus and should be
> reviewed.

Many reviews should be solicited when there is no working group
consensus. When there is consensus, the author/editor should be able
to state it or it she should not be authoring/editing the document.

> ... it would seem to help the reviewer and the working group if
> there was a clear and accurate statement of the current status.

The author/editor should be able to state the current status of his
document or he should not be authoring/editing the document.

> Another way of looking at this is to ask for whom the review is
> being done.  For working group documents, the review is for the
> benefit of the working group rather than the benefit of the
> individual author.  One would expect to see reviews requested at
> times (in terms of process and state of agreement) that will help
> the working group.  The chair ought to be in a good position to make
> that judgement.

The working group, including the chair, can decide that it is time for
a review and the author/editor will naturally follow that consensus
with a request for review.

It is a simple/basic design principle: if the reviewer reviews a
document, let the person responsible for that document (author/editor)
represent the document. The Chair oversees the whole working group
output, the per-document work is (should be) author responsibility.

But if we cannot agree on this, we can probably agree that there
should be a single point of contact for each document/review. A WG can
decide who that point of contact will be. The WG mailing list can
always be used if a reviewer wants more exposure/overheads, of course.

Alex.

P.S. Note that for groups with relatively large number of documents
     (compared to Chair's spare time), the Chair will easily become a
     bottleneck if he has to be in the loop for every little action on
     a document OR the Chair will do a sloppy job on many little
     actions.

---

From: Alex Zinin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 13:11:56 -0800

Alex, Joel-

 Do we have two issues mixed up here?

 It seems that theres is a question of who makes the call that the
 document is ready for the x-func review, and a question of who keeps
 track of the issues, etc. I think it would be reasonable to have the
 WG chairs do the former (it is their job to detect consensus on
 specific subjects), and have the authors/editors do the latter.

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:21:09 -0700 (MST)

I agree that there can be a separation of roles here.
I suggest that the authors are in better position to do both.

Hmm... This may be an example of Big Picture issues in the way. If
IETF has just a few document management steps like it has today, then
WG Chair can call the document "ready" without much problems. If we
adopt a more dynamic/flexible model with many semi-formal steps, it
would be wise to offload a lot of *per-document* functions to
authors/editors/designated-persons to avoid the Chair bottleneck.

You may have the few-rigid-steps model in mind. That is why tasking
the Chair sounds more reasonable to you.

Alex.

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 16:23:11 -0500

That would seem to be a reasonable split / assignment to me.

Joel

---

From: Alex Zinin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 13:33:48 -0800

Alex,

> I suggest that the authors are in better position to do both.

I think the question of "who gauges consensus" would inevitably
get in the way then...

> the Chair sounds more reasonable to you.

May I suggest that we start approaching the problem with the current
snapshot of reality as given? As ideas on changes within the WGs
crystallize, we will resync as necessary. My gut feeling is that the
substance of how to improve the reviews will remain the same and
changing the interfaces shouldn't be very painful.

Alex

---

From: Mark Allman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 16:35:55 -0500

Alex**2-

> specific subjects), and have the authors/editors do the latter.

Isn't this a whole ton of quibbling?

I would think the editors and chairs should be in pretty good agreement
about when something needs some particular kind of review.

And, I would think that editors need to keep close track of comments.
But, chairs also need to keep track of the issues to judge consensus and
keep an idea about what sorts of outstanding issues are hanging around.

And, it seems to me if the editors and the chairs need to keep roughly
on the same page then who cares who tags the draft or the email or
whatever?

Aren't there bigger fish to fry?

allman

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

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 14:54:15 -0700 (MST)

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Alex Zinin wrote:

> crystallize, we will resync as necessary.

If the rough consensus is that the reality is unlikely to change much,
we should indeed start approaching the problem with the current
reality as given. If the rough consensus is that the reality needs to
change significantly, we will be wasting our time solving problems
with the wrong assumptions in mind.

I do not know whether there is rough consensus regarding _probability_
of Big Picture changes at this point. And I am guessing we have no
Chair to gauge it, since we have no Big Picture WG.

> My gut feeling is that the substance of how to improve the reviews
> will remain the same and changing the interfaces shouldn't be very
> painful.

I agree that the substance (if I am guessing what you mean by that
correctly) is unlikely to change, but I am afraid that the devil (and
80% of the work) is in the enforcement and procedural details (i.e.,
interfaces and roles).

Alex.

---

From: Alex Conta <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:41:14 -0500

I think it is also important to make a separation between technical 
aspects and managerial aspects of the WG chair role in regards to the 
document reviewing.

I think it is the latter that should be considered, while the former 
should be prohibited, in the current situation, where I think there is a 
serious mixup and problem in IETF - one can say direct violation of RFC 
2418 -  with WG chairs being also involved with WG document editing.

Regards,
Alex C.

---

From: David Meyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 16:56:44 -0800

Alex,

>> 2418 -  with WG chairs being also involved with WG document editing.

	Is this really a direct violation of 2418? Section 6.3
	(Document Editor) says:

	 As a general practice, the Working Group Chair and
	 Document Editor positions are filled by different
	 individuals to help ensure that the resulting documents
	 accurately reflect the consensus of the working group
	 and that all processes are followed. 

	While the spirit of section 6.3 seems clear enough, it
	does not (apparently) mandate that the positions be
	filled by different people. Rather, it seems to say that
	it would be "better" if it were possible to fill the
	positions with different individuals (my words). Or is
	there a different section of 2418 that you are referring
	to?   
	
	Thanks,

	Dave

---

From: Alex Conta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 09:22:15 -0500

Dave,

In the second paragraph in 2418 Section 6.3, which you mentioned, the 
text is straight forward:

    ...the Working Group Chair and Document Editor positions are filled
         by different individuals....

Regards,
Alex

---

From: David Meyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 08:30:28 -0800

Alex,

>>         by different individuals....

	You left off the most important part of the sentence for
	purposes of this discussion. In particular, what RFC 2418
	section 6.3 says is exactly this: 

	   As a general practice, the Working Group Chair and
	   Document Editor positions are filled by different
	   individuals to help ensure that the resulting
	   documents accurately reflect the consensus of the
	   working group and that all processes are followed.

	The key phrase here is "As a general practice" as it
	describes when the following clause is to be applied. That
	being the case, one would have a hard time arguing that
	"As a general practice" means exclusivity (and by
	"exclusivity" I mean precisely that the positions of
	Chair and Document Editor, as defined by 2418, can not be
	filled by the same individual).   

	There are two basic reasons why the exclusivity argument
	can not be sustained: 

	(i).	The definition of "general" includes the meaning
		that the verb (in this case, the "practice") is 
		"applicable to or characteristic of the majority
		of individuals involved". That is, common usage
		is that when we say something "in general", we
		mean that it covers most cases. This is not only
		common usage, but it would seem the use intended
		here. Moreover, there is no text (footnotes,
		commentary or other) to suggest that anything
		other than the conventional meaning is what is
		intended by the text.

		Basically then, to sustain your point you need to
		argue that "general practice" means exclusivity,
		which is at variance with common usage, and is
		not supported by other text in 2418 (or 2026, or
		even 2119). 

	(ii).	Second, it would be next to impossible to argue
		that there is ambiguity in the meaning of
		"general practice" here, as the IETF has a well
		codified set of key words which 

		(a).	Are unambiguously defined for this
			purpose, namely RFC 2119 

		(b).	Predate RFC 2418

		(c).	Are both written by the same person (2119
			and 2418). So one would need to argue
			that even though both documents are
			authored by the same person, that person
			didn't know how to specify that
			"...Working Group Chair and Document
			Editor positions MUST be filled by
			different individuals..." (alternatively
			"...MUST NOT be filled by the same
			individual")

	Now, I am explicitly not stating a position on section
	6.3 (other than to be surprised that I'm in violation of
	this section if your reading is correct). Perhaps this is
	text that needs to be changed to reflect your position,
	if that is consensus on this point (we may again be 
	suffering from a lack of precision in 2418; this is not a
	criticism of Scott; rather, it seems that things have
	evolved in way perhaps not envisioned by the original
	text). 

	What I am stating, however, is that your statement can
	not be supported by the cited text, common usage, or
	other RFCs. That is, your position is not supported by
	the controlling text in this case (section 6.3 for 2418),
	as common usage of the adjective in question is not to 
	indicate exclusivity. 

	It would also be difficult to argue that there is an
	ambiguity in the text, and that the intent of the text is
	to make Chair and Editor exclusive. This argument is not
	supportable, as we have codified exactly how to specify
	that something MUST or MUST NOT be done. Finally, the
	fact that the controlling documents (2119 and 2418) are
	written by the same person, and that 2119 predates 2418
	would seriously weaken this line of reasoning.

	As it is clear what the meaning of "general practice"
	means (and indeed, the spirit of section 6.3 is also
	clear, i.e., that it would be "better" if they weren't
	the same person, for all the obvious reasons), ancillary
	arguments such as "the author didn't know how to specify
	what s/he meant" are untenable.   

	Finally, I think the discussion here is a good one.
	However, if we don't follow the documents that lay 
	out rules for operation of our own self-governance
	(probably 2026 and 2418, and possibly 2119 in this case),
	and if we don't interpret them with consistency and
	rigor, I'm afraid to say that they are meaningless.

	Dave

---

From: Alex Conta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:07:35 -0500

Dave,

I think we are closer to agreement on this text:

It does not have a MUST as it could. As this text was new in RFC 2418 - 
didn't exist in RFC 1603 - I could speculate on some nervousness to make 
the text a MUST in 1998.  But there is a lot of other text in RFC 2418 
that does not have MUSTs.

The presence of the paragraph means that there was a concern already 
prior to 1998 about accurately reflecting the consensus of the WG, and
about following the process, in case WG chairs are also WG document 
editors. It means also that there was an attempt to resolve the concern, 
and create a rule to help eliminate the concern.

The rule is a general rule, so it applies to all possible cases, but it 
may have exceptions, which we know.

As I had fun reading your message, in response I'll do my own dissecting:

"As a general practice" (a) is an introductory adverbial element 
replaceable with "in general". It was chosen perhaps as wording fitting 
better than "in general" in the context of a "Best Current Practices" 
document. So together with the main sentence (b), it would be "in 
general, the Working Group Chair and Document Editor positions are 
filled by different individuals". The use of the adverb "in general", 
suggests that this is a general rule applied in all cases. This is 
equivalent to:

"as a general rule, Working Group Chair and Document Editor positions 
are filled by different individuals".

A general rule has exceptions. The last three sentences (c) are together 
a "complex adverbial clause":

      (c)   (i)to help ensure that
            (ii) the resulting documents accurately reflect the consensus
            of the working group and
            (iii)that all processes are followed

In which (ii) and (iii) are individually themselves adverbial clauses.

The group (c) provides the clarification to the acceptable exceptions:

cases in which "some considerations" are stronger, or more important 
than those "to help ensure that the resulting documents accurately 
reflect the consensus of the working group and that all processes are 
followed".

That "accurately reflecting consensus in the WG", and "all processes are 
followed" are important elements is no need of saying. Helping ensure 
important elements is an important element in itself.

"Stronger considerations"  are either better or equal in "helping 
ensure...", or are simply more important than "helping ensure..."...

That is quite a high threshold for exceptions to me....

Regards,
Alex

---

From: David Meyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 16:56:15 -0800

>> that does not have MUSTs.

	What we can say is that section 6.3 of 2418 does not use
	the term MUST. If something else was intended (e.g. MUST),
	then the rule may be considered to be miswritten (or at
	least ambiguous). In addition, the rule has clearly not
	been applied as you interpret it. In any event, if the
	consensus is that it is miswritten or ambiguous, then
	lets fix that. 

	BTW, your statement that "The rule is a general rule, so
	it applies to all possible cases, but it may have
	exceptions, which we know." is really difficult to
	understand. For example, what does "all possible cases"
	mean (are there impossible cases?), and what does it mean
	for a "possible case" to have "exceptions"? Are the
	possible cases those that don't have exceptions? 

	My point here is that our language (and/or the way we use
	it) is not sufficiently precise to form the basis of a
	self-governance system (as demonstrated by this and many
	other discussions), and that is frequently the basis of
	these disputes. Add to that the fact that we have no
	case law system (or the like) to disambiguate these
	cases, and maybe there is an issue here.     
	
	Finally on all of this, what I disagreed with was your

>> 2418 -  with WG chairs being also involved with WG document editing.

	so can you have an exception to one of the "possible
	cases" in which the Chair is also the Editor. Is that a
	"direct violation"? Or is an impossible case? Or ?

	I think (hope) you see my point. BTW, my sense is that
	there is an excellent opportunity to clean things like
	this up in processes such as the one we are engaged in,
	and I look forward to the continued discussion. 

	Dave