Subject: Re: Tracking resolution of DISCUSSes

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 05:03:57 -0800

I have had the same experience.

The tracker is not mentioned in any of the process documents or the desription of ietf process or the web site (which continues to be useless).

The impression is of a clique who know their procedures internally, do nothing to explain them to others then get highly anoyed when their procedures are not followed.

I am reminded of the planning department in Cruddy Cottington.

Sent from my GoodLink Wireless Handheld (www.good.com)

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Simon Josefsson [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent:	Tuesday, January 09, 2007 04:47 AM Pacific Standard Time
To:	Adrian Farrel
Cc:	Harald Alvestrand; [email-masked]
Subject:	Re: Tracking resolution of DISCUSSes

"Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]> writes:

> But note that the current version of the tracker does not raise the
> DISCUSS with anyone. It simply logs it.

I agree, and think this is an important observation.

This lack of communication may cause friction.  IESG members raise
issues, which ends up the tracker, and for which they might not
receive any response at all on.  They may get the impression that the
document author is inactive and not following up on problems raised
(at least I would get that impression if I were preparing comments on
others' document).  The document author instead wonders why no
comments or questions are generated by the IESG evaluation process.

Having notification for these issues may avoid some of that friction,
and would lead to better documents.  I am inclined to agree with
Harald that excessive notifications, for every DISCUSS/COMMENT may be
annoying.  On the other hand, for most WG's, sending a document to the
IESG is an important step, and any feedback from that process should
be important and valuable.  Anyway, reducing the number of e-mails by
waiting a week or two before compiling a message with all
DISCUSS/COMMENTS seems like a good idea.

Btw, I personally first discovered the I-D tracker when I was revising
a document that had failed IETF last call before, and found
COMMENT/DISCUSS for my earlier document, which I had not been aware of
before.  I believe taking care of those COMMENT/DISCUSS'es helped the
document pass the second IETF last call.

> But regardless of this, I am concerned that the resolution of a
> DISCUSS is not archived anywhere. If you want to restrict the DISCUSS
> from reaching the WG unless the WG chair decides, then you MUST log
> the resolution (not just the fact of reslution) of each DISCUSS in the
> I-D tracker.

It would be good to log resolutions, yes.  If for no other reasons,
someone who reads the I-D tracker history for a document may wonder
what the answer to a particular question was.

/Simon

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---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:02:16 +0100

On 2007-01-09 14:03, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
...
> The tracker is not mentioned in any of the process documents 

That is normal; it's a tool used in support of the process,
and we could in theory use papyrus rolls instead.

I agree we need procedural documents too; that is
what IONs are for in fact.

     Brian

---

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 10:27:16 -0500

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 05:03:57 -0800
"Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The tracker is not mentioned in any of the process documents or the
> desription of ietf process or the web site (which continues to be
> useless).
> 
> The impression is of a clique who know their procedures internally,
> do nothing to explain them to others then get highly anoyed when
> their procedures are not followed.
> 
While more information is always good, I'll note that it's linked to
from the WG Chairs page; it, in turn, is listed on the IETF home page.
There's also a link from each WG's charter page to the status page
which lists every document from the WG and its status.  The status
field, in turn, is a link to the tracker page for that I-D.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:19:34 +0100

> field, in turn, is a link to the tracker page for that I-D.

Also we've added a link to the tracker in IETF Last Call messages,
just recently. And of course it's linked off the IESG page linked
off the IETF home page.

     Brian