Subject: [Rfced-future] Question for discussion - Editorial Stream

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2020 15:22:45 -0400

Hi -

I'm assuming that "if it wasn't written down it didn't happen" or more 
specifically, that changes to the publication system and model will be 
documented and those approved documents will inform any contracts or 
operational model.  If anyone disagrees with that assumption, I'd like 
to hear their reasoning.

Based on that assumption, I have the following question and subsidiary 
questions:

Question:  Do we create a separate Editorial Stream?

If YES - Who approves documents in that stream?

If NO - Where are documents that describe changes to the publication 
process and system published? (The answer implies who approves publication).

Mike

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 14:08:43 +1200

> Question:  Do we create a separate Editorial Stream?

Yes, I believe it's useful.
 
> If YES - Who approves documents in that stream?

That's model-dependent, but I assume that in draft-thomson and draft-carpenter
it would be the Program/WG by rough consensus, and in draft-stjohns it would be
the RSEB by vote.

> process and system published? (The answer implies who approves publication).

Again, it's model-dependent. In draft-thomson, it's clearly the IAB stream as
today. In the other two models, we are presumably left with the Independent
stream.

   Brian

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 13:14:03 -0400

> it would be the Program/WG by rough consensus, and in draft-stjohns it would be

For the rough consensus models, I have two additional questions:   1) 
Who determines rough consensus (and actually approves the documents for 
publication) - the WG or Program Chairs?  2) If the stream managers  
disagree with the rest of the group, are their oppositions given more 
weight than the self-selected membership?  If not, why not?  If so, then 
how is that figured into the resolution process?

> today. In the other two models, we are presumably left with the Independent

So ultimately, in draft-thomson, the IAB approves publication (per 
normal procedures for the IAB stream) - in other words, no change from 
what's currently happening - is that correct?   For the other two then 
the ISE approves publication (per the normal procedures for that stream) 
- is that correct?

Thanks - Mike

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 12:54:26 -0700

On 9/19/2020 10:14 AM, Michael StJohns wrote:
> Who determines rough consensus (and actually approves the documents
> for publication) - the WG or Program Chairs?  2) If the stream
> managers  disagree with the rest of the group, are their oppositions
> given more weight than the self-selected membership?  If not, why
> not?  If so, then how is that figured into the resolution process?
>
> the ISE approves publication (per the normal procedures for that
> stream) - is that correct? 

The IAB has handled a number of such documents in the past, so in
practice that part seems to work. But maybe I am wrong. Does anyone
remember documents for which this caused a tension?

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 09:31:18 +1200

On 20-Sep-20 07:54, Christian Huitema wrote:
>> For the rough consensus models, I have two additional questions:   1) Who determines rough consensus (and actually approves the documents for publication) - the WG or Program Chairs?

Yes, presumably.

>>  2) If the stream managers  disagree with the rest of the group, are their oppositions given more weight than the self-selected membership?  If not, why not?  If so, then how is that figured into the resolution process?

I assume it would be like in any IETF WG group: people tend to listen to knowledgeable people, and we have RFC7282 to help us reach consensus.

>> So ultimately, in draft-thomson, the IAB approves publication (per normal procedures for the IAB stream) - in other words, no change from what's currently happening - is that correct?   For the other two then the ISE approves publication (per the normal procedures for that stream) - is that correct? 

That's my assumption, for the lack of any alternative.

> The IAB has handled a number of such documents in the past, so in practice that part seems to work. But maybe I am wrong. Does anyone remember documents for which this caused a tension?

I agree, but it was a pragmatic choice because no other suitable stream existed (as Heather said on a number of occasions in my hearing). Indeed, 20+ years ago such documents were simply published by the RFC Editor on their own account (e.g. RFC825, RFC1111, RFC1543, RFC2223) so this stream would be a revival of that system.

    Brian C

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 23:55:19 -0400

--On Sunday, 20 September, 2020 09:31 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> The IAB has handled a number of such documents in the past,
>> so in practice that part seems to work. But maybe I am wrong.
>> Does anyone remember documents for which this caused a
>> tension?
> 
> I agree, but it was a pragmatic choice because no other
> suitable stream existed (as Heather said on a number of
> occasions in my hearing). Indeed, 20+ years ago such documents
> were simply published by the RFC Editor on their own account
> (e.g. RFC825, RFC1111, RFC1543, RFC2223) so this stream would
> be a revival of that system.

Yes and no... and that takes us back to interactions among
different questions.  Back when it was "simply published...",
the RFC Editor didn't need to ask anyone for approval.   For
better or worse, there is no analogy for that in the Stream
model because, while I can't remember an explicit rule, authors
approving their own documents is clearly considered to be in bad
taste.  The Independent Stream comes closest, but were the
person who holds the ISE role to write a document and then
publish it without consulting anyone else, I assume we'd be
fairly unhappy. 

I do remember discussing whether the RSE should be allowed to
publish documents directly in the RFC 4844 timeframe but don't
remember the reasons why a "no" decision was made -- Joel or
others might remember.  I suspect it was because the IAB
considered review and approval to be part of its oversight
responsibility.  

Sometimes, the IAB has basically been passive, doing a quick
review, maybe asking for community comment, and then going ahead
and publishing.  Other times, it has acted as if those really
were its documents and they should not be published without
strong IAB consensus (whether the IAB actually had the relevant
expertise or not).  I suggest that, if we think what got us here
was a result of the IAB intervening inappropriately, then having
the IAB as document approver is not a wildly good idea.  If the
RSE-replacement is going to be an employee or contractor of a
contractor or just an advisor, it is less clear to me why we
need such a stream... at least unless we can set (and keep to)
rather high requirements for expertise in whatever WG or
committee is actually running the show.

best,
    john

---

From: "Martin Thomson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 11:07:02 +1000

> Question:  Do we create a separate Editorial Stream?

I don't think that the answer to this question matters, except perhaps as a consequence of other, more important decisions.  If the new structure does not involve the IAB in an oversight position (or any other body with access to a stream for publication), and we see a need for entities there to publish RFCs, then we might reasonably conclude that a new stream is a good way to solve that problem.

I would rather not focus on second-order questions when there are more fundamental disagreements to resolve.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 14:41:17 +1200

> I would rather not focus on second-order questions when there are more fundamental disagreements to resolve.

Well, this reinforces John Klensin's point about multiple moving parts that affect each other. Which in turn suggests to me that we do need a curated list of the questions, with an agreed indication of each one's importance. I would agree that this one is not primary, but that doesn't mean it's not on the list.

    Brian

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2020 17:16:57 -0400

Hi -

I left this to sit for a while - possibly too long, but I wanted to see 
if anyone would look deeper than "new stream".  Mostly no.

Here's the deal.  In the end, what we appear to be arguing about is "who 
decides".  With Brian's note and a non answer from Martin what I have 
here is:

  * Mike - Authored by RSE with RSEB and community input (e.g. mostly
    paid work - other ), Approved for publication by RSEB, published in
    the Editorial Series.
  * Brian - Authored by anyone with perhaps some RSA input and guidance,
    consensus of the WG, consensus determined by the WG chairs, approved
    for publication by the ISE, published in the Independent stream.
  * Martin - Authored by anyone with little or no professional guidance,
    consensus of the program members, consensus determined by the IAB
    program chairs, approved for publication by the IAB, published in
    the IAB stream.

For Brian, that leads to the the questions of who appoints the WG 
chair(s) (specifically whether or not the ISOC appointed chair model is 
viable),  whether the IETF consensus model will work within the ISOC 
structure, and finally, how the current ISE model will interact with 
these documents.

For Martin, this appears to be exactly the model we had in the 
interregnum between Bob and Joyce stepping down, and before Heather was 
hired, except there's no professional supervision of the process (e.g. 
even though we had interim RSE's, they had their predecessors to lean 
on).   This model is pretty much  "the IAB decides" and I'm not sure 
that model will continue to work. Actually, I think we have a worked 
example where this isn't working.

For both of these I'm concerned about the WG chair appointments - they 
appear to be the weak spots as someone with Chair power can make or 
break a process.  The chair appointment process for both of these 
proposals is also concentrated in a single group.

I'd like to direct the groups attention to exactly who the authors were 
for the documents written about the RFC series since Bob stepped down.  
AFAICT, none of  these were the products of working groups, nor were 
random author submissions, but instead were documents internally 
generated by mostly the IAB, or folks that have been involved in the 
leadership, or more lately, by (a) design team(s) stood up by the RSE 
for a specific purpose.   My understanding is that most of those 
documents required at least some arm twisting (or invoking guilt) to get 
the editors to accept the work.

Going forward, I expect that similar documents will require similar 
levels of effort.  My thoughts about that are to make sure there's 
someone being paid to author those documents when they occur rather than 
depending on finding a) the right level of interest, b) the right level 
of expertise, and c) the actual availability of time to author those 
documents.

Last - let me tag one of EKRs hobby horses - closed groups.     In each 
of the publication models I've listed above, the ultimate authority for 
publication approval rests either with an individual, or with a closed 
group.  In Martin's model, that's the IAB.  In my model that's the RSEB. 
Both of these groups use (would use for the RSEB) a voting model for 
approving publication.  The main difference is that the RSEB would be 
selected for its proprietary interest in the publication process (e.g. 
the stream managers) or according to a publication heavy set of 
requirements submitted to the Nomcom.  In Martin's model, the chairs are 
selected by the IAB which treats such selections as personnel actions 
not subject to explanation, and the IAB exercises veto over the output 
of the group through its control of the IAB stream.

The IETF community has a lot of closed groups - IESG, IRSG, IAB, IETF 
Trust, LLC Board, and for that matter the model for research groups is 
that they MAY be closed. Oh yes, most of the IAB programs appear to be 
mostly closed. Decisions for publication in 3 of the 4 streams are made 
by closed groups.    For the IAB as much as 1/2 (guessing here - didn't 
count) of the IAB stream documents originate within the IAB itself and 
are not subject to mandatory external review prior to publication.   
Irrespective of where the documents originate, a closed group makes the 
final decisions on publication for all but the documents in the 
independent stream.

In the above, I join strongly with John's comments included below, 
especially with the inability to guarantee sufficient expertise on the 
IAB to cover these responsibilities.

Later, Mike

---

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2020 16:40:12 +0900

Hello everybody,

> final decisions on publication for all but the documents in the 

The ISE in general has a lower bar, but isn't s/he essentially a closed 
group of one?

Regards,   Martin.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 08:47:40 +1300

> The ISE in general has a lower bar, but isn't s/he essentially a closed 

No. You are overlooking the ISEB (Independent Series Editorial Board).
True, the ISE's decision is final, but I've been an ISEB member for
quite a few years, and the Editor has always consulted the Board
whenever there was a tricky issue, and used it as a (non exclusive)
source of reviewers.

A difference compared to the IETF review process is that it more
closely resembles an academic peer review process. The reviews
aren't published, for example. But they usually aren't blinded, either
(i.e. the authors usually know who the reviewers are).

Getting back to Mike's message:

>> Brian - Authored by anyone with perhaps some RSA input and guidance, consensus of the WG, consensus determined by the WG chairs, approved for publication by the ISE, published in the Independent stream.

My draft doesn't say that ("ISE"), but leaves it rather open. In fact I think this stream should be owned by what I called the RSAWG, so the RSAWG chairs would declare consensus to publish. I don't think that this would be a busy stream, except for an initial bunch of documents.

    Brian

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 12:25:26 -0400

Hi Brian -

Inline.

> whenever there was a tricky issue, and used it as a (non exclusive)
 From RFC6548

>   The ISE is supported by an Editorial Board for the review of
>     Independent Submission stream documents.  This board is known as the
>     Independent Submission Editorial Board.  This volunteer Editorial
>     Board exists at the pleasure of the ISE, and its members serve at the
>     pleasure of the ISE.  The existence of this board is simply noted
>     within this model, and additional discussion of such is considered
>     out of scope of this document.

So this is a choice of the ISE to seek commentary, not a requirement of 
the process.  Which in the end reduces to the ISE making the decision, 
regardless of how he seeks to make that decision.  The fact that Adrian 
is smart enough to pay attention to his board, does not actually change 
the documented process.

> My draft doesn't say that ("ISE"), but leaves it rather open. In fact I think this stream should be owned by what I called the RSAWG, so the RSAWG chairs would declare consensus to publish. I don't…
Hi Brian - your draft didn't say that, but your email did responding to 
my question about an editorial stream:  (if not the Editorial stream, 
then where?):

> stream

Apologies if I mis-represented anything.

WRT to each of the current streams, there's either a body determines by 
vote that a document is ready for publication in the stream, or the ISE 
does (with whatever consultation he in his judgement determines is 
necessary).

So digging down a bit on your last comment and assuming an Editorial 
Stream (whatever its called) - you think that the WG (or the loud voices 
therein) would direct for publication any document they felt was ready 
for publication, and that decision  (of agreement to publish) would be 
made by the WG chairs.   There would be no further decision points?

Logically it looks like you've got a Editorial stream document 
production group of N people and a voting (sort of) RSEB consisting of 
the WG chairs actually deciding whether the documents get published.   
And from your previous comments do I understand that the 4 other stream 
editors would be treated the same as any other participant except that 
their comments may be given heavier weight (or ignored for that matter) 
during the discussion period even if one of their stream might be more 
affected than another?

We've noted before that its relatively common to get WGs into forms of 
consensus paralysis on trying to get out documents, and that the IAB and 
IESG have at various times completely avoided the WG model, either 
self-editing/self-publishing or creating relatively closed design teams 
to make progress.   They've invoked that model also on the "boring" 
where the documents needed to get done, but there was no one all that 
interested in doing them as part of their day job.    If we choose an 
open group model, I believe that a few nuclear options for such groups 
need to be incorporated to ensure progress when necessary.   That seems 
anathema to the IETF model, but we've done similar things to complete 
the meta tasks of legally organizing ourselves. Alternately, a closed 
body vote to publish like we have for all the other streams is a worked 
example.

Thanks for the comments - Mike

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:10:15 +1300

On 29-Sep-20 05:25, Michael StJohns wrote:
> So this is a choice of the ISE to seek commentary, not a requirement of the process.  Which in the end reduces to the ISE making the decision, regardless of how he seeks to make that decision.  The fact that Adrian is smart enough to pay attention to his board, does not actually change the documented process.
> 
> 
> Hi Brian - your draft didn't say that, but your email did responding to my question about an editorial stream:  (if not the Editorial stream, then where?):
> 

No, you're correct, I wrote that, but if I'm not mistaken it was written
under the hypothesis of no fifth stream being created. I prefer adding
a new stream.

> WRT to each of the current streams, there's either a body determines by vote that a document is ready for publication in the stream, or the ISE does (with whatever consultation he in his judgement determines is necessary).  
> 
> 
> So digging down a bit on your last comment and assuming an Editorial Stream (whatever its called) - you think that the WG (or the loud voices therein) would direct for publication any document they felt was ready for publication, and that decision  (of agreement to publish) would be made by the WG chairs.   There would be no further decision points?

Correct; it would be a rough consensus decision.

> Logically it looks like you've got a Editorial stream document production group of N people and a voting (sort of) RSEB consisting of the WG chairs actually deciding whether the documents get published.

The group (in my model and I think Martin's too) is whoever chooses to show up plus the WG (or Program) chairs and the stream managers and the RSA (in my model only). No presidents or kings, however. The decision process is RFC7282.

>  And from your previous comments do I understand that the 4 other stream editors would be treated the same as any other participant except that their comments may be given heavier weight (or ignored for that matter) during the discussion period even if one of their stream might be more affected than another?

If we believe this approach works for protocol designs, it doesn't seem hard to believe it will work for archival publication procedures. 
> We've noted before that its relatively common to get WGs into forms of consensus paralysis on trying to get out documents, and that the IAB and IESG have at various times completely avoided the WG model, either self-editing/self-publishing or creating relatively closed design teams to make progress.   They've invoked that model also on the "boring" where the documents needed to get done, but there was no one all that interested in doing them as part of their day job.    If we choose an open group model, I believe that a few nuclear options for such groups need to be incorporated to ensure progress when necessary.   That seems anathema to the IETF model, but we've done similar things to complete the meta tasks of legally organizing ourselves.  Alternately, a closed body vote to publish like we have for all the other streams is a worked example.

Sometimes the IETF process gets stuck on an insoluble disagreement, and we have to live with the consequences. Usually that means "no change."

    Brian