Subject: Re: area directors at risk

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 17:59:18 -0500

With all the technology available today is there not a way (secure of 
course) for working group chairs to update their own charter and 
milestones.  I agree that sending them in for updates does slow/inhibit 
the process.

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 13:34:04 +0100

> milestones.  I agree that sending them in for updates does slow/inhibit

letting WGs set their own charter is not what we do.
We SHOULD get support structures in place so that AD or IESG approval of a 
charter can be literally a "click on a button".

But I think the gating factor for charter updates now is not the work of 
getting it punched into the system; it is rather:

- getting the WG to propose a charter update at all
- getting the AD to review the proposed change
- getting the AD to remember to return his comments to the WG
- getting the chairs (and the WG!) to indicate that they agree with the
  AD's proposed revision (or not)
- getting the AD to forward the agreed-upon charter revision to the IESG
- getting the update actually on an IESG agenda

Once all that is done, the punching-in of an updated charter is 10 minutes 
of clerical work.Much longer than can be achieved with modern technology - 
but that is not where the big delay is.

Doing trouble ticket-like systems for charter updates MIGHT be the Right 
Thing.

                           Harald

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From: Stuart Staniford <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 11:47:28 -0800

> Doing trouble ticket-like systems for charter updates MIGHT be the Right

My guess is that the time required for the ADs and the IESG to think
intelligently about the issues in a charter update dwarfs the time required
just to mechanically process the changes to the document.  I doubt
automation will make any fundamental difference to the (apparent) fact that
the ADs and IESG do not have time to process charter updates at present.

Stuart.

-- 
Stuart Staniford     ---     President     ---     Silicon Defense
         ** Silicon Defense: Technical Support for Snort **
mailto:[email-masked]  http://www.silicondefense.com/
(707) 445-4355 x 16                           (707) 445-4222 (FAX)

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From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 21:15:35 +0100

--On 01-11-21 11.47 -0800 Stuart Staniford <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> intelligently about the issues in a charter update dwarfs the time
> required just to mechanically process the changes to the document.  I
> doubt automation will make any fundamental difference to the (apparent)
> fact that the ADs and IESG do not have time to process charter updates at
> present.

As Area Director, and Chair, I have during the years tried to see the
charter as a tool for the _Chair_ to be able to say _NO_ to things.

  paf

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From: "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:22:52 +0800

> charter as a tool for the _Chair_ to be able to say _NO_ to things.

Which probably is a good reason to allow the wg chairs to update some
parts of the charter (e.g. goals & milestone) with a simple note to the
ADs so long there is a rough consensus within the wg.

The ADs can slap our waist, "come bad-boy" wack, if there is any
problem, either that individuals have appeal to them or that they feel
it is wrong.

If it is easy to make mistake, it is also easy to correct the mistake.

-James Seng

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From: Alain Durand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 19:02:53 -0800

>ADs so long there is a rough consensus within the wg.

I've been silent for a while (other nomcom duties), let me step in there.

There is another area where I believe tools could help a lot. It is in the
AD/wg chair/author loops while resolving comments.
I wish there was a simple tool that wg chairs could use to submit drafts to 
ADs,
follow the progresses, see the comments made by the IESG, follow up with 
the authors
and get back to the IESG.
http://www.iesg.org/IESG/status.html is a good step in that direction, but 
it does not
show the comments. They usually come back through individual mails form ADs 
to wg chairs,
what I think is missing is a repository and tracking system for comment 
resolution.

         - Alain.

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From: Kireeti Kompella <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 19:16:58 -0800 (PST)

> The ADs can slap our waist

Intriguing as the thought is, I don't want no ADs slapping my
waist.

:-)

Kireeti.

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From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 21:12:34 -0800 (PST)

> what I think is missing is a repository and tracking system for comment 

Funny you should mention that. After attending an IEEE 802.11 meeting
in which such a system was utilized (which allowed more than 300 comments
to be tracked and resolved in a week), we decided to try this out in the
AAA WG. For the last 6 months or so, we have been using a formal tracking
process, and it has helped focus the discussion quite a bit. 

Before we adopted a formal "change request" process we had
"discussions" which never really translated to specific change
requests or decisions; they just petered out. As a result, it was very
difficult to gauge where we were or whether the working group consensus
was being reflected in the documents. 

Now, it is still possible to "discuss" things, but if you want to actually
change the document, then there is a form to fill out
(subject: [issue]) which is emailed to the list. New requests are granted
an issue #, by which the issue can be tracked to resolution. 

The system operates very much like a bug report database/trouble ticket
system. In the initial email form, people cite the document, the section,
the type of comment (editorial, technical, etc.), the justification, the
text they want to change, what they want to change it to, etc. The working
group discussion then ensues, linked to the proposed change. The editor
proposes a resolution, or someone is assigned to write a new section, and
the status of the change request is tracked.

Once a system like this is put in place, it is easy to answer the question
"where are you?". On any given day, one can get a report on the unresolved
issues by document, by the individual requesting the change, etc. It is
possible to chart progress by looking at the rate of reduction (or
increase!) in the total issue count, the rate of incoming issues versus
resolutions, etc. To see whether WG input is being incorporated, you can
track resolution by cause ("Reject", "Accept", "Accept with
modification"). 

These kind of trouble ticketing/bug databases are in very common usage in
software development and ISPs. I suspect that with a relatively modest
expenditure of effort, the process described above could be automated, and
integrated with the IETF mailing list software of choice. 

As I mentioned, the benefits of such a system are not theoretical; the
IEEE has developed their own software version of this over a period of a
decade or so, and it appears to improve productivity considerably.

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From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 22:39:49 -0800 (PST)

FYI... For the purposes of discussion, I've placed an example
implementation, and other information relating to document change tracking
tools at the following location:

http://www.drizzle.com/~aboba/AAA/DCR.zip

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From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 10:12:18 -0500

Two large protocol projects I'm involved with has used mozilla to track
comments and "bug reports" in the working group, and could presumably be
used for the IESG comments as well. That way, it is easy to see whether
the comment has been addressed and whether anything has fallen through
the cracks. This is probably not appropriate for 2-page documents, but
maybe the IETF could set up a mozilla (or similar system) for general
use, as a service to working groups. This is no substitute for diligence
of the authors and chairs, but it does seem to help avoiding raising the
same issue again and again.

We have also found CVS an extremely helpful tool in coordinating editing
among an editorial team, without the usual manual "handing off the
editing token" difficulties.

Alain Durand wrote:

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From: Susan Hares <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 14:44:39 -0500

Bernard:

Did you send the pointer to this tool?

Sue Hares