Subject: Question for other chairs

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 12:21:51 -0400

I have a quick question that I hope the list does not mind me asking.  I
know several working groups are working on more than one draft at a time.
During the tools BOF in Minneapolis, we talked about various tools to help
manage working group consensus, etc.  However, my question is how do groups
manage multiple discussions.  Our group has several topics going on at the
same time - however the new topic we may add will be a big one and I don't
want to dilute any work in progress - but also don't want to stop the new
work from happening.  Ergo, my dilemma.  If you have an issue you want to
hammer out to reach a decision, how do  you keep the issues separate.  Do
you set up other lists to manage each individual draft?  We see a lot of
traffic when a topic gets "intense" - we're struggling to determine a good
approach.  We have another draft we may want to "launch" but we have
outstanding issues we need to address to finish the main draft "de jeur".
I'm looking for some good advice on how other groups handle this.  I've
searched the RFC's but none shed any light on this type of scenario.
Thanks for any tips.

---

From: Jon Saperia <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 12:53:59 +0000

On Wednesday 24 April 2002 04:21 pm, [email-masked] wrote:
> know several working groups are working on more than one draft at a
> time. During the tools BOF in Minneapolis, we talked about various tools
> to help manage working group consensus, etc.  However, my question is
> how do groups manage multiple discussions.  Our group has several topics
> going on at the same time - however the new topic we may add will be a
> big one and I don't want to dilute any work in progress - but also don't
> want to stop the new work from happening.  Ergo, my dilemma.  If you
> have an issue you want to hammer out to reach a decision, how do  you
> keep the issues separate.  Do you set up other lists to manage each
> individual draft?  We see a lot of traffic when a topic gets "intense" -
> we're struggling to determine a good approach.  We have another draft we
> may want to "launch" but we have outstanding issues we need to address
> to finish the main draft "de jeur". I'm looking for some good advice on
> how other groups handle this.  I've searched the RFC's but none shed any
> light on this type of scenario. Thanks for any tips.

Two 'tools' may be helpful, even if the WG has only one active document.  
The first is a web based system that is 'subscribed' to the WG mail list. 
It threads any one of a number of useful ways. This can be very helpful 
when it comes time to see an entire conversation in context and you wish 
to point readers to a convenient place (other than local mail readers).

The second tool is a web page that has open issues by document and their 
status.  As issues are closed, you can mark them as such and point to the 
web server that has the email that documents the resolution.

There may be an automated way to manage the Web page, but if there is I am 
not aware of it. I just wrote the html as needed. I am sure others may 
know of better approaches. 

If you want I can give you pointers to each of these even though the web 
page is not very up to date - we are done with the major issue discussions 
for the docs.

/jon
-- 
Jon Saperia                         
				
[email-masked]
Phone: 617-744-1079
Fax:   617-249-0874
http://www.jdscons.com/

---

From: Dave Plonka <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 12:52:29 -0500

On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 12:21:51PM -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
> you set up other lists to manage each individual draft?

In the IPFIX WG, our situation is like what you describe - work on
several documents simultaneously: requirements, architecture, data
model, and applicability.  Rather than setting up seperate lists, we
kept one list, but introduce multiple "entry points" or aliases for
it.

Specifically, we have one list named, "ipfix".  However, it can also be
sent to by the names "ipfix-req", "ipfix-arch", "ipfix-data", and
"ipfix-app" for those efforts.
This causes the message Subject to be tagged accordingly, e.g.:

   Subject: [ipfix-req] last call for requirements

All members of the one "ipfix" list receive all messages.  They could
filter by Subject (automatically or by eye-balling) if they want to
disregard topics that are not directly related to their effort.

Our convention is described here:

    http://ipfix.doit.wisc.edu/#Mailing_List_Aliases_Convention

You can come to your own conclusions about whether or not this is
effective.  The archive is here:

    http://ipfix.doit.wisc.edu/archive/

The mailing list is managed using majordomo, which has its failings but
did make it fairly easy to tag the subjects based on the alias used,
and to use symbolic links to one common file for the one list of all
subscribers.  I don't know if other mailing list software packages
easily handle this.

Dave

-- 
[email-masked]  http://net.doit.wisc.edu/~plonka  ARS:N9HZF  Madison, WI