On Jun 24, 2011, at 12:36 PM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of >> Keith Moore >> Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 4:48 AM >> To: Stephen Farrell >> Cc: IETF-Discussion list; Paul Hoffman; The IESG >> Subject: Re: Why ask for IETF Consensus on a WG document? >> >> It's problematic, and I believe inappropriate, to consider WG consensus >> as contributing to community consensus. The two questions need to be >> considered separately, for two reasons: >> >> 1. Working groups often have strong biases and aren't representative of >> the whole community. Put another way, a working group often represents >> only one side of a tussle, and working groups are often deliberately >> chartered in such a way as to minimize the potential for conflict >> within the group. > > By contrast, working groups tend to contain more expertise than may be > available in an IETF LC; that's partly why they're formed. I've never been > an AD before, but I imagine I might consider the WG consensus to be at least > a little bit more weighty than IETF LC resistance.
WGs tend to contain a narrow range of expertise, even when their work affects a wide range of concerns. Having a narrow range of expertise is good when the WG is tasked with doing a particular kind of protocol design. But in general I don't think an "ops" group is in a good position to make recommendations on behalf of the whole IETF about things that aren't related to operations. If they want to say "we want to call attention to these significant operational problems with protocol X" or " we recommend these particular operational practices to help protocol X work well" I think that's fine. I don't think it's fine for them to be trying to harm things that other people are using, at least not without some broader community input. > For that matter, if you object vehemently to something a WG produces, then > the work is of interest to you, and I have to wonder why you weren't at least > silently tracking that working group in the first place. This one caught me completely by surprise. I happened to notice, almost by accident, the discussion on the 6to4-advisory document, and was able to participate in some of that discussion. The main result of my participation in that conversation, I think, was that I became convinced that disabling 6to4 by default really is the right thing to do... mostly because of the impending imposition of LSN. But 6to4-historic goes way too far, and I wasn't aware of the 6to4-historic effort until IETF LC. Following WG discussion requires a significant commitment. I'm peripherally interested in v6ops, but until recently I had assumed that they were generally up to Good Stuff and didn't need my input for damage control purposes. And the 6to4-advisory document is quite well written, and I came away from that discussion with the mistaken impression that the balance shown in that document was a reflection of the working group as a whole. Also, I've had significant deadline pressures elsewhere, so haven't been able to check my v6ops mail folder as often as I'd like. I don't think it's in IETF's interests to restrict input to only those who can make the significant commitment required to follow every IETF working group that might impact their work. Frankly, with so many working groups, it's hard to even be aware of every working group that might impact one's work. Keith _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
