Skipping down to the end:
On 1/23/12 2:57 PM, Barry Leiba wrote:
This is dependent on the AD*and* the WG involved. An AD might bring up an
issue that was clearly resolved by a WG many months (years!) ago. Without a
bit of restraint by the WG, a lot of sturm und drong can be generated
Exactly one example.
Scenario 1:
DISCUSS message goes to editors and chairs. AD brings up issue X.
Editor or shepherd replies, "WG discussed this at length, and closed the issue."
AD says, "Ah, OK, thanks," and clears.
Scenario 2:
DISCUSS message goes to WG mailing list. AD brings up issue X.
Five angry WG participants, sick to death of issue X, send angry
responses, which go to the IESG.
Two holdouts, who had prolonged the discussion endlessly before, take
this as an invitation to rant about issue X again, sending it to the
WG and the IESG.
AD gets the message and clears, but lots of time was wasted.
Scenario 3:
DISCUSS message goes to editors and chairs. AD brings up issue X.
Editor or shepherd replies, "WG discussed this at length, and closed the issue."
AD says, "No, I don't think that's the right answer, and I won't clear."
Shepherd posts the discussion to the WG mailing list.
I'm sure you can see that I think scenarios 1 and 3 are the way things
should work, and 2 is the one I want to avoid. The chairs are the
ones most able to judge what will happen, and when it should be posted
to the WG list.
My contention is that with proper socialization of the WG, scenario 2
becomes, for all intents and purposes, scenario 1 or 3. That is, if the
WG is restrained and managed well enough not to jump out of their skin
when an AD posts a DISCUSS (or, for that matter, when a
non-usual-WG-participant posts a message about a topic that his been
decided), the post can go to the list, the chair or editor can say, "We
discussed this at length, and closed the issue", the AD can respond in
whichever way, and the discussion can continue as necessary. The bonus
to scenario 2 + socialization is (a) there is an obvious archive where
the discussion has taken place, and (b) the WG gets to see the comments
and, if the chair or editor misunderstand the issue, another calm
participant can pipe up, "Oh, that smart AD has said something
especially insightful that we missed some months ago. I now see that I
agree that we haven't solved this problem."
And this is why I said I will not be springing this on anybody. We'll do
it with a WG and chair that is prepared so we don't get five angry
participants who are sick to death instantly committing public ritual
suicide on the list. And as Dave said, such restraint should be going on
with anyone who re-raises an old issue (chairs should take the lead on
such folks, ADs or otherwise, and explain history, and others should be
patient until that happens), and as Dave also said, we should expect
that sometimes humans will be humans and a participant will get publicly
obnoxious (toward an AD or other person) and we'll deal with that
accordingly.
The end goal is for ADs to be able post all of their comments to the WG
list and for issues to get resolved appropriately without unwarranted
fanfare.
pr
--
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102
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