Barely literate minutes (was: IETF work is done on the mailing lists)

2012-11-28 Thread SM

Hi John,

[subject line mutated to reflect topic being discussed]

At 01:25 28-11-2012, John C Klensin wrote:

This is, IMO, a consequence of our developing fancy tools and
then uncritically relying on them.  A Jabber log or real-time
Etherpad may be, and probably is, a very helpful way to keep
real-time notes within a meeting but some WGs have substituted
nearly-unedited versions of them (especially the latter) for
minutes.  They are not minutes, certainly not minutes as


Yes.

Nobody likes to write minutes.  Very few people volunteer their free 
time to do them (thanks to John Leslie for scribing the IESG 
minutes).  When there is a discussion about producing minutes people 
come up with proposals for fancy tools.  This is where someone says: 
Etherpad can do that.  There is a moment of silence when somebody 
finds out that there's nobody using Etherpad to take notes about 
what's going on.  Who would have thought that these fancy tools 
cannot work without people? :-)



contemplated by RFC 2418, and I sincerely hope that the IESG and
the community push back on those barely literate notes before
there is an appeal against a WG decision or document approval
that is based, even in part, on failure of the WG to comply with
that 2418 requirement.


The community is too lethargic to push back on those barely 
literate notes.  One of these days there will be such an appeal.


Regards,
-sm 



Re: Barely literate minutes (was: IETF work is done on the mailing lists)

2012-11-28 Thread John C Klensin


--On Wednesday, November 28, 2012 03:28 -0800 SM
s...@resistor.net wrote:

 At 01:25 28-11-2012, John C Klensin wrote:
 This is, IMO, a consequence of our developing fancy tools and
 then uncritically relying on them.  A Jabber log or real-time
 Etherpad may be, and probably is, a very helpful way to keep
 real-time notes within a meeting but some WGs have substituted
 nearly-unedited versions of them (especially the latter) for
 minutes.  They are not minutes, certainly not minutes as
 
 Yes.
 
 Nobody likes to write minutes.  Very few people volunteer
 their free time to do them (thanks to John Leslie for scribing
 the IESG minutes).  When there is a discussion about producing
 minutes people come up with proposals for fancy tools.  This
 is where someone says: Etherpad can do that.  There is a
 moment of silence when somebody finds out that there's nobody
 using Etherpad to take notes about what's going on.  Who would
 have thought that these fancy tools cannot work without
 people? :-)
 
 contemplated by RFC 2418, and I sincerely hope that the IESG
 and the community push back on those barely literate notes
 before there is an appeal against a WG decision or document
 approval that is based, even in part, on failure of the WG to
 comply with that 2418 requirement.
 
 The community is too lethargic to push back on those barely
 literate notes.  One of these days there will be such an
 appeal.

Let me be clear.  For most WGs and purposes, most of the time,
the minutes are the minutes and I'm certainly not going to be
the one who makes a big fuss about clarity or literacy unless
they are so incomplete and incompetent that posting them becomes
a joke.  _However_ if a WG wants to make/be an exception to the
principle that consensus has to be demonstrated on the mailing
list and instead wants to rely on face to face discussions, than
that WG is, IMO, obligated to have minutes complete and
comprehensible enough that someone who did not participate in
the meeting, even remotely, can determine what went on and why
and hence whether the proposed solution or agreement is
acceptable.   If  the WG cannot produce such minutes, then I
think it is obligated to be able to demonstrate consensus from
the mailing list discussions alone.

Rather clear tradeoff, IMO.

   john