Subject: Re: [Rfced-future] Where, if not there? [was What, if not these]

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2021 14:25:57 -0500

Hi.

I have been trying, with little success, to follow this long and
rapid-turnaround thread.  If what I'm about to say has already
been said by others, +1 to them.  If not, perhaps this will be
helpful to have down before the call because it _might_ point a
path to a middle ground.

In part because I believe it is possible, even likely, that the
RSWG will be even less representation of that ill-defined
extended community of people who depend on the RFC Series than
this Program is (see below), I think the process we document and
hand off to them must recognize that:

* While it is probably adequately designed for making fairly
routine decisions that should still involve community
participation and oversight, there are issues of sufficient
impact for which additional input is needed, including making
efforts to reach out to people and groups who normally might not
pay attention to what we are doing.  In addition to the
"principles" and/or types of "policies" people have been
discussing, I would include any decision that, once implemented,
would be impossible to reverse if experience (aka "running
code") made it clear that it had not been a good idea.  And
"reaching out" does not mean just a generic invitation to
participate in the RSWG or join a mailing list.

* It is vital to give the RSWG very clear guidance about things
that belong in that "more problematic" category, e.g., those
things that require extraordinary outreach and review.  I think
we need at least a partial list of principles but maybe
requiring that the RSWG carefully explore how a possible
decision would be reversed if it turned out to be a bad idea
(and report on that to the RSAG and IETF community) would
substitute for many of them.  Put differently, small adjustments
of direction to stay on the same path to the same goals are ok;
major changes of path, direction, or destination/goals require
an extraordinary process.  If  the principles we can agree on
are not more than example of things that require that treatment,
maybe that is good enough.  Maybe.

* I'm also ok with leaving most of the definition of
"extraordinary process" to the RSWG as long as we can make it
clear that a serious attempt at outreach to user communicates
for the RFC Series -- and listening to what they have to say--
is critical.  While I'd hope to see some examples of such
communities, including those who use RFCs in research work and
for procurement, I don't think we need to try to enumerate that
group.  We just need to be clear that RSWG participants asking
each other (or even the IAB, IESG, etc.) may be desirable but is
not sufficient.

Context for some of the above in addition to whatever I've
learned from the list: 

First, if keeping up with this effort and being part of an
informed, even if rough, consensus, requires reading and
understanding over 200 messages on essentially the same cluster
of topics in under three weeks, claims that our opinions or
conclusions are generally held in the IETF community (even with
a narrow definition of that term) are dubious.  Judging from
that and a count of the number of people who are posting
(especially multiple times), the group seems to be sliding
toward participation only from those who are very dedicated to
getting things right as they see it, those who are being paid to
do this specific work, and/or, as a colleague from another area
of work would put it, who have too much time on their hands.
None of those categories includes most IETF participants.

Second, after thinking about Jay's "de facto" list and the
recent discussions about principles, I don't think it would be
appropriate or sufficient to hire an RSCE on the basis of that
list.  I've hinted at part of the problem before: in a situation
like this, with a newly defined position, candidates should be
judged partially of the questions they ask about things that
don't go into the job description (RFP, whatever).  Evaluation
of those questions and the answers they are given is not going
to be adequate to distinguish between likely good candidates and
likely hacks unless they are strongly rooted in either clear
principles or equivalent oral tradition.  

I am mentioning the above in this note and context, first
because I see the discussion of principles to be at least as
important to the qualifications for an RSCE as they are to the
workings of the RSWG/RSAB.   And second, because I think a RSCE
with the right qualifications and experience would be a good
source of advice both on which communities to reach out to but
on how best to do that outreach if we really want input and
advice.

See many of you soon.

best,
   john