Spencer, I want to express slight disagreement on one of your points (the others are clearly, at least to me, on-target)...
--On Thursday, 19 April, 2007 08:03 -0500 Spencer Dawkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >... > - We have been encouraging greater separation of roles (an > extreme case of non-separated roles is a document editor who > is also the working group chair, the document shepherd, and > the responsible AD for the working group). We've been saying > that having ADs chair WGs in their own area is not a good > thing. We've been saying that having WG chairs edit major > documents in their own area is not a good thing. We may want > to provide guidance that having ADs chair WG meetings in their > own area, especially where there is no other person acting as > chair, is not a good thing, and that the ADs really need to > find someone else who is willing to chair the meeting, and who > is not involved as the next step on the appeals ladder. If a WG is in trouble -- not in terms of the peculiarities of a particular meeting, but more generally -- and especially if it is showing signs of long-term deadlock or paralysis about particular issues, and the usual chair(s) are not available, then my first preference would be to have someone in the chair who has a good knowledge of the issues and a responsibility both for balance about particular issues and, as you point out, for balancing fairness and progress. In many cases, that finger is going to point to the relevant AD(s). I'd hate to make a rule that would prevent their sitting in the chair for a particular meeting if, in their judgment, that was the best way to facilitate both fairness and progress. If they had to recuse themselves from later IESG decision-making discussions on the subject, I think that is a reasonable price to pay: if the WG doesn't manage to reach conclusions, the IESG won't have the chance to examine the relevant documents. >... > In summary - not a good situation, but one that is being > handled correctly at this point. Let's let the WG chairs, and > the ADs, do their jobs and see where we end up. indeed. john _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf