Re: [wg-review] Comments on WG procedures

[Eric Dierker <ERIC@HI-TEK.COM>]

Mr. Crispin,

I take issue with the subject under "Finally".  One sometimes has to look to
results rather than method to determine if a good method was used.  In
general I believe that these comments reflect the intellectual exchanges
this group has produced. If I pull out some of your comments of December I
would not have imagined you as the author of this document, therefore the
system worked.  Further the currently resulting documents which appear to be
imminently floating to the TF and DNSO from this working group are within
bounds and quite productive.

I would therefore suggest that the chairs of this type of working group
retain their independent nature and continue to be allowed such aggressive
thought provoking methods.  I believe it may have been this open-mindedness
which brought many of us to participate in this group.

I do in fact wish that your comments be forwarded as a very inciteful and
helpful discourse of how these groups should proceed.
Sincerely,


Kent Crispin wrote:

> As today is the 15th, the last day for submitting comments to this WG to
> be forwarded to the Review Task Force, I would like the following
> comments on Working Group procedures to be included:
>
>                      Comments on Working Groups:
>
> It has been observed for some time that there have been serious problems
> with WGs in the DNSO.  WG-Review gives us a great opportunity to review
> some of these familiar problems, and adds a new wrinkle:
>
> First, by definition, the membership of an open WG is self-selected from
> a very much larger pool of potential participants, and therefore
> susceptible to capture.  That means that the membership of the WG may be
> composed primarily of those who have a vested interest, which in turn
> implies that the membership of any WG must be considered as potentially
> biased, which further implies that even if the WG reaches consensus (by
> any measure), that consensus cannot, without further evaluation, be
> considered as a global consensus.
>
> Second, WGs may be incapable of even finding internal consensus, if the
> topic is extremely polarized, or too broad.  And of course, many topics
> in the purview of the DNSO are both extremely polarized and broad.
>
> Third, for many interested parties, an online WG is a foreign
> environment.  This is obvious in the case of people who don't spend a
> lot of time online, but it is also true for some people who are very
> familiar with email lists as informal discussion forums -- they have a
> hard time dealing with the focus required in order to be productive
> online.
>
> Fourth, because it is difficult to keep up with high volume lists,
> people will leave a list that is too demanding.  This has a tendency to
> bias memberships towards the most vocal factions.
>
> Finally, WG-Review added a new wrinkle, where the NC rep in charge of
> the WG actively advocated that the WG ignore the purpose approved by the
> NC, and instead work on a much broader topic.  This inconsistency
> seriously damaged the integrity of the process, and contributed a great
> deal of chaos.
>
> However, I think that most knowledgeable observers had concluded that
> there were serious problems with WGs long before WG-Review (and indeed
> the NC did try to address some of these problems by giving the WG a very
> narrow focus).
>
> The bottom line is that WGs are an insufficient mechanism for finding
> global consensus.
>
> This does not mean, however, that WGs are useless -- quite the
> contrary.  They are a potentially very valuable tool when used within
> their limitations, as a component of an overall process managed by the
> NC.
>
> Specifically:
>
> 0) The basic purpose of WGs should be thought of, as the name implies,
> as places to do work.  They should not be thought of as general
> discussion groups, or open forums.
>
> 1) WGs should be fine grained and focused.  The focus should be on
> production of particular documents, decided in advance; the topics
> should be constrained; the lifetime should be constrained; mailing list
> rules should strongly limit off-topic postings.  Clear procedures for
> WGs should be developed and refined over time.  To facilitate this
> refinement the NC should generally charter *small* WGs, pro-actively --
> WGs with constrained mandates, limited lifespans, and strong leaders.
> It is important, though, that WGs have some procedural freedom -- the
> criteria for success of the WG should be the documents produced, not how
> slavishly the WG followed procedure.  This procedural freedom is
> necessary if the procedures are to evolve and develop over time.  (*)
>
> 2) Topics should be structured towards consensus goals.  For example,
> instead of a WG topic "Should there be new gTLDs", the topic could be
> "What are the various positions concerning new gTLDs".  The first topic
> forces the WG to come to an impossible consensus; the second, on the
> other hand, just gathers information.  Moreover, the focus in the second
> is on production of a document, not a policy decision.
>
> 3) If a WG is deadlocked, the NC should simply split the WG into
> separate WGs to deal with the subtopics.  This allows each side of a
> position to work in relative isolation to form their own best statement
> of their position.
>
> 4) Following the above guidelines would obviously tend to significantly
> increase the number of WGs.  This is good in and of itself, as it
> partitions the participants, and tends to keep WG size small.
>
> 5) It should be easy for anyone to propose a WG on any topic, as long as
> the goals are clearly defined, and meet the general guidelines above.
> Special interest groups should be *encouraged* to form WGs to produce
> position papers supporting their point of view.  In this way the open
> nature of WGs can be exploited to get wide input to the DNSO.
>
> 6) It must be explicitly acknowledged that a WG can simply fail.
>
> 7) Note that this model treats the tendency towards bias that WGs
> exhibit as a virtue -- a WG is a place where those with a particular
> point of view can get together and produce the most persuasive position
> possible.  Small unrepresentative WGs can be very productive in
> isolation, and can produce better, more persuasive documents if they are
> not hampered by contentious argument within the WG.
>
> 8) It always rests on the NC to make a determination of whether the
> results of a WG represent a wider consensus.  It may be necessary for
> the NC to require a WG to seek wider consensus or a better balance, or
> to merge the efforts of multiple WGs through a task force or another
> tightly constrained WG.
>
> 9) WG chairs should be trained in online consensus management.  The
> IETF regularly holds sessions for WG chairs; the DNSO should call on
> that expertise.
>
> 10) The above model, it should be clear, requires a much more hands-on
> approach from the NC, and must operate within a large consensus
> discovery process.  I will address that point in a separate document.
>
> ================================================================
>
> (*) Some have contended that strong internal procedures in WGs, with
> "clear votes", will solve the problems with WGs.  This is obviously
> false -- a WG full of vested interests remains a WG full of vested
> interests, whether they vote or declare consensus.  Votes in WGs are
> quite useful as an information gathering tool, but they also tend to
> polarize opinion, and must be used with caution.
>
> --
> Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
> kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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