On 2 Apr 2025, at 12:53, Dave Crocker wrote:
On 4/1/2025 8:42 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:
On 1 Apr 2025, at 22:30, Dave Crocker wrote:
When calling to have a wg adopt a draft, it is worth reviewing
comments on that draft beforehand
The draft version that was called for adoption is drastically
different than the draft on which you commented,
Thanks for pointing this out. Given the distractions of the the last
month -- and continuing -- I´d missed that. (In spite of making
some narrowly focused comments after it was issued.)
A casual scan of a diff seems to show 1/3 - 1/2 of the latest draft
being new.
That´s a lot of diff.
With no substantive discussion about the changes, it seems.
From what I can tell -- and absent any engagement from when I offered
review comments originally -- none of my original review comments
affected the new draft.
Again, given that these changes all happened pre-chartering, I took it
that the authors did a full restructuring of the input documents. That
doesn't mean they should have ignored your comments (if simply as a
matter of courtesy), but I can see how they might viewed the new
versions as tabula rasa.
Besides being frustrating, it is unfortunate for the draft since, the
current draft retains simple, foundational errors that were pointed
out previous.
I hear and appreciate the frustration. But I don't think it helps the
discussion in any useful way to let that frustration leak onto the list.
Please try to give your chairs a bit of trust that we are listening to
the discussion, are seeing what is and isn't being addressed, and are
trying (both on and off list) to move things in a productive direction.
While I wasn't involved in the earlier iteration of DKIM, like Murray I
am acutely aware of the contentiousness that existed on this list and
I'm hoping we can bring down the temperature from where it was before.
More on that below.
- **Should an IETF working adopt a draft that is sufficiently revised
so as to essentially be a new document when the new draft has
received pretty much no IETF-based discussion?**
This does happen all the time. A WG can decide that a document has the
right structure to make a reasonable starting point, even if the
contents have only been given a cursory look. Indeed, a WG can decide
that a blank sheet of paper is the appropriate document to adopt.
- **Should an IETF wg adopt a document that has basic factual
errors?**
Again, depends on the particulars of the errors. I can see a WG
concluding, "Section X is completely wrong and has to go, but the rest
of the document is solid enough to be adopted as a base." Or the answer
could also be, "There is so much wrong with this document at a basic
level that a blank sheet of paper would be a better base, so let's not
adopt this." That's the kind of input your chairs need. But I will say
that the latter was not what we were hearing in the room in Bangkok from
people who reportedly read the documents, so we'd want some comments on
the list along those lines if that's what is felt.
- **Also, this document that purports to focus on motivations does not
seem to include a discussion of problems and motivations.**
For example the opening section, where one would expect a least a
hint, instead jumps to conclusions, without providing any actual
background. (And, not surprisingly, this was noted as an issue for the
previous draft.)
Here is something that might facilitate making the document do what it
is claimed to do: Change the order of the major sections, so there
is a natural and typical flows.
From:
1. Background and motivations
2. Some properties that will be required to deliver on these goals
3. Goals ot be addressed by DKIM2
To:
1. Background and _problems_ (*with no discussion of solutions*)
2. Goals for DKIM2 (*with discussion of issues and tradoffs, but not
solutions*)
3. Some properties that will be required to deliver on these goals
(*component solution/approaches*)
And again I'll ask (though I think I see the implied answer): Do you
think these changes would be needed before you would see it reasonable
to adopt this document, or do you think even with these changes there
would be a bunch more things that need changing before adoption, or do
you conclude that the document isn't worth adopting in any foreseeable
state?
and I haven't endeavored to go through point-by-point to see which
comments apply to which of the current documents. It's also not clear
to me which of your comments amount to "this will need to be
corrected" and which ones amount to "this indicates this document is
not appropriate for adoption, even as a framework that will require a
lot of corrections." It would probably be useful to identify the
latter sort (if any) in response to the call for adoption.
Your lack of clarity confuses me. I don´t recall regular reviews
from regular participants typically being expected to make
prioritization demands on the working group or the authors.
Detailed "reviews" typically take place well after initial "views",
after a WG has been chartered, after there has been discussion of the
broad brushstrokes of a proposed document, after the document has gone
through a few versions and is starting to solidify, etc. At the stage
where a WG is being formed and simply deciding where to start, and the
draft is being looked at as a possible starting point, I do find a
detailed review a bit premature and an unusual thing to start with out
of the gate. I have more frequent experience with broad brushstrokes and
direct comments on "suitability as a starting point" at this point in
the process.
And I have not been an Area Director in maybe 30 years.
And I for 10 years. And Murray for about 2 weeks. I expect we all have
different experiences of the work habits of WGs over the years. When
either you or I were ADs, there was no explicit "Call for Adoption"
step. Things change.
I suspect the difference in our model for this sort of thing is, you
know, having folk engage in discussion, where there is need. No idea
why there is so much resistance to that standard model.
As I said, I don't think discussion is non-standard. I think detailed
reviews and not addressing the more general question of adoptability
are.
Speaking of standard, I see that this draft is listed as intending
standards track. That´s quite unusual for a ´motivation´
document. I am curious how conformance/interoperability will be
tested?
As Bron replied, that appears to have been an error.
Apologies for not responding to this semi-official response to my
unofficial review of the draft in January.
I'm not clear what the terms "semi-official" and "unofficial" mean in
this context.
I guess I should not be surprised that this mild attempt at humor fell
flat. Anyhow, I thought Allen was part of the private group that
developed the text. Or, at least, I was hoping that at least one
person from that crew would engage with having a detailed review be
offered. You might recall that the IETF has various, official reviews?
And, hence ´semi-´.
Yeah, I definitely didn't get the joke. Sorry about that. I'd also point
out that, given the aforementioned contentiousness that has historically
existed on this list, humor can all too often come off as sarcasm and/or
snark, and that's unlikely to keep the group productive. As I said
earlier, Murray and I have both been trying (both on and off list) to
keep tempers cool and the discussion productive. Anything all
participants can do to be extra aware and avoid saying things likely to
raise hackles would be greatly appreciated by your chairs.
I will note that Allen's was the only response to my detailed
review. And it was only to my summary comments.
On the average, that speaks poorly both for group engagement and for
advocate engagement.
I can think of other reasons why a long detailed pre-chartering
review of an early pre-chartering version of a draft might not have
gotten a great deal of response, none of them having anything to do
with participants' engagement in the work of the WG. I don't think we
need to dwell on this at the moment.
well, as long as you know of other unstated reasons, then it´s
certainly fine to ignore someone´s substantial effort to provide
technical comments in an IETF context.
In this case, I see that my trying to be indirect was not useful and
only caused sarcasm in response, so I'll attempt a bit more direct:
Given the previously mentioned contention, some may have viewed such a
long and detailed review at this stage of the process as a case of
obstruction or sealioning rather than a serious attempt to improve the
first draft of a document and avoided engaging directly because of that.
And I don't think that such an assumption of bad intention would be a
good thing, any more than I think that assuming the silence was a sign
of poor behavior on the part of the group or the advocates is a good
thing. I just think that concluding that anything "speaks poorly" of
participants' actions or coming up with other ideas of participants'
motivations, and saying so on the list, is not particularly conducive to
getting work done.
I understand why you're frustrated with having done an extensive amount
of work on a review and not gotten a response. If you need to express
that frustration, please do so to the chairs off list and we will try to
get others to get their collective acts together and engage. (And the
same goes for other frustrations any participants might have with other
participants.) But calling out people on the list (even in more subtle
ways) is unlikely to get them to change their behavior and is more
likely to hinder progress. And that is what your chairs are trying to
do.
pr
--
Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
All connections to the world are tenuous at best
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