| Internet-Draft | Making Less work for Area Directors | April 2023 |
| Salz | Expires 15 October 2023 | [Page] |
This draft proposes a number of ways that the Area Director workload can be reduced. It will be up to the IETF consensus process to set the final list.¶
A major goal of this effort is to make it feasible for a wider diversity of people to volunteer as a candidate for AD. Anecdotally, every IESG complains about the AD workload, and says that it takes the first full term to understand the job.¶
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶
Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-rsalz-less-ad-work/.¶
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Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/rsalz/ietf-less-ad-work.¶
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Repeat the abstract.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
It might be useful to look at the job descriptions that the IESG provided to NomCom over the years.¶
In 2016, the description said¶
The basic IESG activities can consume between 15-40 hours a week.¶
In 2017, this changed to¶
The ability to contribute more time is useful, but if the NomCom should pick a few ADs who can only do 15 hrs/week on a routine basis, the IESG can cope with that.¶
Starting with the 2018 NomCom, this changed to the following¶
Many ADs allocate 15 hours or more per week...¶
This boilerplate has been unchanged in the five years since then.¶
TODO: Would be interesting to find out why this changed.¶
Interestingly, the number of pages has also not changed "read on the order of 500 pages of internet-drafts every two weeks."¶
TODO: Get pagecounts for the past several years; maybe from the sodastream folks?¶
We need to make the AD job (except for the IETF Chair), less time-consuming. The current requirement is not sustainable, and will lead to centralization of technical leadership in only the largest companies. Of the 14 current Area Directors, eight (more than half) work for the one of the 2,000 largest global companies [FORBES] or a subsidiary.¶
TODO: Look at previous IESG membership¶
An Internet-Draft ballot should allow only one AD in each area to vote. The other director(s) can either vote "no objection" or the ballot tracking can be modified to handle this more directly. Coordination between area ADs is left to them to handle; this document suggests that the non-responsible AD be the one to vote. During discussion, all ADs should participate.¶
For any area with a directorate, the default ballot position should be to accept that review, if one is given.¶
An incoming AD should not pick up the documents left by the predecessor. A new AD should not add be able to add work on authors, or for them.¶
If the IESG believes that a previous AD did a poor job, it should vote on that and announce it to the IETF community.¶
What is the rationale for the IESG setting meeting logistics? How much time is consumed with scheduling?¶
We have professional staff, with Board oversight, and consultations. The meeting venue requirements are being discussed as an update to [RFC8718] and any policy changes will be acted on.¶
It is not an effective use of technical experts to review and correct for things like typo's, etc. We recognize that many ADs will be "unable to help themselves" as the personality trait of nit-picking is endemic to our profession. ADs can point out things that are not clear, and if there are many of them, feel free to send the document back to the WG. This will be hard, particularly for contributors where English is not their native language. Perhaps the IETF can offer resources to help with this before a document gets to the RFC Production Center (which is more focused on copyediting, anyway).¶
This document offers a number of suggestions to reduce the workload of an IETF Area Director. Previous NomCom's have repeatedly heard that the effort is involved is a full-time job. Few companies other than large IT or Internet firms, can afford this. This document offers some suggestions, in addition to reducing the workload, that might help increase the diversity of candidates.¶
Might help get more volunteers from other (less-wealthy? smaller companies?) parts of the world. We have learned to accomodate more remote meetings, perhaps that is enough.¶
"So you want to be an AD" could be worthwhile training to offer. Of course the IESG and the way the work vary, and it would have to be done in consultation with them.¶
This changes the IESG review process.¶
This document has no IANA actions.¶
None yet.¶