RE: [802SEC] reflector observations
Howard,
Like Mat, I'm concerned about whether someone else could rewrite the rules for us. The right someone probably could, but I don't know if we would get that. I'm also concerned about the cost. However, it is difficult to get volunteers to spend the time and care on proceedural drafts that we would use on technical drafts.
If one looks at most of the policies and procedures, they are usually pretty high level. In recent years, we have gone for putting more and more low level specifics in and doing a lot of little tweaks. The original rules didn't have great consistancy (e.g. does member mean voters and observers or only voters) and this has just made it worse.
At this point the rules really need a rewrite focusing on consistancy and clarity, but I also think we need to consider how much detail is appropriate. Do we want the US constitution or the California Constitution? No matter how much detail we put in, there will always be interpretation necessary.
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: mjsherman@research.att.com [mailto:mjsherman@research.att.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 6:04 AM
To: millardo@dominetsystems.com; stds-802-sec@ieee.org
Subject: RE: [802SEC] reflector observations
Howard,
I have mixed feelings about this. First the good part - you'll put me
out of a job. Probably a good thing since I'll simply focus my efforts
on other EC issues. Next the bad part - we develop our rules by
consensus. I'm not sure we want someone to write the rules for us,
which sounds kind of like what you are proposing. I wouldn't mind
having someone else to run the ballots and collect the feedback. But
I'm not sure we should turn over the process of writing the rules to an
outside party.
Another question for you is - Are you proposing changing the current
process we use to develop rules? In my mind, the rules need a complete
rewrite. Again, I'm not sure we would want to turn that over to an
outside party. Yet it is too big a task for any one of us to take on
all at once, perhaps even with outside help.
I think a large part of the problem is that we have become more aware of
the short comings in our rules, and of the rules in general. On one
recent P&P revision (the one to use Executive Committee rather than
Sponsor Executive Committee in the rules) someone abstained citing as
one of their reasons the fact that the use of acronyms vs spelling the
acronyms out was inconsistent throughout the document for many acronyms.
I'm not sure how critical all these issues are, but in the past I think
we may have ignored these more minor issues rather than fixed them.
I try to initiate 2 rules changes a cycle (I'm running 3 right now).
Other EC members run other P&P revisions as well. This cycle we
promised 2 revisions by other EC members but only delivered one (for a
total of 4). If we actually manage to complete an average of 3
revisions per cycle, that is a total of 12 revisions per year. This
means our rules are in an almost constant state of change. Note that I
maintain a list of pending P&P revisions that individuals have noted
they would like to make. The list grows at a rate which is faster than
I take things off. As a result, I currently have a backlog of about 12
P&P revisions that need to be run. At our current rate of progress it
will take us about 1.5 years to get through them all. But as I noted,
the list grows fast than it shrinks, so I can't say honestly we will
ever get through them all. Also, I recently started to note conflicts
in rules above and below our P&P, that need to be resolved outside our
P&P that I'd like to see addressed. What I am really saying is that
there are degrees of perfection and clarity. Part of the problem is
that we seem to have moved to a state where we desire greater perfection
in our rules then we used to. All of these issues have been around for
years, but we are only now trying to address them. However, we may also
now be expecting too much perfection in our rules, and maybe we need to
back off a little.
Just a few rambling thoughts to get the conversation going.
Mat
PS - Yes I could have removed you from the "To" line so you only got one
copy, and yes I could have gone down and deleted the rest of the e-mail
trail. But it is easier to just push respond to all and waste a few
kilobytes - especially with our reflectors new found performance.
Matthew Sherman
Vice Chair, IEEE 802
Technology Consultant
Communications Technology Research
AT&T Labs - Shannon Laboratory
Room B255, Building 103
180 Park Avenue
P.O. Box 971
Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971
Phone: +1 (973) 236-6925
Fax: +1 (973) 360-5877
EMAIL: mjsherman@att.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Frazier [mailto:millardo@dominetsystems.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 12:45 AM
To: stds-802-sec@ieee.org
Subject: [802SEC] reflector observations
Folks,
A few observations:
1) We have exchanged more messages on the subject of
wireless projectors than we exchanged on the subject
of whether 802.11g was ready for RevCom. In fact,
we have exchanged more messages on this subject than
anything else we have discussed in recent memory.
2) Most of the messages on the subject have been sent
both to the SEC reflector, and to a list of individual
addresses. I am not sure of how many of you
are getting duplicates, but I have gotten every one
of the messages on this thread twice.
3) Most of the messages on the thread have quoted
the earlier messages. The most recent messages are
about 9 kibibytes in length, but add only a few hundred
bytes of new information.
The point being that we don't really need to send
duplicate copies of redundant information.
And everyone seems to have overlooked the fact
that the SEC reflector is operating MUCH FASTER
now. I notice that the duplicate copies are received
back to back, with one addressed to me individually
(thus bypassing the reflector entirely) and one coming
via the reflector, with less than 1 minute difference
in delivery time. Pretty good, eh?
Since we seem to have so much time to devote to the
question of whether we should spend an extra $400 to
buy a projector with a wireless interface (vs one without),
may I ask that we spend a few cycles discussing the
suggestion I tossed out earlier, which was for us to
consider retaining a paid staffer to help with P&P
changes and project tracking?
Howard Frazier