Hi Jodi and all,
I may have a slightly different understanding of what you said than Roger states regarding (1). I heard you say that contributions not previously submitted to the WG would be sent to the WG chair for validation. That does not define a process for validating
the material. We would need new rules or other documented guidance defining what the WG chair does with such submissions. I am not sure submitting to "leadership" is sufficient to determine what material is appropriate. It seems like something we need to
think about before we implement.
I have additional concerns about the vetting process. I heard an implicit assumption that material previously submitted to an 802 WG is already vetted. Which further causes me to wonder what "vetted" means in this situation. Anyone can show up at a meeting
(assuming they've paid the meeting fees as appropriate) and ask to present a document. Our rules require anything presented is made openly available. In 802.11, 15, 18, 19 and 24 this means posted on Mentor. I believe the other WGs have a similar way of
meeting the "openly available" requirement. We have very low qualification for who may post or present, as is appropriate to an open standards process. The fact that material has been posted and/or presented does not mean the group found it relevant, nor
that it was accepted by the group for inclusion in the standard, or even that anyone else agreed with the presenter on any point. If IEEE gives the impression that material available through the collection has been vetted, I see how this can go badly wrong.
I think it is critically important that it is made clear any document available via this collection is the opinion of the contributor and nothing more. Any pretense suggesting validation or vetting seems dangerous. But that is just my opinion, and I can be
wrong (I practice all the time). 😉.
Thanks very much for your efforts. I do think this could be a valuable tool and appreciate the effort of yourself and IEEE staff in taking up the challenge. It is very often (almost always) that there is a lot of valuable material contributed during the development
of the standard which is not included in the standard, e.g. detailed analysis, simulations, etc, that can greatly enhance understanding of the standard. It would be great to have such valuable information more easily usable. I frequently refer people to submissions
on Mentor for background information.
Cheers!
Ben