Internet Area Directorate (intdir)

Internet Area Directorate

The Internet Area Directorate is an active group of experts appointed by the Internet Area Directors. What Does the Directorate Do?

The purpose of the Directorate is to:

o Review all INT area documents prior to IETF Last Call and provide a recommendation if the document is ready to go to Last Call and therefore be forwarded to the IESG.

o Review documents from other areas that may overlap or impact an INT area Working Group or INT area technologies during IETF Last Call and provide an assessment to the Area Directors. [Review must provide a recommended IESG ballot position and highlight areas of critical concern to the INT ADs and provide feedback to the document editors and shepherd.]

o Review documents, regardless of area or status, when requested by an INT AD.

o Perform other tasks related to IETF documents and processes as may be requested by the INT ADs.

The tasks performed by the Directorate are to:

1. Review all INT area documents prior to Last Call to ensure the quality of documents being produced by Working Groups in the Internet Area.

2. Triage all documents from other areas and review those that overlap or impact an INT area Working Group or INT area technologies, providing the ADs with a suggested ballot position and highlight areas of critical concern.

3. Assist ADs with judgment issues when requested - The ADs may send email to the directorate list when they have issues that they want help with. Examples for judgment issues include:

   3.a. Does the issue follow and conform to (or is in the spirit of) existing conventions, whether documented or not?

   3.b. Does the issue warrant going through the Working Group process or is the impact to an existing protocol sufficiently minor to allow the work to proceed outside an INT Working Group?

4. Monitor internet-drafts for certain topics as defined by the consensus of the INT ADs. An example of this might be to monitor drafts specifying DHCP options to assure the DHCPv6 Option Guidelines (RFC 7272), are being followed and work with the authors and the ADs when not.

5. Raise potential issues related to INT Area technologies when noticed in the normal course of IETF work and assist the INT ADs and document authors in resolving these issues.

Note: 4 and 5 are basically variants of 3, the difference is that these assist the ADs in identifying issues.

How is Document Review Organized?

This may vary a bit based on the tooling available. But the general organization of the reviews is as follows:

o 2 reviewers should review INT Area documents.

o 1 will triage and, if appropriate, review other Area documents, unless otherwise requested.

o Non-INT Area documents in IETF Last Call will first be triaged to determine if there is any INT Area overlap, and if so will be reviewed. Coordinator assigns one reviewer, reviewers first task is to determine if document needs review because it touches INT Area.

How is the Directorate Formed and Maintained?

o Directorate members are appointed to the Directorate, from a set of nominations, by the Internet Area Directors. Each member will have the opportunity to indicate how frequently they are willing to be assigned document reviews, and in which technology areas. Nominations can occur at any time by emailing int-ads@ietf.org with the subject “INT Area Directorate Nomination”.

o All INT Area Working Group chairs are required to be part of the Directorate. (The INT Area Directors may waive this requirement on a case by case basis.)

o There is an expectation that Directorate membership will not be limited to long-time IETF participants. It is assumed that the Directorate will include younger and newer participants who are interested in 'learning while doing work'. Mentoring arrangements will be provided, if needed, to newly appointed directorate members.

o The Internet Area Directors may remove a member from the directorate. One reason for removal is lack of participation such as failing to do reviews or complete reviews in a timely fashion.

o Internet ADs can assign additional members to the Directorate as desired, subject to willingness of people to serve.

o Both ADs must agree in order to appoint or remove a member to the Directorate.

o The INT ADs will select, as the Directorate Coordinator(s), two(2) or more members. The coordinators will collaborate with the ADs and each other as to how to split the position's work.

o The INT ADs, as long as they both agree, can make changes to and waive requirements for the directorate and its operation.

Member Responsibility

Members must respond as promptly as possible, but within 72 hours of being assigned, whether they will or will not perform a review.

Members must perform the review by the specified due date or within 2 weeks (14 calendar days) if no date is specified.

For INT Area documents, this is the timetable in which the document must be reviewed.

For non-INT Area documents, this is the timetable to first triaging the document and, if applicable, complete the review. If the triage indicates that the document does not require review, an email to that effect should be sent to the Directorate mailing list and Internet ADs (do not send to document authors and shepherd).

Members must notify the Directorate Coordinators as soon as possible if something prevents their ability to complete an assigned review.

Completed reviews are sent to the Directorate mailing list and Internet ADs. Ordinarily, copies are sent to the authors/editors, the shepherding AD(s), the relevant document shepherd(s) and working group chairs. The archives are publicly viewable, at http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/int-dir/current/maillist.html.

Reviews must include the following boilerplate text in the comments sent:

"I am an assigned INT directorate reviewer for <draft-foo.txt>. These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the Internet Area Directors. Document editors and shepherd(s) should treat these comments just like they would treat comments from any other IETF contributors and resolve them along with any other Last Call comments that have been received. For more details on the INT Directorate, see https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/intdir/about/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/intdir/about/>."

For INT Area documents, reviewers must provide a recommendation if the document is ready to go to Last Call and therefore be forwarded to the IESG.

For non-INT Area document, the reviewer must give a recommendation as to how the INT ADs are to complete the ballot on the document and the reason for that recommendation. See https://www.ietf.org/iesg/voting-procedures.html.

Comments provided MUST be in the order of significance (i.e., those issues that are serious and must be fixed (i.e., DISCUSS level issues) MUST be first).

While comments on minor issues (typos, etc.) are welcome, they should be last.

A template review response might be:

I am an assigned INT directorate reviewer for <draft-foo.txt>. These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the Internet Area Directors. Document editors and shepherd(s) should treat these comments just like they would treat comments from any other IETF contributors and resolve them along with any other Last Call comments that have been received. For more details on the INT Directorate, see https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/intdir/about/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/intdir/about/>.

[INT Area documents] Based on my review, the document [IS, IS NOT] ready to go to IETF Last Call and therefore [CAN, CANNOT] be forwarded to the IESG

[Non-INT Area documents] Based on my review, if I was on the IESG I would ballot this document as [YES, NO OBJECTION, DISCUSS, RETURN TO WG (ABSTAIN)].

<If DISCUSS or ABSTAIN> I have the following DISCUSS/ABSTAIN level issues:

The following are other issues I found with this document that SHOULD be corrected before publication:

The following are minor issues (typos, misspelling, minor text improvements) with the document:

Coordinator Responsibilities and Tasks

o Assign reviewers (INT Area documents) or a reviewer (non-INT Area documents).

o Find an alternative if reviewer declines review or fails to respond within 72 hours.

o Assure reviews are completed; follow up with reviewers as needed.

o Track and monitor members acceptance of reviews and completion of reviews; raise issues with reviewers to INT Area directors.

o Coordinators are members and should also perform reviews.

o Find a means to acknowledge and recognize work done by the members, possibilities might be:

o Certificates of appreciation (after some number of reviews)

o Dinners or other events at IETF meetings (work with INT ADs)