Increasing the Number of Area Directors in an IETF Area
draft-dawkins-iesg-one-or-more-05

[Ballot comment]
I reviewed this and provided feedback during IETF last call (which is, IMHO, correct behaviour for IESG discussion of process RFCs). All of my comments have been accommodated.

[Ballot comment]
This draft is unnecessary process-wonkery.  The cited RFCs provide at best an oblique suggestion, rather than clearly normative rules.  Certainly nothing as clear as the provision in RFC 3710 that "the IESG can ... change the number of ADs assigned to an area".

If we need an RFC for this, we also need an RFC to fix the assertion in RFC 2026 that "RFCs can be obtained from a number of Internet hosts using ... gopher", since AFAICT the RFC editor has dropped support for that protocol.

[Ballot comment]
Thanks for your work on this draft.

I have some comments inline to consider:

I'm wondering if the word "significantly" can be dropped in the following sentence of the introduction as I didn't think the intent was to increase overall size of the IESG.

  In particular, this change is not intended
  to increase the size of the IESG significantly.

Just a nit as I was having trouble reading this sentence (first sentence of the last paragraph of section 2) - remove first instance of 'that' and would recommend changing "is" to "remains", change from:
  Note that the requirement in RFC 3777 ([RFC3777], BCP 10) that the
  Nominating Committee review (approximately) half the positions for
  the IESG each year is unchanged.
To:
  Note the requirement in RFC 3777 ([RFC3777], BCP 10) that the
  Nominating Committee review (approximately) half the positions for
  the IESG each year remains unchanged.

[Ballot comment]

A pure nit, that can be entirely ignored:

- is "the IESG continues to be responsible for
specifying the positions that Nomcom would fill each
year" quite correct? I know we discussed before that
the IESG's job descriptions aren't quite
requirements-to-be-met but rather our idea of what's
needed, and that it's up to nomcom to decide if they
agree or not. Maybe it'd be better to say the IESG need
to tell nomcom what they think is needed each year and
avoid any imperatives (in this case "specifying").

1. Summary

The document shepherd is Alexey Melnikov.  The Responsible Area Director is Jari Arkko.

This document removes a limit on the number of Area Directors who
manage an Area in the definition of "IETF Area".  This document
updates RFC 2026 (BCP 9) and RFC 2418 (BCP 25).

As the document updates existing BCPs, it is suitable that it is also a BCP.


2. Review and Consensus

This document was reviewed by several current and former IESG members and generally
has support from the community.

The document had enough reviews.

One comment raised suggested that increasing the number of ADs beyond 2 should
not make IESG too big to become less effective in its main job. This comment
was addressed.

3. Intellectual Property

No IPR disclosures have been submitted and authors have indicated they are not aware
of any other IPR issues.

4. Other Points

The document (correctly) has no IANA considerations.

IESG/Authors/WG Chairs:

IANA has reviewed draft-dawkins-iesg-one-or-more-04, which is currently in Last Call, and has the following comments:

We understand that this document doesn't require any IANA actions.

While it is helpful for the IANA Considerations section of the document to remain in place upon publication, if the authors prefer to remove it, IANA doesn't object.

If this assessment is not accurate, please respond as soon as possible.

The following Last Call announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: IETF-Announce
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Sender:
Subject: Last Call:  (Increasing the Number of Area Directors in an IETF Area) to Best Current Practice


The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
the following document:
- 'Increasing the Number of Area Directors in an IETF Area'
  as Best Current Practice

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2015-01-05. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract


  This document removes a limit on the number of Area Directors who
  manage an Area in the definition of "IETF Area".  This document
  updates RFC 2026 (BCP 9) and RFC 2418 (BCP 25).




The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dawkins-iesg-one-or-more/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dawkins-iesg-one-or-more/ballot/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.

This document says exactly the things it ought to, and I believe this change is needed to increase the flexibility that IESG needs to organise its work. The document also seems inline with discussions held on ietf@ietf.org about its content.