Work Items, Ideas & Documentation

Colleagues,

At RIPE74 I (foolishly?) agreed to spend a bit of time trying to come up
with a proposal on how to try to better document and record the
decisions made in regards to ideas or work items brought to the WG. This
was especially in relation to ideas that the WG may not be enthusiastic
about.

There is something potentially simple (and I understand the issues even
with saying that) which is just an extension of/adherence to a process
that's already in place.

There is already a new thread started for any NWI, but a lot of these
are left hanging with no new inputs. So perhaps it's as easy as saying
that the Chairs, sorry folks, need to make sure those loops are closed.
They can be closed with "the Working Group did not feel the proposal
should be carried forward" but maybe something more. I am sensitive to
the delicate nature of some of this and I hope we could maybe put in
more detail to fend off the habit of returning to the same points?

If a proposal doesn't even become an NWI maybe a reference in the WG
Meeting minutes is enough, or maybe a quick separate mail would be
useful (and might generate conversation).

I know some of this is contained in the minutes but I'm not foolish
enough to believe that everyone reads them (nor am I claiming I always do).

So what I'm proposing is that there is an action on the Chairs to make
sure an NWI thread is closed with some type of conclusion and that other
proposals are extracted from the minutes and a clear result (even if
there are scant details) is recorded.

I'm not sure if this deals with Denis' issues, but it seems reasonably
straight forward to implement and may help.

Brian

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Brian Nisbet
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