2019-08-19-rsoc-minutes
slides-interim-2022-rfcedprog-09-sessa-2019-08-19-rsoc-minutes-00

RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC)
August 19, 2019 RSOC Meeting

Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat

ATTENDEES
---------------------------------
  Sarah Banks (RSOC Chair) 
  Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting)
  Tony Hansen 
  Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting)
  Mark Nottingham 
  Adam Roach
  Peter Saint-Andre
  Portia Wenze-Danley (IETF LLC Board Liaison, non-voting)

REGRETS
---------------------------------
  Christian Huitema (IAB Lead)

GUEST
---------------------------------
  Sandy Ginoza

NEW ACTION ITEMS
---------------------------------

  - 2019-08-19: Sarah Banks to draft a new SLA timeline and send it out 
    to the RSOC for review. Target date: 2019-08-20.

  - 2019-08-19: RSOC to review SLA timeline. Target date: 2019-08-23.

  - 2019-08-19: Sarah Banks and Portia Wenze-Danley to figure out who 
    will take the SLA timeline back to the LLC.

MINUTES
---------------------------------

1. Administrivia

1.1. Meeting Minutes.

  The following meeting minutes were approved:

  - 2019-07-25 RSOC meeting
  - 2019-08-12 RSOC meeting

1.2. Action item review

  In progress:

  - 2019-08-12: Portia Wenze-Danley to follow up with the IETF LLC 
    regarding a two-year extension of the RPC contract.

  - 2019-08-12: Sarah Banks to draft a statement of work for a person to 
    temporarily handle the tactical aspects of the RFC Series Editor 
    role during the ongoing community discussion about the RFC Editor 
    Model. Target date: Send to the IAB and IETF LLC by 2019-08-19.

  - 2019-08-12: Mark Nottingham to check with Ted Hardie and Cindy 
    Morgan about setting up an RSOC wiki on the IAB website.


2. RPC staffing challenges

  Heather Flanagan noted a concern that the new format changes will 
  cause the time needed to train new editors to increase, and asked 
  Sandy Ginoza to outline some of the challenges the RPC currently faces 
  in training new editors.

  Sandy Ginoza said that part of the challenge in training new editors 
  is tools-related; the RPC uses a specialized set of tools that most 
  new editors have not been previously exposed to. The RFC series uses a 
  specialized XML vocabulary, so the XML source files for RFCs are 
  unlike other XML files. New editors have to learn specific IETF-
  related terminology. Additionally, new editors have to be trained on 
  what level of copy editing is appropriate for RFCs. 

  Sandy Ginoza noted that the RPC is in the process of bringing on two 
  new editors while the existing editors are in the process of learning 
  how to use the v3 tools and vocabulary. The RPC's training materials 
  need to be brought up to date to address v3.

  Adam Roach said that it sounds like there is a shorter, intense period 
  of training up front to learn the new tools, followed by a longer 
  period of training that has more to do with IETF culture. Sandy Ginoza 
  agreed that that was a reasonable description of the situation. 

  Mark Nottingham asked if the editors all worked in the same physical 
  location or whether they were remote. Sandy Ginoza replied that about 
  half of the RPC works out of the AMS office in Fremont, with the other 
  half being remote. The RPC has found that it is easier to train new 
  editors when they work in the Fremont office and can sit with existing 
  staff. The time to train a remote editor depends on how much 
  experience they have coming in.

  Heather Flanagan said that training time is something that the RSOC 
  should keep in mind when discussing temporary headcount surges in the 
  future and why it can be challenging to do this in the short term.

  Tony Hansen asked how the v3 tools have affected the RPC's workflow, 
  and how having four output formats instead of just one would affect 
  the state of play. Sandy Ginoza replied that it was difficult to get a 
  clear idea of how much work v3 would add because the tools are not 
  stable yet, but that reviewing multiple output formats will definitely 
  be a challenge.

  Tony Hansen asked whether some of these challenges would persist once 
  the transition is complete, or whether they would taper off over time. 
  Sandy Ginoza replied that some would persist, such as having to review 
  multiple output formats. Others may taper off; the v2-to-v3 conversion 
  tool does a good job when the v2 input is well-formatted, but there 
  are new features available in v3 (e.g. lists, tables) that the RPC is 
  spending a lot of time having to clean up in documents that are 
  converted from v2. Sandy said that she expects that to get better as 
  authors learn the new features that are available in v3.  

  Sarah Banks said that the RSOC should be thinking ahead about what all 
  of this means when it comes to setting a new SLA.


3. Planning for a new SLA 

  Heather Flanagan noted that the LLC has asked that any move to suspend 
  the current SLA during the new format transition have a clear end 
  date. However, because all of this is new, it is difficult to put 
  dates around it.

  Heather Flanagan noted that the initial goal was to have the new 
  format go live in August. However, the tools developer is on vacation 
  until the end of August, so Heather asked to delay the rollout until 
  2019-09-15.

  The RSOC discussed what the timeline would be to have enough of an 
  understanding of what the state of play would be under the new format 
  to put a new SLA into place. Heather Flanagan noted that IETF 106, the 
  US Thanksgiving holiday, and the AMS shutdown between Christmas and 
  New Years Day would all affect the timeline.

  After discussion, the RSOC agreed to something that roughly looks 
  like:

  - 2019-09-15: New format goes live
  - 2019-09-15 - 2019-10-31: Identify and fix critical bugs
  - 2019-11-01: RPC workload considered stable for new state of play
  - 2019-11-01 - 2020-01-21: RPC works in the new state of play and 
    collects input on what that means for their workload
  - 2020-01-21: RSOC proposes updated SLA

  Heather Flanagan noted that the SLA also needs to consider what the 
  community thinks is a reasonable turnaround time for the publication 
  of documents, and suggested adding a question about that to the vendor 
  evaluation survey.

  Action item: Sarah Banks to draft a new SLA timeline and send it out 
  to the RSOC for review. Target date: 2019-08-20.

  Action item: RSOC to review SLA timeline. Target date: 2019-08-23.

  Action item: Sarah Banks and Portia Wenze-Danley to figure out who 
  will take the SLA timeline back to the LLC.


4. Cluster 238 update

  Heather Flanagan reported that a good portion of Cluster 238 has been 
  released, but there are still five documents in the cluster that have 
  not yet been received by the RFC Editor. Adam Roach replied that 
  draft-ietf-clue-protocol and draft-ietf-clue-signaling are both 
  waiting for the authors to submit new revisions to address outstanding 
  Discusses, and that a new version of draft-ietf-mmusic-rfc4566bis was 
  recently posted that he hopes clears the outstanding Discuss. Adam was 
  not sure about the status of the two RMCAT documents that have not 
  been received. 


5. RSE Interim Role and Statement of Work Status

  Sarah Banks noted that she still has an action item to draft a 
  statement of work for a person to temporarily handle the tactical 
  aspects of the RFC Series Editor role during the ongoing community 
  discussion about the RFC Editor Model. She said that she plans to send 
  this out to RSOC for review by 2019-08-19, with the hope that the RSOC 
  can come to agreement on the text via email and send it out to the IAB 
  and LLC for review by 2019-08-26.


6. Postal address

  This agenda item was not discussed due to lack of time.


7. draft-huitema-rfc-eval-project-00.txt

  This agenda item was not discussed due to lack of time.