Bob,
Thanks for this proposal. I would support a special to process the March PARs.
To simplify steps 5 & 6 (and reduce the EC email ballots), I would suggest announcing (ASAP) a May 28th EC call to handle PAR approvals (potentially as consent agenda) for the June SASB series. I suggest this would result in:
- Other WGs provide comments on announced PARs by May 14th
- Proposing WG provides response and updated PAR/CSD by May 21st
- EC approval vote on May 28th
Going forward, I would advocate that future plenaries simply be changed to virtual from face-to-face as necessary. With that PARs can be handled during the plenary week as usual.
Cheers,
Glenn.
All:
I am grateful to George for his below email and Dorothy’s agreement. I and others I’ve talked to that had March PARs submitted do not feel any urgency to get new work started. One of the 802.3 March PARs comes from a study group originally chartered in March 2019 — their one year has elapsed. Participants are now questioning if IEEE is a good place to do business. I chair a SG chartered in July 2019 that also had a PAR submitted for March consideration, and have received negative comments from my participants about IEEE being broken. The credibility of IEEE SA is being damaged because of our Procedure for PARs. A delay to September for approval of March PARs is really bad. I’m both disappointed and angry at myself for not pushing harder on things and for falling into the trap of looking for a perfect rules solution as George observes.
George suggests finding a way to keep conditionally submitted PARs on the June NesCom agenda. What follows is a possible way of doing that, but it requires URGENT action to work and a lot of EC cooperation. We only have a few days to start the below.
1. Though I had messages on the EC reflector earlier, I’m not an EC member and the earliest rules change proposal from a “Sponsor member” I find is 13 April from Gllb, that starts the 30 day clock. We need a rules change in EC ballot 13 May that provides a way to suspend our Procedure for PARs. (Or earlier than 13 May if I missed an earlier proposal email.)
2. Have a very special electronic process for March PARs. I know possible comments were on the 802.3 dialog reflector about a week after the submittal deadline perhaps other WGs have also done the same. So I ask Paul if he would be willing to request the WGs begin the PAR review cycle IMMEDIATELY. 15 days to schedule an ad hoc teleconference call can be done under 802.3 rules, I hope the same could happen with other WG rules for ad hocs. This very special process would be based on the hope that the EC would approve by motion a process that could use that this WG review as a substitute of the Tuesday comment due deadline i current rules.
3. Allow the previously proposed 15 days for a comment responses, modified documents, and WG approvals of modified documents. This would also be part of the very special process for March PARs and in Paul’s request for us to get to work on reviewing March PARs.
4. EC ballot the proposed very special electronic process for March PARs at the same time as the LMSC OM rules change. (Of course conditional on approval of the rules change.)
5. Early close EC ballots (and quick EC votes) on the rules change and March electronic process motions to allow conditional submittals is not critical but would be helpful.
6. Early close EC ballot on PARs and quick EC votes would be required for PARs to remain on the June NesCom agenda.
If the above does not fly we slip March PARs to September NesCom/SASB approvals (i.e., we can’t get Paul’s support and EC support in the new few days, then March PARs become July PARs. We really want rules certainty by the July 802 PAR submittal deadline.
7. We could consider holding comment generation and response as part of the virtual July plenary session, and enforce the Tuesday and Wednesday deadlines per current rules.
8. If #7 is not acceptable, start electronic consideration on the July PARs at the June 802 submittal deadline. 30 day comment, 15 day response then EC early close ballot as previously proposed. Conditional NesCom submittal or unconditional submittal as things work out for the 14 August NesCom submittal deadline.
Doing #1-#6 would enable electronic new TF meetings in early June and perhaps help repair our damaged reputation. We are though now looking at <40 days (and decrementing) to do #1-#6. Having to do #7 or #8 puts us in the position of having delayed March proposed PARs and start of technical work by 6 months. Failure to get any of the above increases the delay for starting technical work to ~9 month—totally unacceptable!
Thank you George, well stated. I agree.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
I’ve been thinking about the whole debate regarding the rules, and while I think it is useful, and in the end we should have the best rules possible, we are hurting ourselves by prolonging the discussion trying to get a perfect solution for all contingencies.
We urgently need “good enough” rules to allow us to get PARs processed that were ready for consideration at the March meeting, and had been presubmitted before the March meeting to the Working Groups (which hopefully began their review). If we don’t do that, projects that were more-than-ready to begin technical decision making as Task Forces at the May meeting will likely be languishing until the November meeting, because they won’t be able to be approved by SASB until September. Additionally, we need to ensure that those expecting submission in July will be ON the September agenda. Delay on these makes 802 standards less competitive, and I can tell you from personal experience that some of the projects in new application areas, like automotive, have competition from other industry groups developing specifications.
We have had much good and useful debate over two fine points (what time period to use for the rules, and whether & how to give the chair emergency powers). These, in my opinion, do not matter for the urgent need. We can refine them at a later date.
I would respectfully suggest that we bring the new rules allowing PARs to progress to a vote of the EC at the earliest opportunity that the rules allow, in the simplest form possible.
With regards to a time-limit on suspension, can everyone live with 120 days at this point? (4 months). We might be able to refine it, but it appears to be in the window that most have stated, and, while not everyone’s preference, is both precise, and meets what I have been hearing as the spirit of broad consensus.
With regards to granting the power to the chair, can we just omit it at this point, and continue to consider it as a possible separate addition in the rules committee? If we pledge to continue working on it, we can limit any risk of such an emergency happening in the meantime.
Again, remember, our mission is to serve the progression of standards. We risk losing faith with those who count on us to provide a functional, timely process if we miss the very near deadlines for the June SASB meeting, and potentially threaten September. Hopefully, with some creative minds, we can figure out how to get the presubmitted March PARs to stay on the June agenda, but even so, approving at least a single path forward quickly will help assure our colleagues that we are concerned about restoring forward progress in the process.
Experts in Advanced PHYsical Communications
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