The Routing Area Directorate is an advisory group of routing experts selected by the Area Directors.
The notion of a directorate is defined in RFC 2418 as follows:
In many areas, the Area Directors have formed an advisory group or
directorate. These comprise experienced members of the IETF and the
technical community represented by the area. The specific name and
the details of the role for each group differ from area to area, but
the primary intent is that these groups assist the Area Director(s),
e.g., with the review of specifications produced in the area.
Routing Directorate reviews are primarily solicited to assist Area Directors in enhancing their efficiency, especially in preparation for IESG telechats. These reviews allow Area Directors to concentrate on potentially problematic documents, spending less time on those without issues. Improving the quality of the documents is an important, though secondary, purpose. A third aim is to broaden the Routing Directorate reviewers' exposure to work happening in other parts of the IETF case-by-case.
As such, reviews from Routing Directorate members do not directly cause the IESG to block a document. However, these reviews may influence individual IESG members to do so. Additionally, reviews—particularly those conducted during last call and earlier stages—can assist document editors in refining their documents. In all these respects, a Routing Directorate review is not privileged above any other timely review.
The Routing Area Directorate is tasked to help the Routing Area Directors by performing specific tasks as set out below. Additional tasks may be added to this list over time.
- Review all documents from the routing area submitted to the IESG for publication. On a case by case basis, documents from other areas that have routing significance may be reviewed as well.
- How is Review Triggered?
- Triggered by request for early review (by any AD or by any WG chair)
- Triggered by document moving to 'publication requested' state (for routing area documents that have not been recently reviewed)
- Who Reviews Each Document?
- Each document is assigned to an individual member of the routing directorate
- Assignments are made on a round-robin basis across the directorate. This ensures that we make full use of all the directorate members, and that each document gets a good cross-area review. This may mean that a reviewer will review a document that they do not have a deep background in. This is OK, it is not expected that the reviewer will be a leading expert in the technology (indeed, we hope such experts would already have reviewed the document as part of the working group process!). A document can often benefit from the "fresh eyes" of a non-expert -- remember that most IESG members, who will review the document, will be non-experts. Nonetheless, if a reviewer feels they will not be able to make any meaningful contribution with their review, they can decline.
- Reviewer responds promptly with decision "yes, I will do it in appointed time", "yes, I will do it but need more time", "no, I cannot do it".
- Routing Directorate review is not a substitute for the ADs reviewing documents that have major routing area implications.
- Assist ADs with judgment issues when requested
- The ADs may send email to the routing directorate list when they have issues that they want help with.
Chairs of Routing Area working groups are encouraged to request early review of documents that are close to "publication requested" state. For Routing Area documents that have not received a recent early review, the Routing Area Directorate Coordinators will request a review when the document enters "publication requested" state.
Other documents may also have a review requested on a case by case basis. Any a D or working group chair may request a review. In case of uncertainty, the Routing Area Directorate Coordinators will consult with the routing ADs.
The Routing Area Directorate Coordinators assign each document that is selected for review to a reviewer and issue a Review Request.
- If a Routing Area Directorate member is also a WG chair, they will not be assigned any documents from the WG they chair. (It is assumed that they already review documents from own their WG).
- WG secretaries / administrators / routing advisors will not be assigned documents from the WGs they serve.
- Authors and contributors to a document will not be assigned that document for review.
- The Review Request includes:
- Deadline for completion of the review
- Specific procedures to follow (such as, where to send the response)
- Boilerplate text to include in response
- A list of things to look for and how to report them
- The reviewer MUST acknowledge within 7 days "can review by deadline", "can review, but need additional time", or "can't review"
- No reply is interpreted as "can't review'.
- If a reviewer can't provide the review it is assigned to different reviewer.
- If a reviewer asks for additional time, the review may be assigned to a different reviewer if the extra time cannot be found.
To say this one more time, to ensure we have timely reviews, it is really important that reviewers respond quickly when receiving a request. Quick rejections allow coordinators to reassign documents. If a reviewer does not respond within 7 days, the review will be reassigned. If you are on vacation or will be without email, please let the coordinators know (contact details below) and/or use an away-from-email auto-responder, and you will not be penalized.
- Directorate members are assigned to the Directorate by the Routing Area Directors.
- There is an expectation that Routing Directorate membership will not be limited to "old timers". It is assumed that the Directorate will include newer participants who are interested in learning while doing work.
- Each assignment is for a three year term.
- The terms are staggered so that approximately 1/3 of the directorate members have their term end each year.
- When a member's term expires, the Routing ADs may replace the person whose term expires, may reappoint the same person, or may reduce the size of the Directorate.
- There is no expectation that the same person will either want to be returned, or will be returned.
- In deciding whether to reappoint a member whose term has expired, the routing ADs may consider the quantity of work that they have done, the ADs' impression of the quality of the work, and the comments from the authors regarding the reviews.
- Routing ADs can assign additional members to the Directorate whenever they want to, subject to willingness of people to serve.
- All Routing Area ADs need to agree in order to assign a member to the Directorate.
The Routing Area Directorate Datatracker Page lists the Routing Area Directorate Coordinators (called "Chairs" on that page), and Directorate members (called "reviewers" on that page).
The Routing Area Datatracker Page lists the Routing Area Directors (ADs).
Back to the Routing Area wiki
Back to the Routing Area Directorate wiki
Earlier content of this page was migrated from the old Trac wiki on 2022-12-20.