Brian, While I think Max's problem description is important, I think it, and your response, are at least partially orthogonal to the issue I was/am trying to raise. Inline below. --On Saturday, July 15, 2023 08:01 +1200 Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 15-Jul-23 07:17, Carsten Bormann wrote: >> On 14. Jul 2023, at 20:37, Dr. Pala <madwolf@xxxxxxxxxx> >> wrote: >>> >>> Having being subject of such exclusion tactics that were not >>> properly addressed by the chairs >> If you don't like what the chairs are doing, please speak >> with the ADs. > And read the appeals section of RFC2026: > https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2026.html#section-6.5 First of all, I am, at least in this context, far less concerned about explicit behavior that can be identified, raised with ADs, and appealed than I am about more subtle problems. Putting aside Carsten's argument for specifics for a moment (will come back to it; see next note) and exaggerating (I hope) a somewhat abstracted example, suppose someone repeatedly pushes a particular proposal in a WG that the WG (or at least its chairs) conclude is completely unfeasible. Perhaps the idea is even unfeasible at the level of our classic "that would be a great idea if we could make some small adjustments to the speed of light" or "yes, if the earth were flat" positions. (I have absolutely no reason to believe that the proposals Max is talking about fall into that range and, having seen some of his work, would be astonished if it did, but many of us, probably Max included, have seen ones that do.) At some stage, WG chairs probably need to shut down those discussions, ideally without use of terms like "loon" or "crazy". Even though the line between an idea that requires changes to fundamental principles of physics or astronomy and those that are merely unpopular with WG leadership may be blurry at times, they are typically explicit decisions that can be appealed. Whether the appeals process is an ideal answer is problematic for at least two reasons: (i) We have, IMO, managed to turn appeals into a Big Deal, treating them less as "hey, IESG, this needs another look" and more into a quasi-judicial process in which we think about decisions (and often even people) being overridden or overruled. There have even been undertones suggesting that people who file appeals, especially ones that don't end up changing anything, may be at a disadvantage in the IETF later. Some reports from the IESG to the community can even be read as self-congratulatory about there being no appeals in the previous reporting period. That climate makes the process rather intimidating for a newcomer or occasional participant to use and hence not as realistic an option as many of us -- Carsten, you (Brian), and myself included-- would like to believe. (ii) Some appeals in recent years (I have not tried to do a statistical analysis) have been handled on a purely procedural basis, responding, e.g., to the question of whether WG chairs were acting within their authority to make a particular decision rather than whether it was the correct decision from a technological standpoint or for the IETF and a Better Internet. FWIW, that is why I cringe when an AD says "we trust the WG Chairs": while, in many situations, it is the right practical answer, it implies that it is ok for ADs to not watch what is going on in WGs for which they are supposedly responsible and opens the door to just such procedural responses. Of course, that interacts with the idea that one AD can manage and provide subject matter expertise to oversee, e.g., more than 35 WGs, even temporarily, but that is mostly a separate issue. Do I think we need an IETF Last Call or similar broad community review when a WG Chair decides to shut down a line of argument? No, that would be, IMO, silly and perhaps organizationally suicidal. But pretending that the availability of ADs for a conversation, coupled with the existence of the appeals chain, is a completely sufficient and workable solution is not a good answer either (more on that below). However, I am concerned about a different set of cases. As a sort-of example, of one, many of us look at the brief descriptions of new WGs, decide on that basis whether to read the charters, and then decide whether to participate actively or not. The "not" decisions can include lack of interest, lack of expertise, or just a conclusion that, given the goals and constraints of the charter, our time is better spent elsewhere. And then we ignore the WG and its work until a document shows up on IETF Last Call or something else, perhaps an Area review request or even an idle hour during an IETF meeting, brings it back onto the radar (we presume temporarily). No active effort to exclude open participation there. Then, attention having been drawn to a particular issue, we attempt to watch that issue and perhaps contribute some comments. Attempting to watch is complicated because we typically lack context. In theory, we could get that context by reading over a few years or WG mailing list archives, watching meeting videos, and untangling Github updates. In practice, that is nearly impossible and wouldn't be enough even if it were possible. Now parts of what happens are nearly inevitable: a significant fraction of WG participants, perhaps even the chairs, are somewhat annoyed by the late input and what they see as an attempt to disrupt or even sink their smoothly and tranquilly sailing ship. In many cases, WGs get past that, are supportive of the effort, and consider the input on its merit even if doing so disrupts planned schedules. In others, the input is dismissed, its source treated roughly, and/or small concessions are made (in discussion or documents) to the unimportant parts of the input while the rest of it is ignored. In the process, the person with the input (often not just their input) is made to feel extremely unwelcome (even if that was not intentional). A similar situation arises with newcomers who have decided to join into an ongoing and and smoothly running (tranquil?) WG if they then discover that some WG decisions or document provisions specify things that are inconsistent with their knowledge and experience. They lack context about how those decisions were made and what tradeoffs were considered and have the same issues trying to read in. Perhaps, depending on the tone and style of the WG and its leadership, they are welcomed and carefully guided into an understanding of the WG's work, but still have a problem if that effort does not lead them to reach the same conclusions. Perhaps they are just un-welcomed and pushed out. Either way, a conversation with the Responsible AD can be useful, but only if the would-be partial participant feels self-confident enough to approach the AD and, more important, if the AD has been following the WG closely enough to have their own informed opinions about context and how new people and/or new/external ideas are treated. If not -- if the AD says, e.g., "I have not been following the WG closely and trust the WG Chairs" -- if there is anything to appeal, I can't figure out what it might be because there are no specific decisions or WG recommendations to appeal against. Maybe there is a "technical choice", but that would be, IMO at least, a stretch. If the participant believe the AD should be following the WG more closely, they can raise it on the IETF list (but the last version of that discussion led to the "we trust the WG chairs" remark, a discussion of AD overload and an excessive number of WGs, and otherwise nowhere). Or they can try a recall (let's see, number of times since RFC 2027 was published in 1996 that an IESG or IAB member has been removed by that process --as distinct from encouraged to resign-- is, umm, zero and we has made it much harder to use in the interim) or wait, possibly 18 months or so, to take it up with the Nomcom.. not a realistic enough way to deal with a short-term problem to discourage the victim from just dropping out). Coming back to something resembling my understanding of Max's case, I suppose he could write a formal letter to the AD asking that the WG Chairs be replaced and then appeal a decision to not do that, but... > > But more generally: >> >> The last two messages seem to imply that there are corners in >> the IETF that are not as tranquil as I'm experiencing. >> >> If there are any such issues, they cannot be discussed in the >> abstract. Unless we know what actually happened, we cannot >> discuss remedies. > > Correct. An appeal (and the eventual IESG or IAB response) is > a manifestation of this. Except when an appeal is impossible (or so easily dismissed on procedural grounds to be a waste of time) and the alternative is public laundry washing on this list -- something that would probably be unhealthy for the IETF, probably could not be done without an exemption from the Code of Conduct, and would certainly be disruptive of the WG and the community. best, john
