On 7/18/23 06:15, Carsten Bormann wrote:
As a participant in these consensus processes, I sometimes see misbahavior by other participants, possibly by chairs and ADs. What I'm mainly arguing against is the idea that such misbehavior automatically must destroy the work that others have invested.
Well, I certainly don't believe that such misbehavior "automatically
must destroy the work". I do believe that deliberate or
accidental efforts to favor or disfavor some kinds of participants
puts any assumption of WG consensus in that work, in doubt. And
the remedy that generally comes to my mind is not "destroy" the
work (as if that were even possible) but to instead require that
the work be reviewed again by a broad spectrum of interests.
However I don't believe that the WG or IETF Last Call, at least as
currently practiced, are effective remedies to such problems,
unless perhaps whatever means was used to favor or disfavor some
kinds of participants was only employed late in a WG's life
cycle. Part of the reason that I don't believe this is long
experience that Last Call is too late to fix many kinds of
problems, because by that time the WG is too burned out to
reconsider the compromises that exist in the current documents.
(I would also be concerned that an "automatically must destroy the work" rule could be used as a kind of DoS attack. If someone doesn't like the emerging WG consensus, they could look for some kind of bias that they could claim that the WG has engaged in, then demand that the work be destroyed.)
Keith
