Harald, You asked, and I responded, privately about this, but, since you have identified it as a consensus request, I suppose I should restate my concerns in public. Unfortunately, some of this revisits the area in which I think Sam (and others) and I have agreed to disagree -- I don't know how you are going to resolve that. Inline below... --On Friday, 28 January, 2005 15:02 +0100 Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > In case some people did not see this in the flurry of messages > on the thread, here is Margaret's proposed text with Leslie's > edits, incorporated as best I can. > I also tuned grammar slightly in some places. > > 3.5 Review and Appeal of IAD and IAOC Decision > > The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for > the > performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the > IAOC and IAD > will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular > operational > decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines > should be > developed with public input. In all cases, they must be > made public. > > Additionally, the IASA should ensure that there are > reported objective > performance metrics for all IETF administrative support > activities. Back when I was actively doing political science, the belief that everything could be reduced to objective and quantifiable terms (the latter is what "metrics" means; if it isn't what was intended, some other word should be chosen) statements like this were described as "physics envy". The statement would be reasonable if "whenever feasible" or the equivalent appeared there somewhere -- we _can_ evaluate the IAOC on its interpretation of "feasible" and how far they are willing to go to satisfy the needs or curiosity of the community. >... > on the nature of the review request. Based on the results > of the review, > the IAOC may choose to overturn their own decision and/or > to change their > operational guidelines to prevent further > misunderstandings. This doesn't give the IAOC the option of saying "no, you are wrong [because...], and we aren't going to change anything". Combined with other text above, that would imply that any member of the community can force the IAOC into either changing a decision or changing the operational guidelines. The IAOC must be able to say "no you are wrong". If must even be able to say "you have raised fifteen objections in the last 30 days, all of which have been turned down by us and everyone in the appeals chain, please go improve you sand-pounding skills". > If a member of the community is not satisfied with the > IAOC's response to > his or her review request, he or she may escalate the > issue by appealing > the decision or action to the IESG, using the appeals > procedures outlined > in RFC 2026 [RFC2026]. If he or she is not satisfied with > the IESG > response, he or she can escalate the issue to the IAB and > on the ISOC > Board of Trustees, as described in RFC 2026. I apologize in advance for digging up this dead horse for kicking purposes, but I do not believe that an _appeals_ procedure that runs through the IESG is appropriate. First, it increases the IESG workload and, while our reasoning and the details differ, I agree with Avri that shifting work back to the IESG is not a good idea. Second, the IESG is not a collection of general-purpose representatives of the community. It membership is selected to manage the _standards process_ and, as a member of the community, I want their selection to continue to be focused on selecting people whose skills are optimal for that role. I'm not happy about the IAB being thrust into the appeals role, but I can more easily see that in terms of workload and make a "general purpose representative" argument for them. The fact that the IAB and IETF Chairs (who are, by definition, implicated in any consensus IAOC decision-making) are the leaders of those groups (whether formally recused or not) makes an appeal model even more complicated. To the extent that any appeal addresses substance, rather than compliance with procedures (and anything that might be overturned necessarily does so), all of my old comments about training in finance and executive management apply here as well. > The reviewing body (IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT) will review the > decision of the > IAD or IAOC > to determine whether it was made in accordance with > existing BCPs and > operational guidelines. As a result of this review, the > reviewing body > may decide to initiate the required consensus process to > change the BCPs > governing IAOC actions. This is not quite right. IETF "public consensus processes" are initiate under the rules of 2026 and associated documents. We don't initiate them until we have a document on the table. _Anyone_ can put a document on the table, with or without a prior IESG/ IAB/ ISOC BoT decision. The decision, presumably by the IESG, as to whether to Last Call such a document, organize a WG to discuss changes or alternate versions, etc., presumably gets made or not made on the basis of the merits of the proposed revision and a sense of whether the community wants change, so the outcome of a prior appeal doesn't count for much, even though a record of appeals being filed might. So, if that is all those bodies can do, then the appeal text is pointless. > They may also advise the IAOC to modify existing > operational guidelines > to avoid similar issues in the future and/or may advise > the IAOC to > re-consider their decision or action. This is actually weaker than the previous text, in which _either_ the IAB or the IESG could _require_ that the IAOC review and, if appropriate, reconsider the decision or action. I can live with it, but I'm astonished if Sam, Avri, etc., can. > In exceptional cases, when no other recourse seems > reasonable, the IESG, > IAB or ISOC BoT may overturn or reverse a non-binding > decision or action > of the IAOC. This should be done after careful > consideration and > consultation with the IAOC regarding the ramifications of > this action. In > no circumstances may the IESG or IAB overturn a decision > of the IAOC > that involves a binding contract or overturn a > personnel-related action (such > as hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, performance > reviews, salary adjustments, > etc.). My preference, per your other comments and the paragraph below, is that we lose the above paragraph. But, if we leave it in, I suggest that we need to define "exceptional cases" or the mechanism by which it is determined. The issue here is very much the same as the argument raised by Pete and others that the ISOC Board should not be able to back out of this agreement/model by a simple majority vote at a single meeting. The determination that a case is [sufficiently] exceptional should take, e.g., extraordinary consensus, announcement to the community and an opportunity for comment, and, more important, identification of the individuals who favor and oppose declaring that exceptional circumstances exist so that they can be held accountable. > > In another message, I have suggested removing the last > paragraph - but it's not a show-stopper for me to leave it in. > Comments? I'm not sure we are getting closer. john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf