Folks,
What I did was
describe the actions of WG members, and the way in which they are
gaming the IETF process. The chair then (publicly) suspended my
posting privileges.
In the conversations since, I observe that no one has questioned the
accuracy of my remarks,
The purpose of this note is to ask a question that I believe the above text
suggests.
However this note offers no comment on the current appeal that is discussed in
the note containing the above text. In fact, the note has nothing at all to do
with that appeal. It relates to that process only by way of triggering a
separate question.
So...
A working group is a group process, which means that it is human, which means
that it is certain to (sometimes) have qualities of politics, gaming, and other
nuances of technique that are intended to win debates, based on
specially-formulated group leverage rather than purely on abstract, technical
excellence and fully open rough consensus.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that these techniques could go too far,
sometimes. That is, that the special methods of pressing for a particular
outcome could be through subtle or hidden processes that essentially violate the
requirement for rough consensus.
Were the violation sufficiently blatant, then a normal IETF appeals process
would suffice. What I think is at issue, here, are coercive forces that are
less easily pursued.
So here is my question:
What is an acceptable way to raise a concern that this sort of problem is
present?
When someone thinks that there is an elephant in the room, we need to let them
at least raise their concern. In this case, the nature of the purported
elephant is highly inflammatory, so we need to know how to raise the concern in
a fashion that is considered within the bounds of reasonable working group
contributions.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>
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