--On Tuesday, 22 January, 2008 14:16 +0100 Frank Ellermann <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > John C Klensin wrote: > >> I have even found myself speculating on whether an appeal >> is in order (because a Last Call is an IESG action, such >> an appeal is clearly possible procedurally). > > I've seen see how not issuing a Last Call can cause harm. > I didn't understand why the Jabber-ID Last Call vanished > in a black hole without stating a compelling reason here. > > But I fail to see how starting a Last Call too early can > cause harm, or why you felt tempted to file an appeal. > > About three years ago you explained that appeals against > proposed actions make no sense, and the earliest moment to > stop a draft by appeal is its approval, not its Last Call. > > At some point in time authors need to know if investing > more time in a draft is justified, and a Last Call is one > way of a reality check. If author + 3rd party (sponsor) > think that a draft is ready, what else should they do ? Frank, Everyone has their own favorite issues with RFC 2026 and most of us have problems with it that they believe are serious enough to fix. What we have seen in this discussion (and many before it) is that there is little consensus on which issues are the most important, nor about what should be done about them. One of my favorites is that 2026 applies exactly the same processes to development of, and changes to, IETF procedures that we apply to technical documents (standards track and otherwise). While others may disagree, I believe we've got a large number of worked examples of where having the two models be the same has caused harm. Some would even argue that the entire Newtrk WG process was an example of the problem. Others might point to the fact that the IESG can block consideration of any changes to the IESG or its role, confusion about what "Best Current Practice" means when applied to a procedure we haven't used yet, whether the RFC series is the best place and mechanism to publish IETF procedures (a topic that IONs address part, but not all, of), and so on. So, yes, I've said on many occasions that I believe the IESG should be able to generate a Last Call on virtually anything, for any reason, on which it wants a community opinion. I continue to believe that about technical specifications and related informational materials. Even then, I believe that the IESG has some obligation to be clear in the Last Call announcement what sort of input they are asking for. While I don't believe the community would be helped by trying to codify forms of Last Call, there is a difference between "we are considering standardizing this, speak up if you have strong opinions, especially negative ones", "we are considering publishing this...", and "we are looking for community comment on whether this is worth pursuing". I think Last Call announcements should reflect those differences. For technical documents, they generally do (although obviously not in those words). However, I think procedural documents are different. The activity of considering and discussing them is disruptive of the community. Because they affect how we do things across the board, I think a Last Call --especially a Last Call that implies that the IESG is seriously considering adoption and that community silence might be construed as assent-- is inappropriate in the absence of clear indications of community support for, and interest in, the work. Making procedural changes on the basis of a small number of comments, especially procedural changes that are essentially patchwork modifications, seems to me to be much too dangerous, and much too costly in terms of the time it takes to consider them, to move into Last Call without evidence of community consensus that there is interest in the issues, that a document has sufficient support to be worth a larger review, and that there broad willingness to review it carefully and evaluate it. In this case, I don't see those conditions as having been met before the Last Call was launched. Discussions subsequent to the last call being issued have reinforced my impression that the Last Call was inappropriate, premature, or both. There has been little discussion except among the handful of people in the community who can be counted on to comment on almost any procedural issues (that includes you and, unfortunately, me). Much of the discussion has focused on "this is the wrong way to approach the topic" and not on issues with the document itself and how it can be approved. Unless those questions have been raised before and somehow resolved, I would contend that is almost always a sign that a Last Call on a procedural proposal is premature. john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf