On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 09:40:38AM -0500, Spencer Dawkins wrote: > As Ted said, "in theory, all decisions are supposed to be confirmed on the > mailing list", but I haven't seen anyone point out the reason why - because > we also think it's important to have very few barriers to participation in > the IETF, so we don't require attendance at any face-to-face meeting, ever. > > So I'm not sure how we verify identities when anyone we question can just > post from an e-mail account at an ISP in Tierra del Fuego, and say "the next > time you're in the tip of South America, come by and verify my identity". Well, usually someone who says, "I think you should do <foo>", follows it up with, "because of <bar>, and while the alternate choice has upside <quux>, I believe the engineering tradeoff is such that <bar> is far more important than <quux>". So usually it doesn't matter whether someone is posting from Sunnyvale or McMurdo Station. So often, in practice, it doesn't matter. So I think I would certainly grant your argument that most of the time it doesn't matter, which is probably why we haven't spent a lot of time trying to come up with detailed procedures for how to deal with the situation. I certainly think an ad hoc approach such as what the LTRU wg co-chairs chose, with consultation with their AD, was the right way to go, and if "LB", whoever he is, wants to challenge their procedure, let him go up the appeal chain. > The IETF is still a meritocracy, not a democracy. Bad ideas are still bad > ideas, even if lots of people have them. Binary numbering still uses two > values (zero and one), no matter how many drafts say something else. > > Working group chairs have two responsibilities - to be fair, and to make > progress. When these responsibilities collide, it's not going to be pretty, > but Russ's point - we actually do know how to resolve conflicts in the > IETF - is critical, because the alternative is that work just stops. > > Sometimes we just need to make a decision and move on. If you were right, > but couldn't convince the WG chair(s), AD, IESG or IAB that you were right, > and couldn't convince enough people to sign a recall petition - well, next > time, do a better job of convincing convincing people. No argument here. In fact, I'd argue that the justification *for* PR actions is to make progress, when someone who doesn't understand that they've lost a particular battle by not being a part of the rough consensus can't let ago, and move on.... - Ted _______________________________________________ IETF mailing list IETF@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf