On Jun 24, 2011, at 11:21 AM, RJ Atkinson wrote: > Earlier, Paul Hoffman wrote, in part: >> ...the IESG just approved publication of X, even with >> what appears to be a lack of consensus in the comments >> on the ietf@ mailing list. >> >> (some other text elided here.) >> >> For a document such as this, why even ask for IETF consensus >> if the IETF consensus doesn't matter? >> >> (remaining text elided here.) > > > Next, as a reference, here is a boilerplate snippet from > a recent IETF Last Call: >> The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits >> final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the >> ietf at ietf.org mailing lists by 2011-07-21. Exceptionally, comments >> may be sent to iesg at ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain >> the beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting. > > > The "IETF Consensus" matters, and I believe the IESG > did fully and properly consider that matter in the case > that appears to have driven your note. > > There appears to be a confusion underlying your note. > > Paul's assertion that public postings to the IETF Discussion > list are the only metric for "IETF Consensus" is NOT correct > -- and never has been in the past. > > "IETF Consensus" includes ALL of the inputs that the IESG > receives about a document or issue that is put to IETF > Last Call. The Last Call announcement specifically says, > for example, that comments may be sent privately to the > IESG. > > Consensus inputs are NOT limited to posted public comments, I agree with this much: IESG, at least, should be able to consider private comments about document and standards actions, as input to its determinations. But one of the important attributes of consensus, one of the things that makes it so powerful, is that ideally, it's visible to everyone. Take the example where a bunch of people in a room are asked a question and asked to raise hands to indicate yea or nay. If only one or two people express a particular opinion, they can each see that for themselves, and that the "rough consensus" is clearly against them. Likewise, the other participants will be able to see that the rough consensus is on their side of things. On a mailing list, it's a bit harder. But still, when the traffic is visible to all list participants, it isn't too hard to know whether your opinion is widely supported, or whether you're part of a small minority. In my experience, private input to IESG is more valuable in helping the IESG deal with technical evaluation or other concerns, than with consensus determination. At least when I was on IESG, the volume of private Last Call responses was fairly small and I don't recall a case when I thought it would affect a determination of community wide consensus. But private input was occasionally quite valuable in other ways. While I do think that IESG should be able to consider private input in consensus determination, from a process standpoint it's problematic. If the IESG decision doesn't reflect the visible consensus or lack thereof, this quite properly raises a question as to whether IESG has properly evaluated consensus. So in the event that there were a substantial amount of private input, IESG would do well to find a way to make it clear to the public that is conclusions were based on that input, in what way, and for what reasons. In this particular case I don't see any reason to believe that IESG has received a substantial amount of private input. e.g. I didn't see any mention of such input in the IESG writeup or the IESG members' comments. Keith _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf