Martin
I don't want to prolong this sub-sub-sub-thread but really I can't
leave this unchallenged:
On 23/03/2013 04:46, Martin Rex wrote:
> Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> Martin Rex wrote:
>>> My impression of todays IESG role, in particular taking their
>>> balloting rules and their actual balloting results into account,
>>> is more of a "confirming body" of work that happened elsewhere
>>> (primarily in the IETF, typically in IETF WGs, but also individual or
>>> interest groups submissions from elsewhere, though the latter mostly
>>> for (re)publication as informational).
>>>
>>> IMHO, the IESG is not (and maybe never was?) a committee where _each_
>>> member reviews _all_ of the work, where _each_ forms his very own opionion,
>>> and where all of them caste a VOTE at the end, so that the diversity
>>> within that committee would be vitally beneficial (to anything).
>> I think you've misinterpreted the IESG procedures a bit. The definition
>> of a NO OBJECTION ballot in the IESG ranges from "I read it, and I have
>> no problem with it" to "I listened to the discussion, and I have no problem."
>
> I don't think so.
I do think so, and if you didn't notice, I cut and pasted those phrases
from the IESG's own web page.
>
> When I had a phone call with Russ Housley in early 2010, one of the
> things I said was that considering the amount of document that pass
> through the IESG, I would assume that not every AD was reading every
> document and that each AD might be reading only about 1/4 of them,
> and he replied that this could be near the real numbers.
Who knows? When I was in the IESG, I would have said more like 50%
but obviously YMMV. How is that incompatible with stating the NO OBJECTION
ranges between "I read it" and "I listened to the discussion"?
>
>
>> It's impossible to say objectively which of these extremes predominates,
>> but when I was General AD, I tried to at least speed-read every draft,
>> and studied the Gen-ART reviews carefully. Individual ADs vary in their
>> habits according to workload, but my sense is that there is a strong
>> sense of collective responsibility and definitely not a sense of
>> rubber stamping.
>
> I do not think that the IESG is actively rubber stamping, and I
> know of a few past events where the IESG actively resisted to such
> attempts.
>
> However, the ballot process is made to err towards publication
> of a document. How often does the IESG *not* publish documents,
> and why?
Why does that statistic matter? The fact that the IESG is actively
and critically reviewing drafts is the end-stop for the main
technical review, which is *of course* performed by the WG (except
for the relatively rare non-WG drafts). If the IESG habitually
rejected documents, it would tell us that the ADs and WG Chairs
concerned were doing a lousy job.
> Considering the effort it took to convince IESG not to take an
> action / publish a document (IIRC draft-ietf-v6ops-6to4-to-historic-04.txt)
> then I'm much less convinced that having a ballot procedure that fails
> towards action/publication is such a good idea.
That's a case I know intimately of course, having been author of the
rival draft as well as the original 6to4 spec. I'd say it's a case that
proves that our process is robust and that the IESG is doing exactly
what it should - in that case, concluding that the draft, having received
a pretty rough consensus in v6ops, did not achieve rough consensus
in the IETF as a whole. It was a very close call, and there are still
many people who think it was wrong (as you know if you watch
the traffic on ipv6-ops@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx).
Brian