--On Friday, November 13, 2015 13:22 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
<brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> John,
> On 13/11/2015 10:31, John C Klensin wrote:
>
> ...
>> A quick search suggests that the last formal proposal along
>> the lines outlined in my earlier note was
>> draft-klensin-stds-review-panel-00 somewhat over a decade ago.
>> There was some interest on the IETF list, but it rapidly
>> became clear that no one of the IESG was interested in
>> considering it.
>
> Memory fades, but I think the reality was not an absence of
> any interest (I was interested, for one). However, there was
> evidently no consensus (however rough) in the IESG to consider
> it. It was certainly a topic at IETF 63 (Paris) in the IESG
> meeting and in plenary, and it subsequently came up on the
> poisson and pesci lists. But as General AD at the time, I
> didn't get the sense that there was enough support in the
> community to sponsor it. Maybe that was a misjudgement, of
> course.
>...
Brian,
This is ancient history and almost certainly not worth a long
debate. I didn't bring up any of those details (much less
attempt to analyze them) until Stephen suggested that there
might not be a problem and asked for specifics.
However, in the hope of clarifying another part of this:
>> See above. There is no point in spending time "considering"
>> anything, or even writing it up, if it appear clear that the
>> IESG would decline to issue a Last Call (at least in the
>> absence of rabble-rousing, coummunity outrage, and/or threats
>> of recalls).
>
> John is right. But in fairness to the 2005/2007 IESGs, it
> wasn't that people denied there was a problem. It was an
> absence of rough consensus around even the general type of
> solution. So the chance of getting the newtrk documents
> through the IESG was extremely low.
Yes, but, at least judging from the number of comments and level
of controversy on the IETF list during Last Calls, we have Last
Calls on controversial issues on which there is an a priori
absence of rough consensus in the community at fairly regular
intervals. In the non-technical area, the rather heated
discussions about consensus and anti-harassment documents, and
the earlier one about a two-level standards track, are perhaps
good examples. What made newtrk special, as least as far as I
could tell as a mere document author, is that there was a WG
(unlike those three examples), there was a recommendation from
the WG, supported by its chair(s) to put the documents through
Last Call, the IESG had a discussion in advance of Last Call and
decided that the "chance of getting ... through the IESG was
extremely low", and therefore did not hold the Last Call or go
through any of our usual mechanisms for determining _community_
consensus.
Those other examples, or at least the two that have run to
conclusion and been published as BCPs, illustrate, not blocking,
but the other part of the problem as I see it. All three
proposals emerged, not from community discussions or a WG but
from discussions within the IESG. I-Ds were produced at least
some of whose authors (all of them on the -00 versions, if I
recall) were ADs. While one could imagine tuning by the
community (and tuning did occur), it was clear from the
beginning that the IESG intended to push something of that
general nature through.
So what we have is IESG-produced process proposals gong through,
even when the level of community support is a bit dubious, and
proposals from others getting, at best, no encouragement at all.
Maybe that is ok. Maybe it is the best we can do. But we
probably should not depend that it is an open process in which
ADs are just participating as members of the community.
john
Independent of whether the IESG has blocked Last Calls