--On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 18:43 -0500 Nico Williams <nico@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 03:28:19PM -0700, S Moonesamy wrote: >> At 02:11 PM 24-04-2019, Nico Williams wrote: >> > What's the problem with holding a BoF? >> >> It doesn't make sense to ask a person who lacks extensive >> travel resources to fly to Canada to hold a BoF about a short >> draft. > > You could participate remotely. > > Seriously, please stop suggesting that your I-D not getting > sponsored is a moral or ethical failure on the part of the > ADs. You've been given a way forward that fits our > publication process. > > We have a process for publication of Standards-Track and BCP > RFCs. That process involves an optional BoF, a WG Last Call, > definitely IETF Last Call, and IESG review. It would be > strange to skip the BoF and the WG LC steps, and it would be > stranger still to have an IETF LC on a draft that has had this > much discussion and no other forum for discussing it. > > An AD sponsoring this I-D as it is might well be grounds for a > recall petition! :^/ Nico, Let me note two bits of history and then suggest that you (and others who have responded to the idea of reviewing and potentially approving this document by an Individual Submission process with the sort of righteous outrage that I read into your last comment/jest above) tone it down a bit. (1) Document processing history... RFC 8318 was processed and approved as an Individual Submission (no BOF, no WG). It was a rather small, fine-tuning, change, but some of us believe that the changes suggested by draft-moonesamy-recall-rev are no larger. YMMD about that, however... RFC 7776, which laid out a whole new policy area and, in the process, slightly updated the recall procedures of RFC 7437, was discussed and approved as an Individual Submission (no WG). I find it hard to believe that the implications of the present I-D are broader than the implications of the anti-harassment policy and procedures. But, again, YMMD. RFC 7437, which completely replaced the prior specifications of the nominating and recall processes, was processed and approved as an Individual Submission (no WG and, as far as I can remember or tell from the tracker, no BOF). It would be very hard to argue that such a complete replacement, "roll-up", document has less sweeping effect or risk of inadvertent changes than the present I-D. RFC 6859, a clarification about nomcom eligibility, was processed as an Individual Submission. Whether it is a more or less significant change than the one now proposed depends on whether one thinks it actually changed anything versus reinforcing an interpretation of prior documents that was generally accepted, but the point remains: no WG and, AFAICT, no BOF. We need to go all the way back to RFC 3777 (six years ago) to find a document related to the recall process that actually came out of a WG. It seems to me that, unless you (or others) are ready to claim that all of the documents listed above other than 3777 are not legitimate, arguing that this I-D must go through a WG and WG Last Call (with or without a BOF) prior to IETF Last Call as a matter of our normal procedure with no other path permitted, is, to use your term, "strange". There is, of course, an IETF Last Call and IETF review inherent in the AD-sponsored Individual Submission process: no one has proposed to eliminate or bypass either of those steps. (2) Moral or ethical failures... I don't believe anyone has explicitly made either of those claims. _However_, one effect of what the I-D proposes is to increase the fraction of the IETF participant community who can participate in directly holding IESG members accountable through the _only_ mechanism now available to the community (other than, e.g., throwing of ripe fruit during plenaries, an activity we haven't figured out how to support over Meetecho). Any time, in any organization, that a leadership body requires otherwise-optional procedures that put obstacles in the way of rapid processing and approval of a proposal that would cause additional accountability (or accountability to a broader population) for that body, it is reasonable to raise the question of whether the risk of increased accountability is part of the motivation for the requirement. It is also appropriate for the leadership body itself to carefully examine its own motives. That is not to suggest that the decision to require additional procedures is inherently wrong: on a case-by-case basis, it may be exactly right. However, it is not an accident that there are well-established metaphors in many cultures for situations in which a body is asked to consider increasing some other group's control over it -- e.g., "asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving" (or Christmas) or "allowing the foxes to take charge of the henhouse" -- it seems to me entirely appropriate to ask questions about motives rather than casting aspersions on those who do so. So, again, whether this proposal actually needs a WG-forming BOF, AD or IESG approval or a WG, etc., is something we can continue to debate (much as I'd rather be discussing substance). And people can raise (again, btw) and debate (although I'd much rather see a different thread and a draft first and believe the issue is completely separate from the ones covered by the I-D) such topics as whether the IESG and IAB should be able to remove their own members. But please let's cut back on the hyperbole, claims for procedural requirements that have never existed, and assertions (even if by implication) that some people have accused others of being morally or ethically defective. best, john
