On Sat, Aug 03, 2019 at 02:48:27PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote: > --On Friday, August 2, 2019 13:52 -0700 Mark Nottingham > <mnot@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> I fully agree that an issues list is necessary when things > >> get complicated. But IETF rules *require* consensus to be > >> formed on the mailing list. > > > > I think "formed" is stated too strongly; we often "form" > > consensus in a meeting, and confirm it on-list. > > This is really not part of the GitHub topic (hence the changed > subject line) because it applies whether a versioning or > tracking systems is used or not, but it may be worth noting that > there is a slippery slope attached to your comment above. However consensus is formed, it certainly is to be confirmed on mailing lists. Sometimes confirmation doesn't happen, or it isn't noticed, then people get upset. I wouldn't want to insist that consensus can only form on the lists because a) that's not gonna fly, b) it would be very limiting of face-to-face meetings. > [...]. I've seen situations in the > last few years in which a discussion occurs and decisions are > essentially made in a meeting and made with or without adequate > attention to the views of those who are not in the room. After > that, the request to the list takes a form not much different > from "anyone who doesn't agree with the meeting decision needs > to speak up". That request may come before there are minutes or > a good summary of the meeting other than the recording of the > video feed (if that isn't delayed too, as it sometimes has > been). The subsequent near-silence from the combination of > those who agree and those who don't feel informed enough to have > an opinion can be construed as confirmation on the list, but it > certainly is not within the spirit of those rules. Indeed. Consensus confirmation might look nothing like a call for consensus, in which case it's very hard to miss, and deadlines -implicit or otherwise- easily pass without comment. What we could do is have something like a Consensus Call that we might call "Consensus Confirmation Call". WG chairs would need to get good at making these calls. > Perhaps it is time to change those rules but, if so, let's do it > explicitly rather than silently drifting from "determined and > confirmed in the mailing list" toward "determined in a meeting" > followed by pro forma mailing list confirmation. And, if we do > so, let's incorporate the content of several other threads by > reference and consider the tradeoffs of making f2f meeting > attendance more important. Pro forma confirmation is fine, provided it's _noticeable_. Nico --
