All you have to do is ask :-)
That's the awesome part about appeal transparency.
On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 6:56 PM Nico Williams <nico@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 10:54:36AM +1300, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> On 11-Mar-20 07:45, Nico Williams wrote:
> > If you get left on the rough side of consensus, whether rightly or
> > wrongly, and you wish to challenge this, it's really difficult. You
> > might have to file an appeal,
>
> Well yes. There's no way round that - you're on the losing side, which
> has been a bad deal throughout human history. But at least there *is*
> an appeal process (which in practice there wouldn't be, if we used
> majority voting to make decisions). That doesn't indicate bias in
> the process.
>
> > and if you do you'll annoy and anger
> > people who want their RFCs published a year ago.
>
> Again, that doesn't indicate bias in the process.
It is a bias in the process. And rightfully so IMO. The point is that
to get relief requires sufficient motivation to seek it via an appeal.
Q: How many appeals have there been, and how many have succeeded?
This isn't as readable as it was before the website redesign (IMO), but https://www.ietf.org/standards/process/appeals/ lists the appeals to the IESG and the IESG response. I'd note that "succeeded" isn't binary - there are multiple responses that aren't thumbs up/thumbs down - but everybody knows what happened.
The appeals that make it to the IAB are at https://www.iab.org/appeals/. I'd note that the IAB tends to say "the IESG didn't think about X, so they should try again", rather than "what the IESG should have done was Y". But, again, everybody knows what happened.
I hope that's helpful.
Best,
Spencer
But perhaps we can do post-mortems as a lighter-weight relief process,
where a reversal isn't the goal, but that a) it be determined if there
were errors (or perhaps harassment by the people complaining! it goes
both ways) and b) some chastisement.
> > What I've encountered is that at the limit you have to appeal or give
> > up, and how well things go before you get to that stage depends on how
> > willing WG chairs and responsible AD are to actively mediate dispute
> > resolution.
>
> Of course. But isn't that exactly why the appeals process exists? To
> put pressure on chairs and ADs to mediate? I assure you that it's
> much more uncomfortable for them to handle a formal appeal than
> to try mediation.
But there is a social dynamic. Appeal and become the bad guy, lose good
will, lose friends, and find your future participation affected. We're
talking about people who must have their RFCs published!
> I'll stop there because I have precisely zero knowledge of the case
> you cite.
That's fair, and it would be best if we didn't discuss it in this thread
anyways -- its details are not germane, but that such a case exists in
the broad strokes I used to describe it, is germane to the point that
the process of obtaining relief is costly and non-trivial.
I'd settle for not having that happen again than for getting a do-over
with an appeal.
Nico
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