--On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 00:22 +0000 "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 3/10/20, 5:55 PM, "ietf on behalf of Bob Hinden" > <ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx on behalf of bob.hinden@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > >> Kudos to the IESG and IRTF chair for making this difficult >> decision. > > +1 > I know the community appreciates that this decision was taken > rationally, after assessing data from all the working groups > and research groups, and via a consensus-based process in the > IESG and IRTF. This is, as always, the sort of process & > approach that sets this community apart from other SDOs. :-) Jason, I beg to differ and we will sooner or later have another situation in which the difference is important (there have been at least a few in the past). What sets this community apart from other SDOs is that we make most decisions by consensus-based processes in the community and with full community involvement. The role of the IESG has traditionally (since Kobe and POISED at least) to interpret and verify (i.e., "call" or "declare") community consensus. RFC 2028 Section 3.5 talks about the IESG as "administering" the standards process, not deciding, based on its collective wisdom, what is to be a standard. As a more recent example see language such as "we strive to make our decisions by the consent of all participants" in RFC 7282. Any number of other standards bodies select leadership bodies (by one means or another) who then make decisions _for_ those standards bodies. They may do that by unanimous consent (a very strong version of consensus), by voting, by discussion and agreement within that leadership body that is indistinguishable from our definition of rough consensus, or by the sorts of compromises that RFC 7282 abhors. But they make the decisions and they are the final authority. In the IETF, it is the community itself that forms the consensus and is the final authority, and it is that which makes us different. In that sense, the way this decision was made --by consensus _within_ the IESG and with the IRTF Chair -- is not what we traditionally do and what sets us apart; it is an aberration. It is, however, an aberration that exhibits something else that distinguishes us from those other SDOs. While it is not, to my recollection, explicit in any of our procedural documents, we often put Doing The Right Thing ahead of nitpicking adherence to the details of procedures. In this case, I believe that, in gathering information the way it did, discussing issues internally and with the IRTF Chair, and then reaching internal consensus and making a decision, the IESG Did The Right Thing whether one agrees with their conclusion or not (I do agree, but that is not important in this context). Most of the alternatives with far more early community involvement would have been catastrophic (or at least would have had us still debating whether or not to hold a meeting in March 2020 during May of 2020). But, if we were to end up confusing the IESG making decisions that way with an IETF consensus process, we not only would not be different enough from those other SDOs for the difference to matter, but we would be in serious trouble indeed. best, john
