Joel, Joe, Personally, I don't see a way to separate this draft, and at least my interpretation of Joe's comments, from a broader situation. The last few months have seen two situations in which the IESG has claimed extraordinary authority, developed a proposal internally, and then presented it to the community. Both -- the decision to take IETF 107 virtual and the ongoing discussions about NomCom eligibility -- were necessitated by very unusual situations and tight deadlines. Whether I agree with the outcomes or not, I think they did what was necessary and, for the Nomcom case, which was less of an emergency than whether to hold IETF 107 f2f, I think the community should feel better about things in general because the IESG (and Barry specifically) listened to input from the community and shifted from a "do this by IESG Statement" plan to one of using a more or less normal process for a BCP. I think the last few years have also seen an increase in technical specifications that are developed by one IESG member (with a "no hat" or "as an individual" declaration), sponsored by a second, and approved by the IESG after very little comment during Last Call (possibly because no one else really cared). In an even smaller number of cases, the only parties who may care about the spec are the companies supporting the IETF work or one of more ADs. All perfectly legitimate under our current rules. And, especially for procedural matters for which (as Stephen points out) current and recent ADs may be the only ones who have been exposed closely enough to the problems to care. However, there is a broader issue that I think we should all be keeping in mind, especially when things like ongoing discussion about the proposals associated with ETSI and ITU-T or a question asked at the plenary should remind us. The IETF didn't invent packet switching or even TCP/IP. Even if "we" had, we produce voluntary standards, standards whose adoption depends on perceptions of their technical quality and of the openness, balance, and fairness of the processes that produce them and not because the IETF has any claim to ownership of any particular set of standards and protocols that anyone else is required to take seriously. "We" also don't get to determine what gets layered on top of our core protocols: Not only does "permissionless innovation" (a song many of us have sung for years) not mean "don't need permission of anyone other than the IETF", but, had consultation with the IETF been a requirement before its early development, we might not have the web, at least a web running as part of the Internet. Those of us who have been through multiple rounds of "circuit vs packet" wars, OSI wars, and variations of them, know that, many times, when the technical proposals and arguments fail, what follows are institutional attacks. So, if a process change proposal, especially one that appears to give the IESG more power and authority, shows up after an IESG internal discussion, it is important to be extra-sure that the community consensus is clear if the IESG later adopts it. Maybe we should be thinking about short-term WGs whose purpose is to smooth the rough edges off documents (like the changes that Barry has already queued) and to present the community with clear pro and con arguments before we start trying to debug on the IETF list (which, sadly, many of those in the community who might be affected don't follow). That goes beyond specific types of proposals: for example, maybe we need to think about recall procedures less in terms of "do we trust the IESG and IAB" and "maybe any problems can wait for the next NomCom" but in terms of it being obvious that we have clear and workable models by which the community can insure fairness and protect itself against cabals within the leadership and other abuses. Again, those things (and probably others we might benefit from having clearer rules and procedures about) are not because we don't trust our leadership, but that, especially in troubled times, the appearance of a fair and open process with good safeguards against abuse or dominance by particular people in the leadership, or particular companies or clusters of interests, may be as or more important that our internal confidence that such things are not occurring. best, john
