Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Rather than losing these reasonable thoughts, I stuck them in the transition team Wiki under IAOC Instructions. They will be remembered. Thanks, Sam! --On 27. januar 2005 22:44 -0500 Sam Hartman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we are very close here. I can live with Margaret's text with Leslie's proposed changes. It's actually very close to something I would be happy with. I've been rethinking my position since yesterday. I realized that most of what I want does not require formalism or requires very little formalism. In particular, I'm happy to live with a system in which decisions are not overturned except by the IAOC (although I like In addition, I think requiring requests for appeal/review to be acted on when they are simply arguing that decision is bad instead of that decisions did not follow written procedures/rules would be open to abuse. Here is what I want in addition to Margaret's formulation. I want to see if I can get agreement on these (I suspect the answer will be yes) before working on text. IT may turn out that the BCP is the wrong place for such text. * The IAOC can choose to overturn or otherwise act to reverse a decision if it believes that is the best course of action to follow. Examples include changing procedures if they happen not to work very well or attempting to buy out or terminate a contract if it is clear that the contract is no longer in the IASA's best interest. * Members of the IAOC may take into account comments from the community and may decide to reconsider a decision based on such comments even if no formal requirement to review the decision or to respond to the comments exists. In other words if the community convinces the IAOC they were wrong, it is reasonable for the IAOC to go do something about it. * The IAOC should listen to comments. By this I mean that they should be aware of comments they are receiving and weight them according to their value. It's fine to ignore pointless comments; probably even fine to pay less attention to comments from people who have a track record of not providing useful input. It would not be desirable for the IAOC to have completely ignored a constructive, well-reasoned comment simply because there was no formal obligation to respond to the comment. (The IAOC still might not respond, but someone should have at least read the comment and considered what it said) * It is reasonable for individuals, groups or organized bodies to comment to the community and the IAOC on IAOC decisions. For example if the IAOC selected a meeting sight according to its criteria and the IESG noticed that many working group chairs and document authors were unwilling to come to this sight, it would be reasonable for the IESG to inform the IAOC of this observation. Depending on costs of canceling a meeting, it might (although probably would not) be reasonable for the IESG to ask the IAOC to reconsider. When I phrase things this way instead of in thinking about them in the context of formal appeals and reviews, they become stunningly obvious at least for me. If these things are not true, I don't think we are living up to an open transparent process receptive to the needs of the IETF community. On the other hand, these things are sufficiently obvious that perhaps nothing needs to be said about them. There is one area where text might be useful. I'd feel more comfortable if we added text encouraging members of the community with comments about decisions to make those comments to the community at large and/or the IAOC even if their comments did not meet the criteria for formal review/appeal. Sorry to run such a long chase and end up back mostly at nothing. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam, For whatever it is worth, I could not agree more with your formulation. Although you have stated it better than I have, I think our conclusions are much the same: trying to formalize all of this and write into formal text just gets us tied into more knots and risks edge cases and abuses that could be quite problematic. At the same time, if the community --and the IAOC and IAD-- don't accept and follow the general principles you have described, we are in a degree of trouble that formal appeals procedures probably won't fix. And I don't think that is ...mostly at nothing. best, john --On Thursday, 27 January, 2005 22:44 -0500 Sam Hartman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we are very close here. I can live with Margaret's text with Leslie's proposed changes. It's actually very close to something I would be happy with. I've been rethinking my position since yesterday. I realized that most of what I want does not require formalism or requires very little formalism. In particular, I'm happy to live with a system in which decisions are not overturned except by the IAOC (although I like In addition, I think requiring requests for appeal/review to be acted on when they are simply arguing that decision is bad instead of that decisions did not follow written procedures/rules would be open to abuse. Here is what I want in addition to Margaret's formulation. I want to see if I can get agreement on these (I suspect the answer will be yes) before working on text. IT may turn out that the BCP is the wrong place for such text. * The IAOC can choose to overturn or otherwise act to reverse a decision if it believes that is the best course of action to follow. Examples include changing procedures if they happen not to work very well or attempting to buy out or terminate a contract if it is clear that the contract is no longer in the IASA's best interest. * Members of the IAOC may take into account comments from the community and may decide to reconsider a decision based on such comments even if no formal requirement to review the decision or to respond to the comments exists. In other words if the community convinces the IAOC they were wrong, it is reasonable for the IAOC to go do something about it. * The IAOC should listen to comments. By this I mean that they should be aware of comments they are receiving and weight them according to their value. It's fine to ignore pointless comments; probably even fine to pay less attention to comments from people who have a track record of not providing useful input. It would not be desirable for the IAOC to have completely ignored a constructive, well-reasoned comment simply because there was no formal obligation to respond to the comment. (The IAOC still might not respond, but someone should have at least read the comment and considered what it said) * It is reasonable for individuals, groups or organized bodies to comment to the community and the IAOC on IAOC decisions. For example if the IAOC selected a meeting sight according to its criteria and the IESG noticed that many working group chairs and document authors were unwilling to come to this sight, it would be reasonable for the IESG to inform the IAOC of this observation. Depending on costs of canceling a meeting, it might (although probably would not) be reasonable for the IESG to ask the IAOC to reconsider. When I phrase things this way instead of in thinking about them in the context of formal appeals and reviews, they become stunningly obvious at least for me. If these things are not true, I don't think we are living up to an open transparent process receptive to the needs of the IETF community. On the other hand, these things are sufficiently obvious that perhaps nothing needs to be said about them. There is one area where text might be useful. I'd feel more comfortable if we added text encouraging members of the community with comments about decisions to make those comments to the community at large and/or the IAOC even if their comments did not meet the criteria for formal review/appeal. Sorry to run such a long chase and end up back mostly at nothing. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Margaret, I have two problems with your text: - It does not handle the issue Mike st. Johns raised - about whether reviewing bodies would have privilleged access to normally-confidential information related to the decision being challenged. - I don't know what it means for the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT to overturn a decision. It could mean IAOC, go back and start over, but you may make the same decision again, IAOC, go back and start over, but you have to make at least some change to your decision, IAOC, act as if you had made decision B, not decision A, or some other variation, depending on circumstances. Unsurprisingly, I would be happier with a version that did not have the last paragraph - I think the actions available in the preceeding paragraphs are enough to address all situations where it's unreasonable to reach for the recall procedures. But I think I could live with this one. Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam, For myself, I agree these things are true. I would like to believe they are obvious, though I'm not certain of that. For example, these things are equally true of the IAB and IESG, but it's not clear to me that everyone understands they can drop a note to either of those groups. I don't (personally) think the BCP is the place to try to capture this in more detail; perhaps there is some place to do so. Leslie. Sam Hartman wrote: Here is what I want in addition to Margaret's formulation. I want to see if I can get agreement on these (I suspect the answer will be yes) before working on text. IT may turn out that the BCP is the wrong place for such text. * The IAOC can choose to overturn or otherwise act to reverse a decision if it believes that is the best course of action to follow. Examples include changing procedures if they happen not to work very well or attempting to buy out or terminate a contract if it is clear that the contract is no longer in the IASA's best interest. * Members of the IAOC may take into account comments from the community and may decide to reconsider a decision based on such comments even if no formal requirement to review the decision or to respond to the comments exists. In other words if the community convinces the IAOC they were wrong, it is reasonable for the IAOC to go do something about it. * The IAOC should listen to comments. By this I mean that they should be aware of comments they are receiving and weight them according to their value. It's fine to ignore pointless comments; probably even fine to pay less attention to comments from people who have a track record of not providing useful input. It would not be desirable for the IAOC to have completely ignored a constructive, well-reasoned comment simply because there was no formal obligation to respond to the comment. (The IAOC still might not respond, but someone should have at least read the comment and considered what it said) * It is reasonable for individuals, groups or organized bodies to comment to the community and the IAOC on IAOC decisions. For example if the IAOC selected a meeting sight according to its criteria and the IESG noticed that many working group chairs and document authors were unwilling to come to this sight, it would be reasonable for the IESG to inform the IAOC of this observation. Depending on costs of canceling a meeting, it might (although probably would not) be reasonable for the IESG to ask the IAOC to reconsider. When I phrase things this way instead of in thinking about them in the context of formal appeals and reviews, they become stunningly obvious at least for me. If these things are not true, I don't think we are living up to an open transparent process receptive to the needs of the IETF community. On the other hand, these things are sufficiently obvious that perhaps nothing needs to be said about them. There is one area where text might be useful. I'd feel more comfortable if we added text encouraging members of the community with comments about decisions to make those comments to the community at large and/or the IAOC even if their comments did not meet the criteria for formal review/appeal. Sorry to run such a long chase and end up back mostly at nothing. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Eric, At 5:40 PM -0800 1/26/05, Eric Rescorla wrote: With that in mind, I would like to suggest the following principles: 1. The IETF community should have input on the internal rules set by the IASA and the IASA should be required to respond to comments by the community on said rules. 2. While the IASA's behavior should be constrained by BCPs (as it will be constrained by the first one) we should in general refrain from enacting specific internal IASA rules changes by BCP. If it is believed that the IAOC is making bad decisions we have a mechanism for unseating them. 3. Decisions of the IAOC should be appealable (following the usual 2026 appeal chain) on the sole grounds that the IASA's processes were not followed. Those decisions should NOT be appealable on the grounds that the decisions were simply bad ones. I think that something along these lines could meet all of my principles. BTW, I don't feel that I have any special right to set the principles for this mechanism, so folks should feel free to add new ones or argue with the ones I put forward... Your proposal certainly meets the following ones: (2) It is well-enough specified (here and in RFC 2026) that person who is not a (past or present) member of the I* could use it. (4) Any member of the community can make a review request (or appeal) and get a response. (5) There is at least one level of escalation possible. (In fact, there are three.) Your criteria are different than mine, and therefore there may be some disagreement on: (3) Review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or a BCP) and/or makes a decisions that is against the best interests of the IETF. You only want to allow appeals based on the fact that a published rule was not followed, and I would like to allow appeals based on both of the above criteria. I don't know how close or how far we are on this... My idea is that the IAOC should not be able to make decisions that are damaging to the IETF without any community recourse, just because there is no written rule that prevents it. If we are going to use the full appeals chain (which I totally support), I would like to see appeals based on the best interests of the IETF constrained to being escalated to the IESG and IAB (since they are chosen by the IETF) and only allow process-based appeals to be escalated to the ISOC BoT -- much as we do today for technical vs. process appeals of WG decisions. I do not think that it is the ISOC BoT's place to be the ultimate arbiter what is in the best interests of the IETF. We also seem to have some disagreement on: (1) A review request cannot overturn a signed contract or hiring decision. And (6) The IAB, IESG and ISOC BoT (in hearing an appeal) cannot overturn a decision of the IAOC, only advise the IAOC that they believe that an incorrect decision was made. I feel quite strongly about principle (1), as I don't know how the IAOC could negotiate and administer contracts if they might, at any time, be overturned by someone else. And, I don't even know what it would mean to overturn a signed contract, since it would then be outside the control of IASA to change it. I do think that the IAOC's contract negotiation rules should include a period of public comment on major decisions before they sign binding contracts or MOUs, but that is a subject for future IAOC operating procedures, not for this document, I guess. I am actually not strongly in favor of principle (6) myself. I think that the IAB, IESG and ISOC BoT could be trusted to decide whether overturning a particular (non-binding) decision is appropriate in a particular situation. But, others seemed to feel strongly that allowing anyone else to overturn any decision of the IAOC would be very bad. I can't say that I fully understand why. Please note that principle (6) does allow the IAOC to overturn an IAD or IAOC decision based on a review request/appeal. It also allows the IAOC to overturn a decision based on advice from the IAB, IESG or ISOC BoT that it would be best to do so. So, I am comfortable with this one either way. Do you have a strong opinion on this one way or the other? Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I am actually not strongly in favor of principle (6) myself. I think that the IAB, IESG and ISOC BoT could be trusted to decide whether overturning a particular (non-binding) decision is appropriate in a particular situation. But, others seemed to feel strongly that allowing anyone else to overturn any decision of the IAOC would be very bad. I can't say that I fully understand why. Hi, Margaret, There are probably a variety of reasons why people might have this view, but mine are: - if we have people on IAB/IESG who are better at making IAOC decisions than the IAOC is, we have the wrong people on the IAOC (or perhaps the wrong people on IAB/IESG, but that's another story), and - some decisions are always bad (let's start a land war in Asia), but most bad decisions are more obviously bad when looking back, so we're usually talking about second-guessing based on hindsight. So it's not that I don't trust the IAB/IESG to decide whether overturning a decision is appropriate in a particular situation, it's that I don't like what that says about our structure and processes. Saying, you guys didn't think about X when you made this decision, and you should think about it the next time this decision matters is fine with me. Spencer ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Margaret Wasserman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 5:40 PM -0800 1/26/05, Eric Rescorla wrote: With that in mind, I would like to suggest the following principles: 1. The IETF community should have input on the internal rules set by the IASA and the IASA should be required to respond to comments by the community on said rules. 2. While the IASA's behavior should be constrained by BCPs (as it will be constrained by the first one) we should in general refrain from enacting specific internal IASA rules changes by BCP. If it is believed that the IAOC is making bad decisions we have a mechanism for unseating them. 3. Decisions of the IAOC should be appealable (following the usual 2026 appeal chain) on the sole grounds that the IASA's processes were not followed. Those decisions should NOT be appealable on the grounds that the decisions were simply bad ones. I think that something along these lines could meet all of my principles. BTW, I don't feel that I have any special right to set the principles for this mechanism, so folks should feel free to add new ones or argue with the ones I put forward... Your proposal certainly meets the following ones: (2) It is well-enough specified (here and in RFC 2026) that person who is not a (past or present) member of the I* could use it. (4) Any member of the community can make a review request (or appeal) and get a response. (5) There is at least one level of escalation possible. (In fact, there are three.) Your criteria are different than mine, and therefore there may be some disagreement on: (3) Review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or a BCP) and/or makes a decisions that is against the best interests of the IETF. You only want to allow appeals based on the fact that a published rule was not followed, and I would like to allow appeals based on both of the above criteria. I don't know how close or how far we are on this... My idea is that the IAOC should not be able to make decisions that are damaging to the IETF without any community recourse, just because there is no written rule that prevents it. The problem is that best interests of the IETF is a completely amorophous standard (In my view, chocolate helps people think better so we need chocolate chip cookies in order to produce better standards), so I don't seee how this rules out any appeals at all. We also seem to have some disagreement on: (1) A review request cannot overturn a signed contract or hiring decision. And (6) The IAB, IESG and ISOC BoT (in hearing an appeal) cannot overturn a decision of the IAOC, only advise the IAOC that they believe that an incorrect decision was made. I feel quite strongly about principle (1), as I don't know how the IAOC could negotiate and administer contracts if they might, at any time, be overturned by someone else. And, I don't even know what it would mean to overturn a signed contract, since it would then be outside the control of IASA to change it. Yes, I think this is absolutely correct. I am actually not strongly in favor of principle (6) myself. I think that the IAB, IESG and ISOC BoT could be trusted to decide whether overturning a particular (non-binding) decision is appropriate in a particular situation. But, others seemed to feel strongly that allowing anyone else to overturn any decision of the IAOC would be very bad. I can't say that I fully understand why. Please note that principle (6) does allow the IAOC to overturn an IAD or IAOC decision based on a review request/appeal. It also allows the IAOC to overturn a decision based on advice from the IAB, IESG or ISOC BoT that it would be best to do so. So, I am comfortable with this one either way. Do you have a strong opinion on this one way or the other? I could live either way, but my original thought was that in the case of allegations that the IAOC had not followed its internal rules, the IESG and IAB could overturn its decisions. Certainly, they can impose new rules on it through the RFC process -Ekr ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Eric, The problem is that best interests of the IETF is a completely amorophous standard (In my view, chocolate helps people think better so we need chocolate chip cookies in order to produce better standards), so I don't seee how this rules out any appeals at all. This is a good point, and I could live with your formulation. Most of the important ways that the IAOC could violate the best interests of the IETF are (and should continue to be) captured in the written rules anyway. For instance, any reasonable example I can think of at the moment is covered by one of more of the IASA BCP principles. I feel quite strongly about principle (1), as I don't know how the IAOC could negotiate and administer contracts if they might, at any time, be overturned by someone else. And, I don't even know what it would mean to overturn a signed contract, since it would then be outside the control of IASA to change it. Yes, I think this is absolutely correct. Good. I think everyone is in agreement about this. Do you have a strong opinion on this one way or the other? I could live either way, but my original thought was that in the case of allegations that the IAOC had not followed its internal rules, the IESG and IAB could overturn its decisions. Certainly, they can impose new rules on it through the RFC process Okay, so we both could go either way on this... So, here is an attempt at some text that captures our current agreement. I'm not trying to slip anything in here, so let me know if I seem to be getting it wrong: Remove the current sections 3.5 and 3.6 and replace them with a new section 3.5: 3.5 Review and Appeal of IAD and IAOC Decision The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operational decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public. Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF administrative support activities. In the case where someone questions that a decision or action of the IAD or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with IETF BCPs or IASA operational guidelines (including the creation and maintenance of an appropriate set of operational guidelines), he or she may ask the IAOC for a formal review of the decision or action. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC chair and should include a description of the decision or action to be reviewed, an explanation of how the decision or action violates the BCPs or operational guidelines, and a suggestion for how the situation could be rectified. All requests for review will be publicly posted, and the IAOC is expected to respond to these requests within a reasonable period, typically within 90 days. It is up to the IAOC to determine what type of review and response is required, based on the nature of the review request. Based on the results of the review, the IAOC may choose to overturn their own decision and/or to change their operational guidelines to prevent further misunderstandings. If a member of the community is not satisfied with the IAOC's response to his or her review request, he or she may escalate the issue by appealing the decision or action to the IESG, using the appeals procedures outlined in RFC 2026 [RFC2026]. If he or she is not satisfied with the IESG response, he or she can escalate the issue to the IAB and on the ISOC Board of Trustees, as described in RFC 2026. The IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT will review the decision of the IAD or IAOC to determine whether it was made in accordance with existing BCPs and operational guidelines. As a result of this review, the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT may decide to initiate changes to the BCPs governing IAOC actions. They may also advise the IAOC to modify existing operational guidelines to avoid similar issues in the future and/or may advise the IAOC to re-consider their decision or action. In exceptional cases, when no other recourse seems reasonable, the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT may overturn or reverse a non-binding decision or action of the IAOC. This should be done after careful consideration and consultation with the IAOC regarding the ramifications of this action. In no circumstances may the IESG or IAB overturn a decision of the IAOC that involves a binding contract or overturn a personnel-related action (such as hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, performance reviews, salary adjustments, etc.). [The last paragraph is likely to be the most controversial, as I am not sure that we have consensus that the IAB or IESG should be able to overturn or reverse a decision or action of the IAOC at all.] ___
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I like this formulation. A couple of suggested tweaks, inline: Margaret Wasserman wrote: Remove the current sections 3.5 and 3.6 and replace them with a new section 3.5: 3.5 Review and Appeal of IAD and IAOC Decision The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operational decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public. Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF administrative support activities. In the case where someone questions that a decision or action of the IAD or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with IETF BCPs or IASA operational guidelines (including the creation and maintenance of an appropriate set of operational guidelines), he or she may ask the IAOC for a formal review of the decision or action. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC chair and should include a description of the decision or action to be reviewed, an explanation of how the decision or action violates the BCPs or operational guidelines, and a suggestion for how the situation could be rectified. All requests for review will be publicly posted, and the IAOC is expected to respond to these requests within a reasonable period, typically within 90 days. It is up to the IAOC to determine what type of review and response is required, based on the nature of the review request. Based on the results of the review, the IAOC may choose to overturn their own decision and/or to change their operational guidelines to prevent further misunderstandings. If a member of the community is not satisfied with the IAOC's response to his or her review request, he or she may escalate the issue by appealing the decision or action to the IESG, using the appeals procedures outlined in RFC 2026 [RFC2026]. If he or she is not satisfied with the IESG response, he or she can escalate the issue to the IAB and on the ISOC Board of Trustees, as described in RFC 2026. The IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT will review the decision of the IAD or IAOC I'm stumbling over the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT. I understand you're saying whichever it is at this level of the appeal, but it comes off sounding a bit like whoever gets around to replying. Perhaps it could be rewritten as: The reviewing body (IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT, as appropriate) will ... and then subsequent instances of IESG, IAB... would be replaced with the reviewing body? to determine whether it was made in accordance with existing BCPs and operational guidelines. As a result of this review, the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT may decide to initiate changes to the BCPs governing IAOC actions. I suggest spelling out the initiate changes -- ...may decide to initiate the required public consensus process to change the BCPs... They may also advise the IAOC to modify existing operational guidelines to avoid similar issues in the future and/or may advise the IAOC to re-consider their decision or action. In exceptional cases, when no other recourse seems reasonable, the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT may overturn or reverse a non-binding decision or action of the IAOC. This should be done after careful consideration and consultation with the IAOC regarding the ramifications of this action. In no circumstances may the IESG or IAB overturn a decision of the IAOC that involves a binding contract or overturn a personnel-related action (such as hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, performance reviews, salary adjustments, etc.). [The last paragraph is likely to be the most controversial, as I am not sure that we have consensus that the IAB or IESG should be able to overturn or reverse a decision or action of the IAOC at all.] Leslie. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Leslie, I like this formulation. A couple of suggested tweaks, inline: ...and I like your tweaks :-). They make the text much clearer. Thanks. Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I am happy with both as well. thanks a. On 27 jan 2005, at 20.30, Margaret Wasserman wrote: Hi Leslie, I like this formulation. A couple of suggested tweaks, inline: ...and I like your tweaks :-). They make the text much clearer. Thanks. Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I think we are very close here. I can live with Margaret's text with Leslie's proposed changes. It's actually very close to something I would be happy with. I've been rethinking my position since yesterday. I realized that most of what I want does not require formalism or requires very little formalism. In particular, I'm happy to live with a system in which decisions are not overturned except by the IAOC (although I like In addition, I think requiring requests for appeal/review to be acted on when they are simply arguing that decision is bad instead of that decisions did not follow written procedures/rules would be open to abuse. Here is what I want in addition to Margaret's formulation. I want to see if I can get agreement on these (I suspect the answer will be yes) before working on text. IT may turn out that the BCP is the wrong place for such text. * The IAOC can choose to overturn or otherwise act to reverse a decision if it believes that is the best course of action to follow. Examples include changing procedures if they happen not to work very well or attempting to buy out or terminate a contract if it is clear that the contract is no longer in the IASA's best interest. * Members of the IAOC may take into account comments from the community and may decide to reconsider a decision based on such comments even if no formal requirement to review the decision or to respond to the comments exists. In other words if the community convinces the IAOC they were wrong, it is reasonable for the IAOC to go do something about it. * The IAOC should listen to comments. By this I mean that they should be aware of comments they are receiving and weight them according to their value. It's fine to ignore pointless comments; probably even fine to pay less attention to comments from people who have a track record of not providing useful input. It would not be desirable for the IAOC to have completely ignored a constructive, well-reasoned comment simply because there was no formal obligation to respond to the comment. (The IAOC still might not respond, but someone should have at least read the comment and considered what it said) * It is reasonable for individuals, groups or organized bodies to comment to the community and the IAOC on IAOC decisions. For example if the IAOC selected a meeting sight according to its criteria and the IESG noticed that many working group chairs and document authors were unwilling to come to this sight, it would be reasonable for the IESG to inform the IAOC of this observation. Depending on costs of canceling a meeting, it might (although probably would not) be reasonable for the IESG to ask the IAOC to reconsider. When I phrase things this way instead of in thinking about them in the context of formal appeals and reviews, they become stunningly obvious at least for me. If these things are not true, I don't think we are living up to an open transparent process receptive to the needs of the IETF community. On the other hand, these things are sufficiently obvious that perhaps nothing needs to be said about them. There is one area where text might be useful. I'd feel more comfortable if we added text encouraging members of the community with comments about decisions to make those comments to the community at large and/or the IAOC even if their comments did not meet the criteria for formal review/appeal. Sorry to run such a long chase and end up back mostly at nothing. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Harald, On 26 jan 2005, at 02.23, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: Avri, --On tirsdag, januar 25, 2005 23:44:09 -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Leslie, This formulation is still of the form that does not give the IETF community a direct voice in the review and appeal mechanisms for the IAOC. I do not understand what you mean by direct voice. Could you explain? As I understand Leslie's formulation, the IAOC has no requirement to process a review from a normal member of the IETF Community unless that request comes from the IAB or IESG. To my mind, this means that the IAOC is answerable to the IAB or IESG and not directly answerable to the IETF Community. When an individual IETF participant makes a review request, it may be ignored. If someone is unhappy at being ignored they may make a request to the IAB or IESG for recognition. This request may be also ignored, with the only recourse to that being an appeal of the IAB or IESG decision to ignore their request. That is, it is only if someone interests the IAB or IESG in their issue that it forces a review. Also the only decision that can really be appealed is the IAB or IESG handling of the request for a review not the decision of the IAOC. I am defining that this as not having direct voice. If what you mean is that the community should have representatives involved in the consideration of the issues, and do not think that the nomcom-selected members, the IESG-selected members and the IAB-selected members of the IAOC are appropriate community representation, I do not see any mechanism short of the way we constitute recall committees that will give you what you want. My issue is not with how the members are appointed to the IAOC. I am fine with that. My issue is whether they are accountable to the community or the community's representatives. As written they are accountable only to the the community's representatives and are thus one step removed from direct accountability to the community. If you think that the community should have the right of complaint, then I think you need to accept some limitation by human judgment on how much effort each complaint can cause. I have not seen any argument that convinces me that those limits should be any different then the limits to judgment that currently exist to complaints, i.e. appeals, against the IAB or IESG. I am basically using the 'running code' argument and asking that the appeal process we currently have be extended to this new IETF management group. If that judgment is to lie outside of the IAOC, it has to be invoked for all complaints to the IAOC (making the system more formalistic); if it is inside the IAOC, it seems reasonable to have some means of overriding it. I, personally see not reason why the IAOC is not directly addressable by the community and does not have a direct obligation to the IETF community. While I am comfortable with the IESG and IAB being the appeal path for the IAOC, I am not comfortable with them being a firewall for the IAOC. I do have a problem with seeing the words that Leslie proposed as fitting your description. As described, it isn't a firewall - it's an override of a safeguard. A firewall protects. As written the IESG or IAB protects the IAOC from the IETF community, which to some extent is being assumed to be a sometimes malicious DOS'ing environment that the IAOC needs to be isolated from. I think this is a fundamental question that differentiates Margaret's formulation from yours. I also think it is a fundamental question that goes back to issues in the problem statement about the current leadership model: too much influence is focused in one leadership group. One benefit of the creation of the IAOC is that it spreads the task of running of the IETF to another group of people. As such, I think the IAOC must be required to respond directly to the community. I don't quite see the logic here - we take tasks that are currently performed in an undocumented and unaccountable fashion and move them into a body that has oversight over them, is selected by the community, is removable by the community, and is (as I see it) normally expected to respond to the community. To some extent those tasks were performed in an unaccountable fashion, and to some extent the Chair's of the IAB and IESG (and maybe the groups themselves) have been the only ones who had any visibility, for some degree of visibility, into them. But that is not really the point. If as you say this is oversight that never occurred before, then I see this formulation as adding more responsibilities to the IAB/IESG, i.e. acting as the oversight body and as the arbiter of the community's voice. And to refer back to the Problem process this is adding responsibility to a group that is already overloaded and which has a scope of responsibility that some feel is already overly large. I guess I dispute, and that really is a fundamental point, that
RE: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I like this text. In any event, it seems much closer to what the community seems to want than what we have in the revision 04 document. So I have included the text suggested by Leslie, with the understanding that I have not yet seen Harald declare consensus (seems early for that anyways). In the rev 05 doc (that I just submitted to the repository) I have marked the text as strawman text... so I hope that that is acceptable for now. Bert -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Leslie Daigle Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 03:16 To: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5 With apologies for having posted disappeared (ISP other unexpected connectivity challenges), I'd like to try another cut at what I was getting at, based on the discussion since. On Friday, I tried a minimal edit on words that had flown around the list and seemed to have some consensus. Here's more of an extensive rewrite. Apart from the distinction I had tried to make about . business decisions (implementation) versus . performance I heard these requirements expressed: . DoS concerns -- don't create a system that begs for denial of IASA service through the appeal/review process . second-guessing -- don't create an environment where some or all of the community is second-guessing IAD/IAOC at every move . community involvement -- adequate and appropriate community involvement in the IASA decision making process And I heard various theories about distinguishing between . before decisions are made . during the decision-making process . after decisions have been made particularly in terms of whether we are discussing . appeal (review of executed action by an univolved body) . review (further discussion of an action or proposal) . recall of IAOC members Separately from those considerations, there is the question of implementation -- what people/body(ies) invoke an action, and so on. So, generally speaking, I think the important things to capture in the BCP are: . business decisions remain within the IASA in terms of review mechanisms (i.e., contracts, etc) . the IASA should be explicitly pressed to publicize and seek input on guidelines for making those decisions . public information should include objective measurements of system performance (e.g., document processing times) . there should be a crisp review process to address the situation when (some subset of the IETF believes) the IASA has not followed its guideliness in carrying out an action -- and that includes the expectation of having public guidelines. To the meeting location example -- that would mean (IMO) that the IASA should have some public guidelines for how it picks meeting sites, and if a site is picked that appears to be at odds with those guidelines, then there is a process for reviewing the IASA's actions in selecting that site. NB - that is different than appealing the site itself. So, with all that in mind, I propose the following revised text for the 2 sections I suggested on Friday: 3.5 Business Decisions Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out IASA business activities are subject to review by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented for each formal action. 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operation decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public. Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF process supporting activities. In the case where someone questions that an action of the IAD or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with this document or those operational guidelines (including the creation of an appropriate set of such guidelines), he or she may ask for a formal review of the action. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that took the action. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. Reviews
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Avri, I hear what you are saying. I retained the proposed text for being obliged to respond only when direct by IAB/IESG because people seemed to want it for rate limiting (i.e., preventing DoS). So, we can't just throw it out. We can change it (entirely), but the empty set option does not seem to meet other requirements expressed here. The one further adjustment I think I would suggest to my text of yesterday is to change Answered requests... made public to All requests...made public. I.e., it should not be possible for the IAD/IAOC to sweep issues under a carpet. Personally, I believe that does make the IASA ultimately accountable to the IETF community as a whole, even if it is not *instantaneously* accountable to the IETF community for every decision. And I think it is important that we not lose sight of the other things my proposed text attempted to capture and distinguish. Leslie. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Leslie, This formulation is still of the form that does not give the IETF community a direct voice in the review and appeal mechanisms for the IAOC. I, personally see not reason why the IAOC is not directly addressable by the community and does not have a direct obligation to the IETF community. While I am comfortable with the IESG and IAB being the appeal path for the IAOC, I am not comfortable with them being a firewall for the IAOC. I think this is a fundamental question that differentiates Margaret's formulation from yours. I also think it is a fundamental question that goes back to issues in the problem statement about the current leadership model: too much influence is focused in one leadership group. One benefit of the creation of the IAOC is that it spreads the task of running of the IETF to another group of people. As such, I think the IAOC must be required to respond directly to the community. a. On 25 jan 2005, at 21.15, Leslie Daigle wrote: 3.5 Business Decisions Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out IASA business activities are subject to review by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented for each formal action. 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operation decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public. Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF process supporting activities. In the case where someone questions that an action of the IAD or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with this document or those operational guidelines (including the creation of an appropriate set of such guidelines), he or she may ask for a formal review of the action. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that took the action. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. Reviews of the IAD's actions will be considered at his or her following performance review. Reviews of the IAOC's actions may be considered when IAOC members are subsequently being seated. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I don't think I can support your proposed text. I still don't understand what your proposed section 3.5 does and don't think I could go along with the plausable readings I'm coming up with for that text. I don't think your text does a good job of meeting the principles Margaret tried to outline; in particular it seems to fail to meet the principle on escalation. I'd be very interested in an explanation of how you think it compares to those principles. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam, Let me first take another stab at recap'ing the discussion that lead to my proposal for 3.5 and 3.6, and clarifying what I intend as a distinction between them. As I understood them, John Klensin, Mike St.Johns, and others were concerned about creating an IASA that could not or operate without constant checking by the IETF community (having their feet shot at, in the worst case). That makes sense to me -- the IASA, as a separate activity, should have clear boundaries of responsibility. The IETF community as a whole should not become the invisible hands driving the IASA actions. This is the intent of section 3.5. At the same time, the IASA is meant to be responsive to the IETF, and should not be able to lose track of that. We should have a mechanism for expressing when we think the IASA is not behaving according to its rules (the BCP, and operational guidelines it develops to carry out those functions). This is the intent of section 3.6 So, I don't (personally) expect a future where individual IETF participants can derail a proposed meeting site because they don't agree with it. However, individual IETF members should be able to point out that a proposed meeting site selection is not in line with state operational guidelines for picking meeting sites (which might include proposing them publicly for 2 weeks before finalizing, for eg). To your specific question of how my proposed 3.5 and 3.6 (reproduced below for those who didn't memorize them) fit with Margaret's notes: [Margaret wrote:] (1) I agree with you that we do not want a review process (whether invoked by an individual or by the IAB and IESG) that can overturn a contract award or hiring decision after that decision is made. The current proposed text (I think that the latest was from Leslie) makes the community impotent, without properly restricting the review requests from the IAB/IESG, IMO. Well, I disagree that it makes the community impotent. See my note to Avri today. My text does attempt to make clear what level individual IETF members should get involved at. So, the intent of my proposed text is to not only prevent undoing of signed contracts, but also say that the IETF in general should not be focused on every action that leads to such contracts. I believe this is a point where Margaret and I disagree. (2) I think that the review process should be well-enough specified that a person who is not a (past or present) member of the I* could use it. This means that it needs to say where you send a review request, how you unambiguously identify a formal review request and what a review request should contain. This should be at least at the level of detail seem to find that process confusing enough that they don't often get it right). Section 3.6 attempts to be clear about its review process. It may not be sufficiently detailed. I think it is probably detailed enough for the RFC. (Further detail could be... operational guidelines). (3) I think that review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or the IASA BCP) and/or makes a decision that is against the best interests of the IETF. The request for review should be specific about what procedure was violated and/or how a specific decision runs against the IETF's interests. I believe my text agrees with that. I'm positing that best interests of the ietf are captured in the BCP and the operational guidelines; to the extent that they do not, then it would be hard for the IASA to know what it was supposed to have done. This may mean that operational guidelines need to be created or updated for future situations. (4) Personally, I think that any member of the community (and yes, I understand that means the general public) should be able to make a formal review request and expect to get a response from the IAOC within a reasonable time period (~90 days). I do not think the response needs to be a lengthy hearing, or a complex legal document. But, I think that we should have a review process, open to everyone, where a response is mandated. The response could be: We looked into this decision, and we didn't find anything irregular about the decision or about how it was reached. I think the latter is achievable under 3.6, or a very slight modification thereof. Earlier today I suggested that I thought the last Answered requests... should be modified to All requests..., and it's not a big step from there to saying that all requests are answered even with a short statement like hte last. I don't have an issue with that. Others concerned about DoS attacks might. (5) I think that there should be at least one level of escalation possible if the person requesting a review does not receive a satisfactory response from the IAOC (I had suggested that this would go to the IESG). I don't think that the person should have to persuade the IAB or IESG to act on his/her behalf (which is another way in which the current
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
This set of principles works for me. a. On 26 jan 2005, at 20.40, Eric Rescorla wrote: With that in mind, I would like to suggest the following principles: 1. The IETF community should have input on the internal rules set by the IASA and the IASA should be required to respond to comments by the community on said rules. 2. While the IASA's behavior should be constrained by BCPs (as it will be constrained by the first one) we should in general refrain from enacting specific internal IASA rules changes by BCP. If it is believed that the IAOC is making bad decisions we have a mechanism for unseating them. 3. Decisions of the IAOC should be appealable (following the usual 2026 appeal chain) on the sole grounds that the IASA's processes were not followed. Those decisions should NOT be appealable on the grounds that the decisions were simply bad ones. I recognize that point (3) above is somewhat controversial, so I'll attempt to justify it a bit. The simple fact is that the IASA (both IAD and IAOC) will be constantly making business decisions and if we are to keep the job manageable (and in the case of IAD keep the costs down) they have to know that they will not be constantly second-guessed by the community on what kind of cookies they purchased. If the community feels very strongly that the wrong kind of cookies were purchased then they can ask for a rule demanding chocolate chip, and in the worst case pass a chocolate chip cookie RFC. There's a parallel here in the RFC 2026 appeals process. While the IAB and IESG can review a decision both for process violations AND for technical merit, the ISOC BOT is extremely constrained in that it can only provide limited procedural review (S 6.5.3) Further recourse is available only in cases in which the procedures themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to the protection of the rights of all parties in a fair and open Internet Standards Process. Claims on this basis may be made to the Internet Society Board of Trustees. The President of the Internet Society shall acknowledge such an appeal within two weeks, and shall at the time of acknowledgment advise the petitioner of the expected duration of the Trustees' review of the appeal. The Trustees shall review the situation in a manner of its own choosing and report to the IETF on the outcome of its review. The Trustees' decision upon completion of their review shall be final with respect to all aspects of the dispute. It seems to me that this is a good model to follow for IASA. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam Hartman [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Eric == Eric Rescorla ekr@rtfm.com writes: Eric bad decisions we have a mechanism for unseating them. Eric 3. Decisions of the IAOC should be appealable (following the Eric usual 2026 appeal chain) on the sole grounds that the IASA's Eric processes were not followed. Those decisions should NOT be Eric appealable on the grounds that the decisions were simply bad Eric ones. Eric I recognize that point (3) above is somewhat controversial, Eric so I'll attempt to justify it a bit. The simple fact is that Eric the IASA (both IAD and IAOC) will be constantly making Eric business decisions and if we are to keep the job manageable Eric (and in the case of IAD keep the costs down) they have to Eric know that they will not be constantly second-guessed by the Eric community on what kind of cookies they purchased. I agree so far. However people seem to be making a jump I don't agree with from they should not be constantly second-guessed to they should never be second-guessed. The problem with constant second-guessing is that it takes up too much time and resources, not that it doesn't sometimes improve quality of decisions. Well, sometimes it improves the quality of decisions and sometimes it makes them worse. One common pathological case is what's known in the economics literature as rent seeking. So, my goal is to find the minimal restriction that prevents a resource consumption attack against the IASA in practice. I'd prefer to err on the side of allowing a resource consumption attack and fixing it later than on the side of being too restrictive in what review we allow. I'm not sure why you think this is the best approach. It's precisely in the current moment where things are in flux and, frankly, not functioning that smoothly, that it's critical to be able to move effectively. In my view, it makes sense at this point to give the IASA a fair amount of latitude to form its own processes (under the supervision of the IAB, IESG, and ISOC board, of course.) So, why not err on the side of effectiveness now and then fix it if we find good decisions aren't being made? EricThe Trustees' decision upon completion of their review Eric shall be final with respect to all aspects of the dispute. Eric It seems to me that this is a good model to follow for IASA. OK. I don't like this model because I don't believe it is minimal restrictive. I'd like to cite another parallel from RFC 2026. Under RFC 2026 section 6.5, the IAB does not have the power to assert a specific decision, only to void an existing decision. I'd rather see limits on what the results of a review can be than on the subject matter of reviews. I think that is a more minimal restriction and believe it will be sufficient to avoid DOS concerns. I'm not convinced that this will do the job. The goal of this kind of influence behavior is often not to get any particular decision reversed but merely to make the cost of making the decision one doesn't like excessive. That said, it seems to me that having a decision one doesn't like voided, even if not reversed, is a pretty dramatic outcome when we're talking about cancelling a proposed contract. -Ekr ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Leslie == Leslie Daigle [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Leslie Sam, Leslie Let me first take another stab at recap'ing the discussion Leslie that lead to my proposal for 3.5 and 3.6, and clarifying Leslie what I intend as a distinction between them. Leslie As I understood them, John Klensin, Mike St.Johns, and Leslie others were concerned about creating an IASA that could Leslie not or operate without constant checking by the IETF Leslie community (having their feet shot at, in the worst case). Leslie That makes sense to me -- the IASA, as a separate Leslie activity, should have clear boundaries of responsibility. Leslie The IETF community as a whole should not become the Leslie invisible hands driving the IASA actions. This is the Leslie intent of section 3.5. Thanks so much for this note. It was useful in helping me figure out where we disagreed. Leslie So, I don't (personally) expect a future where individual Leslie IETF participants can derail a proposed meeting site Leslie because they don't agree with it. However, individual Leslie IETF members should be able to point out that a proposed Leslie meeting site selection is not in line with state Leslie operational guidelines for picking meeting sites (which Leslie might include proposing them publicly for 2 weeks before Leslie finalizing, for eg). I think we disagree on this point. I think it is appropriate for an individual, the IESG or IAB to ask for such a review, arguing that the decision was not in the best interests of the IETF for some reason. I think that such requests for review should meet a much higher standard than claims procedures or guidelines are violated in order to be considered seriously. As such, I disagree with your proposed text. Leslie [Margaret wrote:] (1) I agree with you that we do not want a review process (whether invoked by an individual or by the IAB and IESG) that can overturn a contract award or hiring decision after that decision is made. The current proposed text (I think that the latest was from Leslie) makes the community impotent, without properly restricting the review requests from the IAB/IESG, IMO. Leslie Well, I disagree that it makes the community impotent. Leslie See my note to Avri today. My text does attempt to make Leslie clear what level individual IETF members should get Leslie involved at. Leslie So, the intent of my proposed text is to not only prevent Leslie undoing of signed contracts, but also say that the IETF in Leslie general should not be focused on every action that leads Leslie to such contracts. I believe this is a point where Leslie Margaret and I disagree. I agree with Margaret. That said, I recognize that something will have to be done if the review/appeal process is often used. (3) I think that review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or the IASA BCP) and/or makes a decision that is against the best interests of the IETF. The request for review should be specific about what procedure was violated and/or how a specific decision runs against the IETF's interests. Leslie I believe my text agrees with that. I'm positing that Leslie best interests of the ietf are captured in the BCP and Leslie the operational guidelines; to the extent that they do Leslie not, then it would be hard for the IASA to know what it Leslie was supposed to have done. This may mean that operational Leslie guidelines need to be created or updated for future Leslie situations. I believe your definition of best interests of the IETF is too narrow; I believe this is the same issues as point 1 above. Leslie So -- what was the problem with the proposed text and Leslie these principles (apart from the one noted disagreement, Leslie above)? I think we're down to that one core disagreement. Thanks for helping me realize that. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Eric == Eric Rescorla ekr@rtfm.com writes: Eric bad decisions we have a mechanism for unseating them. Eric 3. Decisions of the IAOC should be appealable (following the Eric usual 2026 appeal chain) on the sole grounds that the IASA's Eric processes were not followed. Those decisions should NOT be Eric appealable on the grounds that the decisions were simply bad Eric ones. Eric I recognize that point (3) above is somewhat controversial, Eric so I'll attempt to justify it a bit. The simple fact is that Eric the IASA (both IAD and IAOC) will be constantly making Eric business decisions and if we are to keep the job manageable Eric (and in the case of IAD keep the costs down) they have to Eric know that they will not be constantly second-guessed by the Eric community on what kind of cookies they purchased. I agree so far. However people seem to be making a jump I don't agree with from they should not be constantly second-guessed to they should never be second-guessed. The problem with constant second-guessing is that it takes up too much time and resources, not that it doesn't sometimes improve quality of decisions. So, my goal is to find the minimal restriction that prevents a resource consumption attack against the IASA in practice. I'd prefer to err on the side of allowing a resource consumption attack and fixing it later than on the side of being too restrictive in what review we allow. Eric If the Eric community feels very strongly that the wrong kind of cookies Eric were purchased then they can ask for a rule demanding Eric chocolate chip, and in the worst case pass a chocolate chip Eric cookie RFC. That's one way to look at it. And if that's the only way we can make forward progress it's better than not making forward progress. Eric There's a parallel here in the RFC 2026 appeals Eric process. While the IAB and IESG can review a decision both Eric for process violations AND for technical merit, the ISOC BOT Eric is extremely constrained in that it can only provide limited Eric procedural review (S 6.5.3) EricFurther recourse is available only in cases in which the Eric procedures themselves (i.e., the procedures described in Eric this document) are claimed to be inadequate or insufficient Eric to the protection of the rights of all parties in a fair and Eric open Internet Standards Process. Claims on this basis may Eric be made to the Internet Society Board of Trustees. The Eric President of the Internet Society shall acknowledge such an Eric appeal within two weeks, and shall at the time of Eric acknowledgment advise the petitioner of the expected Eric duration of the Trustees' review of the appeal. The Eric Trustees shall review the situation in a manner of its own Eric choosing and report to the IETF on the outcome of its Eric review. EricThe Trustees' decision upon completion of their review Eric shall be final with respect to all aspects of the dispute. Eric It seems to me that this is a good model to follow for IASA. OK. I don't like this model because I don't believe it is minimal restrictive. I'd like to cite another parallel from RFC 2026. Under RFC 2026 section 6.5, the IAB does not have the power to assert a specific decision, only to void an existing decision. I'd rather see limits on what the results of a review can be than on the subject matter of reviews. I think that is a more minimal restriction and believe it will be sufficient to avoid DOS concerns. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam Hartman wrote: Brian == Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Reviewing procedures is fine. Reviewing specific awards Brian isn't, IMHO, which is all I intended my words to exclude. Attempting to undo a specific award once things are signed (or delaying signing) is generally unacceptable. Reviewing a specific award to come to conclusions like we failed to follow our procedures, is definitely problematic but IMHO sometimes necessary. Such reviews need to be handled with great care: some of the data used to make the decision may not be available to the reviewing body and much of the data must not become public. Also, if you conclude that you did follow the wrong procedures in a specific incident but are stuck with the contract because it is already signed, that creates all sorts of bad feelings and potential liability. Exactly. And we need to be sure that the appeals text allows for review of procedures, including the kind of case study you suggest, without allowing the appeal procedure to be used for commercial food-fights. It's tricky to get that exactly right. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Brian, At 11:48 AM +0100 1/25/05, Brian E Carpenter wrote: Exactly. And we need to be sure that the appeals text allows for review of procedures, including the kind of case study you suggest, without allowing the appeal procedure to be used for commercial food-fights. It's tricky to get that exactly right. Are you sure that we have consensus on this? It seems to me that some people would like the IAB/IESG to be able to force the re-consideration of an IAOC decision, but not for other IETF participants to have any way to effectively question the IAOC. At least, that is how most of the recent suggestions read to me. People don't even seem to have picked up on my concern that the current text doesn't say who to contact if you do want a decision reviewed, making the process difficult and intimidating for anyone who isn't embroiled in IETF politics. Maybe it would help (in getting this issue closed) if we could figure out what we want in general terms and then try to draft the text? Mixing basic conceptual arguments with text tuning within multiple (ever changing) camps doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. So, I'll take a shot at a few things attributes that I think would be good in a review process: (1) I agree with you that we do not want a review process (whether invoked by an individual or by the IAB and IESG) that can overturn a contract award or hiring decision after that decision is made. The current proposed text (I think that the latest was from Leslie) makes the community impotent, without properly restricting the review requests from the IAB/IESG, IMO. [N.B. I do hope that the IAOC will run an open RFP process for most (or all?) contracts, and that the process will include a public comment stage after the IAOC chooses a potential winner, so that there will be an opportunity for the community to raise concerns (if any) before it is too late. Given recent posts, I don't think that the IASA-TT/IAOC is likely to take us in this direction within the next year, but I do hope that we get there eventually.] (2) I think that the review process should be well-enough specified that a person who is not a (past or present) member of the I* could use it. This means that it needs to say where you send a review request, how you unambiguously identify a formal review request and what a review request should contain. This should be at least at the level of detail of the RFC 2026 appeals process (or even a bit more detailed, as folks seem to find that process confusing enough that they don't often get it right). (3) I think that review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or the IASA BCP) and/or makes a decision that is against the best interests of the IETF. The request for review should be specific about what procedure was violated and/or how a specific decision runs against the IETF's interests. (4) Personally, I think that any member of the community (and yes, I understand that means the general public) should be able to make a formal review request and expect to get a response from the IAOC within a reasonable time period (~90 days). I do not think the response needs to be a lengthy hearing, or a complex legal document. But, I think that we should have a review process, open to everyone, where a response is mandated. The response could be: We looked into this decision, and we didn't find anything irregular about the decision or about how it was reached. (5) I think that there should be at least one level of escalation possible if the person requesting a review does not receive a satisfactory response from the IAOC (I had suggested that this would go to the IESG). I don't think that the person should have to persuade the IAB or IESG to act on his/her behalf (which is another way in which the current process is really only open to political insiders), I think that the IESG (or whoever we use as the next level lf escalation) should be required to consider the IAOC's response and respond to the escalated review within a reasonable timeframe. (6) I do not think that we want the IAB or IESG (or anyone else) to be able to overturn a decision of the IAOC, only to advise the IAOC that they believe that an incorrect decision was made. Do folks agree with these thoughts? Are there other basic ideas that should be included? Margaret At 11:48 AM +0100 1/25/05, Brian E Carpenter wrote: Sam Hartman wrote: Brian == Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Reviewing procedures is fine. Reviewing specific awards Brian isn't, IMHO, which is all I intended my words to exclude. Attempting to undo a specific award once things are signed (or delaying signing) is generally unacceptable. Reviewing a specific award to come to conclusions like we failed to follow our procedures, is definitely problematic but IMHO sometimes necessary. Such reviews need to be handled with
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
hi, I generally agree with these principles with some comments: in (2) I think that the review request need to be addressed to the chair of the respective body. I think the language of 2026 can be adapted as to contents. in (5), I think the appeals should have the full chain of appeals. I know 'at least one level' does include the chain, but I think it is important to be able to appeal all the way to the ISOC BoT. in (6), I agree that decisions that involve contractual obligations mustn't be overturned, but I have a problem with saying that there are no decisions that can be overturned. a. On 25 jan 2005, at 07.29, Margaret Wasserman wrote: So, I'll take a shot at a few things attributes that I think would be good in a review process: (1) I agree with you that we do not want a review process (whether invoked by an individual or by the IAB and IESG) that can overturn a contract award or hiring decision after that decision is made. The current proposed text (I think that the latest was from Leslie) makes the community impotent, without properly restricting the review requests from the IAB/IESG, IMO. [N.B. I do hope that the IAOC will run an open RFP process for most (or all?) contracts, and that the process will include a public comment stage after the IAOC chooses a potential winner, so that there will be an opportunity for the community to raise concerns (if any) before it is too late. Given recent posts, I don't think that the IASA-TT/IAOC is likely to take us in this direction within the next year, but I do hope that we get there eventually.] (2) I think that the review process should be well-enough specified that a person who is not a (past or present) member of the I* could use it. This means that it needs to say where you send a review request, how you unambiguously identify a formal review request and what a review request should contain. This should be at least at the level of detail of the RFC 2026 appeals process (or even a bit more detailed, as folks seem to find that process confusing enough that they don't often get it right). (3) I think that review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or the IASA BCP) and/or makes a decision that is against the best interests of the IETF. The request for review should be specific about what procedure was violated and/or how a specific decision runs against the IETF's interests. (4) Personally, I think that any member of the community (and yes, I understand that means the general public) should be able to make a formal review request and expect to get a response from the IAOC within a reasonable time period (~90 days). I do not think the response needs to be a lengthy hearing, or a complex legal document. But, I think that we should have a review process, open to everyone, where a response is mandated. The response could be: We looked into this decision, and we didn't find anything irregular about the decision or about how it was reached. (5) I think that there should be at least one level of escalation possible if the person requesting a review does not receive a satisfactory response from the IAOC (I had suggested that this would go to the IESG). I don't think that the person should have to persuade the IAB or IESG to act on his/her behalf (which is another way in which the current process is really only open to political insiders), I think that the IESG (or whoever we use as the next level lf escalation) should be required to consider the IAOC's response and respond to the escalated review within a reasonable timeframe. (6) I do not think that we want the IAB or IESG (or anyone else) to be able to overturn a decision of the IAOC, only to advise the IAOC that they believe that an incorrect decision was made. Do folks agree with these thoughts? Are there other basic ideas that should be included? Margaret At 11:48 AM +0100 1/25/05, Brian E Carpenter wrote: Sam Hartman wrote: Brian == Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian Reviewing procedures is fine. Reviewing specific awards Brian isn't, IMHO, which is all I intended my words to exclude. Attempting to undo a specific award once things are signed (or delaying signing) is generally unacceptable. Reviewing a specific award to come to conclusions like we failed to follow our procedures, is definitely problematic but IMHO sometimes necessary. Such reviews need to be handled with great care: some of the data used to make the decision may not be available to the reviewing body and much of the data must not become public. Also, if you conclude that you did follow the wrong procedures in a specific incident but are stuck with the contract because it is already signed, that creates all sorts of bad feelings and potential liability. Exactly. And we need to be sure that the appeals text allows for review of procedures, including the kind of case study
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
At 7:54 AM -0500 1/25/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: in (2) I think that the review request need to be addressed to the chair of the respective body. I think the language of 2026 can be adapted as to contents. Yes, I agree. That is what I included in my proposed wording (lo these many moons ago), but would also accept other alternatives, as long as it is clear when someone would send a review request and it is clear who is responsible for making sure that it is considered. in (5), I think the appeals should have the full chain of appeals. I know 'at least one level' does include the chain, but I think it is important to be able to appeal all the way to the ISOC BoT. Why do you think so? If it is the ISOC BoT that you want in the loop specifically, I suppose that the first level could go there... It seems to me that multi-level appeals in the IETF have not worked very well... in (6), I agree that decisions that involve contractual obligations mustn't be overturned, but I have a problem with saying that there are no decisions that can be overturned. So, how would you make the distinction? One of the reasons why I'd rather see no decisions subject to being overturned is that I don't want the IAOC to have an incentive to hide their contract or hiring plans from us until after they are signed (and can't be overturned). Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Margaret Wasserman wrote: Hi Brian, At 11:48 AM +0100 1/25/05, Brian E Carpenter wrote: Exactly. And we need to be sure that the appeals text allows for review of procedures, including the kind of case study you suggest, without allowing the appeal procedure to be used for commercial food-fights. It's tricky to get that exactly right. Are you sure that we have consensus on this? Between me and Sam, apparently :-) ... It seems to me that some people would like the IAB/IESG to be able to force the re-consideration of an IAOC decision, but not for other IETF participants to have any way to effectively question the IAOC. At least, that is how most of the recent suggestions read to me. People don't even seem to have picked up on my concern that the current text doesn't say who to contact if you do want a decision reviewed, making the process difficult and intimidating for anyone who isn't embroiled in IETF politics. I thought it was fairly clear that you should start with the IAOC (just like you start with the WG for a standards appeal). Maybe it would help (in getting this issue closed) if we could figure out what we want in general terms and then try to draft the text? Mixing basic conceptual arguments with text tuning within multiple (ever changing) camps doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. So, I'll take a shot at a few things attributes that I think would be good in a review process: (1) I agree with you that we do not want a review process (whether invoked by an individual or by the IAB and IESG) that can overturn a contract award or hiring decision after that decision is made. The current proposed text (I think that the latest was from Leslie) makes the community impotent, without properly restricting the review requests from the IAB/IESG, IMO. I agree with that intent. IMO the text in draft-ietf-iasa-bcp-04.txt has some defects, but is mainly consistent with that intent. [N.B. I do hope that the IAOC will run an open RFP process for most (or all?) contracts, and that the process will include a public comment stage after the IAOC chooses a potential winner, so that there will be an opportunity for the community to raise concerns (if any) before it is too late. Given recent posts, I don't think that the IASA-TT/IAOC is likely to take us in this direction within the next year, but I do hope that we get there eventually.] (2) I think that the review process should be well-enough specified that a person who is not a (past or present) member of the I* could use it. This means that it needs to say where you send a review request, how you unambiguously identify a formal review request and what a review request should contain. This should be at least at the level of detail of the RFC 2026 appeals process (or even a bit more detailed, as folks seem to find that process confusing enough that they don't often get it right). [EMAIL PROTECTED] draft-ietf-iasa-bcp-04.txt says 'starting with the IESG' which actually seems wrong - the review should start right with the IAOC and then be escalated if necessary. (3) I think that review requests should be limited to situations where the IAOC violates written procedures (their own or the IASA BCP) and/or makes a decision that is against the best interests of the IETF. The request for review should be specific about what procedure was violated and/or how a specific decision runs against the IETF's interests. Yes, but we need to make sure that the text more or less excludes appeals against the wrong kind of cookies as well as against commercial decisions. (4) Personally, I think that any member of the community (and yes, I understand that means the general public) should be able to make a formal review request and expect to get a response from the IAOC within a reasonable time period (~90 days). I do not think the response needs to be a lengthy hearing, or a complex legal document. But, I think that we should have a review process, open to everyone, where a response is mandated. The response could be: We looked into this decision, and we didn't find anything irregular about the decision or about how it was reached. Sure, that is analagous to appeals under 2026 (5) I think that there should be at least one level of escalation possible if the person requesting a review does not receive a satisfactory response from the IAOC (I had suggested that this would go to the IESG). I don't think that the person should have to persuade the IAB or IESG to act on his/her behalf (which is another way in which the current process is really only open to political insiders), I think that the IESG (or whoever we use as the next level lf escalation) should be required to consider the IAOC's response and respond to the escalated review within a reasonable timeframe. I see no reason not to allow the whole appeal chain, again by analogy with 2026. (6) I do not think that we want the IAB or IESG (or anyone else) to be able to
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
On 25 jan 2005, at 08.33, Margaret Wasserman wrote: At 7:54 AM -0500 1/25/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: in (2) I think that the review request need to be addressed to the chair of the respective body. I think the language of 2026 can be adapted as to contents. Yes, I agree. That is what I included in my proposed wording (lo these many moons ago), but would also accept other alternatives, as long as it is clear when someone would send a review request and it is clear who is responsible for making sure that it is considered. I think that the Chair is always ultimately responsible for seeing to it that the work of the IAOC, or the IAB or IESG for that matter, gets done. in (5), I think the appeals should have the full chain of appeals. I know 'at least one level' does include the chain, but I think it is important to be able to appeal all the way to the ISOC BoT. Why do you think so? If it is the ISOC BoT that you want in the loop specifically, I suppose that the first level could go there... It seems to me that multi-level appeals in the IETF have not worked very well... I think the multi level escalation works by making sure that the correct level of the organizational layering gets to handle the review. It would be impossible, or at least very complex to say, reviews for topic X go to the IAB while reviews for y go to the the IESG and for Z to the ISOC BoT. And while I think that the ISOC BoT is the reviewer of last resort (as they are today for process issues), I don't believe they necessarily need to be the reviewer of first resort. If multi-level reviews are not working well, I think this is a different problem to be explored separately, but my view is that the IAOC should be slipped into the processes in as compatible a method as possible, and I think that following the same escalation procedures as are currently in existence is an appropriate approach. in (6), I agree that decisions that involve contractual obligations mustn't be overturned, but I have a problem with saying that there are no decisions that can be overturned. So, how would you make the distinction? One of the reasons why I'd rather see no decisions subject to being overturned is that I don't want the IAOC to have an incentive to hide their contract or hiring plans from us until after they are signed (and can't be overturned). I think it is relatively easy to distinguish a contractual obligation from a decision that is not contractual, there is a contract. Now you bring up a good point, what if the IAC uses that as a loophole, and make a decision to not be transparent about contractual plans so that their decisions cannot be altered. This would certainly, to my mind, qualify as a decision where a successful appeal would force a change. I can imagine many other decision that they could make that might also be subject to revision. My problem with making all decisions unchangeable is that it makes appeals toothless, they never can have any real effect. And I believe that this is almost, but not quite, as bad as not having an appeals process as it leave no recourse other then recall or public discontent. a. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
John == John C Klensin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: However, failure to take adequate comments before making a decision seems like a reasonable justification from my standpoint for reviewing that decision. Depending on the consequences of doing so it may even be appropriate to reverse such decisions. There is significant but *not infinite* cost to reversing a decision. There can also be significant cost to having a bad decision. There is also a cost to the review process itself. John I'm making an assumption here which might not be valid. I'm John assuming that, generally, possible IAOCs will fall into one John of two categories. I think I disagree with this assumption and I think that is the core of our disagreement. John One --the one we want-- will be open and John transparent whenever possible, will try to design things to John allow for community input before decisions are made whenever John possible, and will try to establish principles, in John conjunction with the community, about how things should be John done and then follow them. I agree with you that if the IAOC is interested in secrecy then John recall is the best and only solution. however I suspect that even a desirable IAOC will not match the platonic ideal of your first category. They will end up cutting corners, making decisions that people disagree with, etc. We hope they are generally interested in openness, consensus-building and establishing principles. They will also be interested in getting work done and will have limited resources. I suspect that some times, even the best of people will make the wrong decision or use the wrong process. When such a group of people is faced with an appeal or review, they will honestly sit down and reconsider their decision and sometimes even decide they were wrong. Infrequent use of an appeals process--even one leading to successful appeals does not always mean there is a process problem or even that someone needs replacing. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I agree with Margaret's general principles with a few comments. (4) is desirable to me but not critical. I am ambivalent on (6); I don't think it is particularly problematic but do not think it is required. I understand others disagree with me strongly on this point. The rest of the principles for a review process seem very important to me. Also, I believe Margaret's principles are sufficient. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
With apologies for having posted disappeared (ISP other unexpected connectivity challenges), I'd like to try another cut at what I was getting at, based on the discussion since. On Friday, I tried a minimal edit on words that had flown around the list and seemed to have some consensus. Here's more of an extensive rewrite. Apart from the distinction I had tried to make about . business decisions (implementation) versus . performance I heard these requirements expressed: . DoS concerns -- don't create a system that begs for denial of IASA service through the appeal/review process . second-guessing -- don't create an environment where some or all of the community is second-guessing IAD/IAOC at every move . community involvement -- adequate and appropriate community involvement in the IASA decision making process And I heard various theories about distinguishing between . before decisions are made . during the decision-making process . after decisions have been made particularly in terms of whether we are discussing . appeal (review of executed action by an univolved body) . review (further discussion of an action or proposal) . recall of IAOC members Separately from those considerations, there is the question of implementation -- what people/body(ies) invoke an action, and so on. So, generally speaking, I think the important things to capture in the BCP are: . business decisions remain within the IASA in terms of review mechanisms (i.e., contracts, etc) . the IASA should be explicitly pressed to publicize and seek input on guidelines for making those decisions . public information should include objective measurements of system performance (e.g., document processing times) . there should be a crisp review process to address the situation when (some subset of the IETF believes) the IASA has not followed its guideliness in carrying out an action -- and that includes the expectation of having public guidelines. To the meeting location example -- that would mean (IMO) that the IASA should have some public guidelines for how it picks meeting sites, and if a site is picked that appears to be at odds with those guidelines, then there is a process for reviewing the IASA's actions in selecting that site. NB - that is different than appealing the site itself. So, with all that in mind, I propose the following revised text for the 2 sections I suggested on Friday: 3.5 Business Decisions Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out IASA business activities are subject to review by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented for each formal action. 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operation decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public. Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF process supporting activities. In the case where someone questions that an action of the IAD or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with this document or those operational guidelines (including the creation of an appropriate set of such guidelines), he or she may ask for a formal review of the action. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that took the action. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. Reviews of the IAD's actions will be considered at his or her following performance review. Reviews of the IAOC's actions may be considered when IAOC members are subsequently being seated. --- Note that this deletes much of the text that is currently the Responsiveness of the IASA to the IETF Leadership section: However, the nature of the IAOC's work involves treating the IESG and IAB as major internal customers of the administrative support services. The IAOC and the IAD should not consider their work successful unless the IESG and IAB are also satisfied with the administrative support that the IETF is receiving. I wondered if this was still particularly relevant/appropriate or needed... Where it does leave the IAB and IESG in priviledged
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Leslie, This formulation is still of the form that does not give the IETF community a direct voice in the review and appeal mechanisms for the IAOC. I, personally see not reason why the IAOC is not directly addressable by the community and does not have a direct obligation to the IETF community. While I am comfortable with the IESG and IAB being the appeal path for the IAOC, I am not comfortable with them being a firewall for the IAOC. I think this is a fundamental question that differentiates Margaret's formulation from yours. I also think it is a fundamental question that goes back to issues in the problem statement about the current leadership model: too much influence is focused in one leadership group. One benefit of the creation of the IAOC is that it spreads the task of running of the IETF to another group of people. As such, I think the IAOC must be required to respond directly to the community. a. On 25 jan 2005, at 21.15, Leslie Daigle wrote: 3.5 Business Decisions Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out IASA business activities are subject to review by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented for each formal action. 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operation decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public. Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF process supporting activities. In the case where someone questions that an action of the IAD or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with this document or those operational guidelines (including the creation of an appropriate set of such guidelines), he or she may ask for a formal review of the action. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that took the action. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. Reviews of the IAD's actions will be considered at his or her following performance review. Reviews of the IAOC's actions may be considered when IAOC members are subsequently being seated. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Avri, --On tirsdag, januar 25, 2005 23:44:09 -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Leslie, This formulation is still of the form that does not give the IETF community a direct voice in the review and appeal mechanisms for the IAOC. I do not understand what you mean by direct voice. Could you explain? If what you mean is that the community should have representatives involved in the consideration of the issues, and do not think that the nomcom-selected members, the IESG-selected members and the IAB-selected members of the IAOC are appropriate community representation, I do not see any mechanism short of the way we constitute recall committees that will give you what you want. If you think that the community should have the right of complaint, then I think you need to accept some limitation by human judgment on how much effort each complaint can cause. If that judgment is to lie outside of the IAOC, it has to be invoked for all complaints to the IAOC (making the system more formalistic); if it is inside the IAOC, it seems reasonable to have some means of overriding it. I, personally see not reason why the IAOC is not directly addressable by the community and does not have a direct obligation to the IETF community. While I am comfortable with the IESG and IAB being the appeal path for the IAOC, I am not comfortable with them being a firewall for the IAOC. I do have a problem with seeing the words that Leslie proposed as fitting your description. As described, it isn't a firewall - it's an override of a safeguard. I think this is a fundamental question that differentiates Margaret's formulation from yours. I also think it is a fundamental question that goes back to issues in the problem statement about the current leadership model: too much influence is focused in one leadership group. One benefit of the creation of the IAOC is that it spreads the task of running of the IETF to another group of people. As such, I think the IAOC must be required to respond directly to the community. I don't quite see the logic here - we take tasks that are currently performed in an undocumented and unaccountable fashion and move them into a body that has oversight over them, is selected by the community, is removable by the community, and is (as I see it) normally expected to respond to the community. Question: My reading of Leslie's words is that It is up to that body to decide to make a response should be read by the IAOC as you'd better have a good reason not to make a response. Is what you're really looking for a way to make that bias in judgment explicit? Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I suppose that I am one of those at the other end of the scale, looking for a solution that allows full and direct IETF community review/appeal. On 23 jan 2005, at 21.35, Spencer Dawkins wrote: I agree with the idea that there are extremes when we talk about our ideas on review, but please don't assume that JohnK and Michael are the only people at that end of the pool... I had assumed that the IETF would let IASA run things with periodic general feedback and rare specific feedback (only in situations when the feedback begins we can't imagine why you ...). The further we move from that end of the spectrum, the less I understand why we need an IASA in the first place. My main reason for supporting the creation of the IAOC specifically, is to offload most of the administrative effort from the IESG/IAB. That is also, incidentally one of my reasons for not wanting the IESg/IAB to be involved in every review/appeal, but only in those that get escalated. The other reason is that it is the IAOC that will be the IETF community's representatives in administration and therefore they should be directly responsible to that community. I agree with the role of IAD becaue I think that job needs to focused in one person. But that does not mean that the person should not be accountable to the community. I know it is harder to do a job with accountability and transparency, but I see any other solution as being problematic for reasons that have outlined earlier. I remain in favor of Margaret's formulation as the compromise position from what I would truly prefer which is for all IAD/IAOC actions and decisions being reviewable in the same manner that the actions and decisions of the ADs, IESG and IAB are currently appealable. a. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam, Let's take another look at your example, from my point of view (I can't speak for Mike). --On Sunday, 23 January, 2005 22:39 -0500 Sam Hartman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to present one other example that motivates why I think having the review process is important. Say that the IASA has decided to pursue a meeting in Beijing. No contract has been signed yet, but that's getting close. Many contributors indicate they will be unable to attend. The IAOc has been focusing on the business aspects of the meeting: how affordable is it, are the necessary facilities available. The IESG and/or IAB formally asks for a review, arguing that whether the right set of people will attend a particular meeting is an important factor to consider in meeting site selection. Regardless of whether the IAOC ends up deciding to reverse its decision, having this review be available is important. Ok. If we are doing meeting planning the way we have been doing meeting planning, there is no announcement to the community before a contract is signed. The IETF Chair knows, but the IAB and IESG generally don't, and random IETF participants certainly don't know. If we are going to change that, then changes need to be made elsewhere than in this section.Under current practice, the window you assume simply doesn't exist. If we want it to exist, we need to make procedural changes elsewhere -- probably not in the BCP, but in some way that makes expectations extremely clear to the IAOC and IAD. If, via those changes, the window is opened sufficiently that the IESG and/or IAB can complain, then, under the scenario you are describing, the IESG/IAB aren't involved with any of what I (and I think Mike) are worried about.What you describe is providing input to the IAD and IAOC _before_ a decision is made. I think the IAOC should be open to pre-decision community input, formal or otherwise. I think it would be seriously bad news if the IAOC closed its collective ears to such input. I think that, if the IAD stops listening to community input, and especially IAB and IESG input, it would be a good sign that the individual in that job should be re-educated or forced out of the position. But that isn't what I (and probably Mike, Spencer, and others) are concerned about. We are concerned about the decision gets made and then someone tries to second-guess it scenarios, on which we want to place extreme limits. So, from my perspective, if the case you describe is the one that is of interest, you should be concentrating less on the review (or appeal) procedures and other mechanisms for questioning or correcting decisions already made and more on being certain that, in areas where it is appropriate, the IAOC is sufficiently open about what it is considering that pre-decision/ pre-contract input is feasible. Now, for some cases, that won't be practical for particular situations or potential contracts. But there too, I think there is a useful make a window for comments process. Taking your meeting case as an example, I personally believe that the IAOC should be setting criteria for meeting site selection, that those criteria should be public, and they should be set independent of particular sites and with full IETF community involvement (a radical change from either the IETF Chair approves or the IETF Chair decides). The right set of people needs to be able to go is an important criterion which has nothing specific to do with possible meetings in Beijing (or, for that matter, in Fiji or Washington). If that is an established criterion, than an IAD who doesn't do due diligence on who could or could not attend prior to making a decision is failing in the job. IAD job failure problems aren't managed by reviews or appeals; that is what we have the IAOC for. And, if they can't manage the job failures in an effective way... well, that gets us back to discussions of group firing, but it isn't, IMO, a post-decision review issue either. john ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
--On Monday, 24 January, 2005 10:18 -0500 Sam Hartman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with you that pre-decision comments are preferable and that processes and procedures should allow these comments. I also agree that the example I proposed cannot happen under current procedures because there is not a comment window for meeting locations. I do not intend to speak to whether such a window would be a good idea. Understood. Let me only make the observation that I think it would be better to have clear criteria that the IASA is expected to follow than to have discussions of individual decisions, either before or after the fact. One of the reasons is that, for some sites that might otherwise be completely reasonable, having it be known that the site was considered and then rejected might turn out to be an embarrassment for the site and/or the IETF and such things should be avoided when possible. However, failure to take adequate comments before making a decision seems like a reasonable justification from my standpoint for reviewing that decision. Depending on the consequences of doing so it may even be appropriate to reverse such decisions. There is significant but *not infinite* cost to reversing a decision. There can also be significant cost to having a bad decision. There is also a cost to the review process itself. This may go to the core of the difference in my position and yours. Let's review the composition of the IAOC. The IETF and IAB Chairs are members. If the are doing their jobs there, they are aware of decisions before they are made, can argue the IAOC to establish appropriate rules for the IAD to engage in consultation before a decision is made, and so on. If they are dissatisfied with the amount of review a pending decision is getting, they can request reviews or reconsideration internally, take the issue up with the IAB or IESG which might then demand a review, or even initiate an IETF-wide discussion about recalls. Conversely, if they fail in those regards and decisions are made without adequate comments and that fact takes the IETF community by surprise, then perhaps they should be the first people recalled. I'm making an assumption here which might not be valid. I'm assuming that, generally, possible IAOCs will fall into one of two categories. One --the one we want-- will be open and transparent whenever possible, will try to design things to allow for community input before decisions are made whenever possible, and will try to establish principles, in conjunction with the community, about how things should be done and then follow them. At the other extreme, one might imagine an IAOC that tried to do everything in secrecy, that was relatively insensitive to community input, and that tried to arrange its decision-making processes (and that of the IAD) so that there was as little opportunity for distracting input or comment as possible.I think it is extremely unlikely that we would end up with an IAOC that would be open about some things but as secretive as possible about others, at least unless the openness was used as a deliberate cover for the secrecy. Now, in my view, the problem of the second or third styles of IAOC operation is not solved by better techniques for reviewing and/or changing individual decisions. The solution is replacing the IAOC membership (serially if needed) with a group that will get the notion of being open and responsive to the IETF community. If we all understand that the expectation of the IAOC is as much openness and opportunity for comment as is possible and sensible given the particular issue, and we hold the IETF-appointed members of the IAOC (including especially the two Chairs) responsible for reminding the IAOC about that norm, then we won't need post-decision reconsideration procedures for individual decisions. Conversely, if the IAOC doesn't act according to that norm, we should focus on that fact and fixing it (in a hurry) and not on the particular decisions that result... if only because a good decision that is made without adequate opportunity for contact is as much of a problem as a bad decision made under the same circumstances. Question: do you see cases where if a problem developed we'd be unable to deploy safeguards fast enough or unwilling to deploy the safeguards even given an actual instead of theoretical problem? How likely do you see these situations? I think it is up to the Nomcom and to the IAB. The IETF community's main insurance against IAOC misbehavior with regard to decision-making is the presence of the two Chairs on the IAOC and how those people behave, not provisions of the BCP. Were the two Chairs to start behaving as if they took their instructions and guidance direct from some deity, rather than from the community, the IAB and the IESG, and to encourage the IAOC to behave on a similar basis, then I can imagine all sorts of problems that none of the safeguards we have
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
But that isn't what I (and probably Mike, Spencer, and others) are concerned about. We are concerned about the decision gets made and then someone tries to second-guess it scenarios, on which we want to place extreme limits. This is exactly what Spencer is concerned about... this, and the bozo factor that results from us making and remaking decisions (is this the last zig, or will we be zagging again?). ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Michael, I see you come - in still a too detailed manner - the real life way I suggested. That IAOC and IAD are under the obligation to ask the IETF approval for their decisions. But that they may decide there is a consensus (there might be a formula coined to that end, they should use when signing a decision so it is clear). That IETF may decide any time to blame or remove them for abusing that formula. In one big case or in regular way. Considering each decision as a separate case will lead to easy DoS blocking of the IETF. Considering the way they take decisions (using challenged decision as examples to document it), makes only one case and may be watched by independent watchdogs. These watchdogs could make a report at each IETF meetings. If a positive report is not challenged, the way the IAOC and IAD managed during that period is deemed approved (not what they did, but the way they did it). jfc At 05:52 23/01/2005, Michael StJohns wrote: John/Leslie et al - this is a good improvement, and Leslie's 3.5 now reads in a way I can support. 3.6 still has some sticking points. After the last round of comments I went away and thought and came up with the following: There are three separate things that I think were meant by the original 3.5 phrase review. They were IAOC review of IAD decisions, IAOC reconsideration of its own actions and public review of the IAOC and IAD actions. Review above I took to have a meaning in line with judicial reexamination with all the nuances that follow from that. In other words, review can result in a revision of the action (i.e. overturned). Considering IAOC review of IAD decisions, this is probably proper and not overly burdensome to the process, and probably the most appropriate check and balance on the IAD. Its the latter two that are sticky. The questions I still have that none of the language has answered: What's the goal of the reconsideration or review? E.g. can this action result in the IAOC or IAD reversing or revising a decision? If not, why do it? What's the statute of limitations for a demand for reconsideration or review? Is an action or decision subject to reexamination 6 months after the decision? Does the IAD or IAOC need to announce such decisions with enough of a waiting period that the reexamination process can take place before the decision becomes final? What is the exact set of decisions subject to this process? Everything? Meeting sites? Meeting fees? A delay in publication of an RFC? Cost of paper needed to support an IETF meeting? The date of the public meeting? Etc. If we can't come up with a description of this that isn't everything I'm very concerned, but I'm having problems figuring out what smaller set is appropriate. Who gets to kick this process into starting (e.g. who gets to file a complaint)? I'm going to suggest this section still needs radical reworking. And, since we pay more attention to people who suggest solutions to problems I'm going to suggest some approaches that may make sense. (Note - I'm using semi-annual here - could me annual, could be monthly) The normal channel for public review of the actions of the IAOC and the IAD is during the semi-annual public meeting. Beginning 60 days prior to the meeting and ending 30 days prior the IAD will accept proposals for public hearings on past activities of the IAOC. The IAD in consultation with the IAOC, the IESG and the IAB will select no more than 3 topics for hearing and will publish such list no later than 21 days prior to the meeting including as well those topics not selected. Each topic will be heard during a 2 hour (pick a length) session. Anyone may submit questions for the IAOC and IAD on the selected topic, and the IAD will select no more than 10 to provide written answers no later than 5 days prior to the meeting. The complete list of submitted questions will be published at that time as well. Anyone may request time to speak during a session and will make that request via email no later than 5 days prior to the meeting. No more than 75% of the session time will be allocated to (OK - I'm getting way too detailed here for a comment - but you see where I'm going) The IAD shall advise the IAOC of and shall require consent from them for any decision which commits the IETF to an expenditure of funds. The IAOC may from time to time specify other decisions for which its approval shall be required. A decision for which consent is given by the IAOC is not subject to further review or revision by the IAOC. A decision made by the IAD shall be considered final and not reviewable by the IAOC 30 days after the IAOC is informed of such decision. Such notifications shall be placed on the web site once the 30 days expires or after the IAOC ratifies the related decision. The IAOC and IAD shall not be required to reconsider their decisions once made. However, IAOC and IAD shall request public
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
At 11:50 AM 1/23/2005, John C Klensin wrote: I deleted all the stuff I agreed with - e.g. most of it. I'm afraid I agree with you that there a vast chasm of differences on this topic. I also agree with you that the body should be independent and that others disagree. *sigh* In any event I'm pretty close to my last comment on this issue. Some specific comments below: Looking at your specific questions in this context: What's the goal of the reconsideration or review? E.g. can this action result in the IAOC or IAD reversing or revising a decision? If not, why do it? It can result in a reversal or revision of a decision. Whether it does, even if the IAOC agrees with the complaint, is up to the IAOC. And, even if that even if we agree, we aren't going to change the decision result can be anticipated, we should do it because it is almost inevitable that we are going to learn about what should be done here as we go along. That makes hmm. good point, we will do it differently next time a valuable result -- perhaps the most valuable result. The hmm good point is agreed. I just think that doing it as a process review (e.g. during the public meeting) instead of a decision review is the right level of oversight for the broader community. In other words the public doesn't get to cause the IAOC to begin a random fire drill, but it can cause them to do an in depth analysis of any specific decision during a public hearing. The IETF may choose after that hearing to twiddle with the BCP, but not with the decision. What's the statute of limitations for a demand for reconsideration or review? Is an action or decision subject to reexamination 6 months after the decision? Does the IAD or IAOC need to announce such decisions with enough of a waiting period that the reexamination process can take place before the decision becomes final? I hope we can avoid the waiting period, precisely because I don't ever want to see the potential of that much micromanagement from outside the IAOC (as should be obvious from the more general comments above). But there is no statute of limitations. The only real limitation is that, the longer one waits, the higher the odds that the IAOC will respond will consider this the next time an issue like this arises rather than we will change the decision. And, if the times start to get really long the odds rise that the IAOC will respond with waste of time to consider this (or not respond at all. Goes back to whether something is reversible/revisable or not. If its not, then the complaints are just so much make work. If it is, then theres the possibility the IAOC will halt implementation of something important just because of a complaint (e.g. IAOC make decision, starts process to implement, complaint comes in, IAOC pauses implementation until the complaint process completes; 5 years later IAOC is still arguing with two very vocal IETF members on the proper way to implement). What is the exact set of decisions subject to this process? Everything? Meeting sites? Meeting fees? A delay in publication of an RFC? Cost of paper needed to support an IETF meeting? The date of the public meeting? Etc. If we can't come up with a description of this that isn't everything I'm very concerned, but I'm having problems figuring out what smaller set is appropriate. Everything, although I'd expect some of the things you list to get very brief consideration. And, to give an example I'm sure won't arise in practice, if the IAB or IESG were to demand that the IAOC review explain the cost of paper at frequent intervals, I'd expect the IAOC members to make that, and its impact on getting work done, known to the community, the nomcom, etc. I'm confused - I thought you were in the hands-off camp. OK - let's consider one very specific case - meeting site selection. Please describe all the actions possible around this decision listing the IAOC, ISOC, IAD, IASA, IAB, IESG and IETF in general. Please explain what should happen if we announce we're going to Beijing and 10 IETF participants complain for various reasons and cite the fact the meeting cost would be less in Minneapolis. Does the IAOC *really* need to respond to this formally? By the time things are announced they are contractual and are generally not subject to revision without great expense. Another case. Selection of the IASO. The IAOC/IAD writes and issues an RFP. They receive bids, evaluate them and with the ISOC issue a contract for services. Does the public in general get to challenge the signing of the contract with org A? Can the IAB/IESG force the IAOC to reconsider the award if they don't like the result? Is that even legal? Last case. IAOC/IAD take to heart the section that only the IAB/IESG can compel response. The IAOC/IAD keep getting 10's of complaints about small things which they decline to spend anytime on. The 10's of complaints come from the same 10-20
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Scott == Scott Bradner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Scott ps - I'm not sure that its all that useful to be able to Scott appeal/review awards if they can not be overturned - Scott apealing or reviewing the process that was followed is fine Scott but appealling the actual award seems broken I disagree. Reviewing a specific decision in an operational context to determine whether the right decision was made can be a useful feedback step in a control loop of a system. I've found this to be true whether systems are technical or manigerial. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Leslie == Leslie Daigle [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Leslie 3.5 Business Decisions Leslie Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out Leslie IASA business activities are subject to review by the Leslie IAOC. Leslie The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented to Leslie include voting records for each formal action. I object to formal voting records being public because this conflicts with the requirement that the IAOC make decisions by consensus. I am uncomfortable with the general approach you suggest. In decreasing preference order, I prefer: 1) margaret's text on decision review 2) Something like your 3.5 with margaret's text on decision review. I'd need to understand what the 3.5 was trying to accomplish better. 3) Harald's text without your 3.5 4) Harald's text with 3.5. 5) Mike's original text. The point at which I could no longer support the document is either before option4 or before option 5. I'm uncomfortable with the 3.5 text because I don't fully understand what it is trying to accomplish or why that is a good idea. If the intent is to prevent some class of business decisions from being reviewed, then I think I am very uncomfortable. I can accept that business decisions should not be overturned by an outside body (although I'm not actually sure I agree), but I will find it difficult to accept that they should not be reviewed. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I agree that postmortems can be useful but I'm not sure that doing such on a decision to hire Bill instead of Fred is one of those cases where it woudl be useful, feasiable (due to confidential info including recommendations) or produce any useful results (unless teh reason to hire Bill was that he was the IAD's dad) the same thing with reviewing the decision to hire company A rather than company B - I can see reviewing the process by which the decision was made but I do not think (for teh same reasons above) that the reviewing the decision itself would be all that easy or useful Scott From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Jan 23 15:17:14 2005 X-Original-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Scott Bradner) Cc: ietf@ietf.org, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5 References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sam Hartman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 15:17:16 -0500 In-Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Scott Bradner's message of Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:17:25 -0500 (EST)) User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Scott == Scott Bradner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Scott ps - I'm not sure that its all that useful to be able to Scott appeal/review awards if they can not be overturned - Scott apealing or reviewing the process that was followed is fine Scott but appealling the actual award seems broken I disagree. Reviewing a specific decision in an operational context to determine whether the right decision was made can be a useful feedback step in a control loop of a system. I've found this to be true whether systems are technical or manigerial. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Scott == Scott Bradner [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Scott I agree that postmortems can be useful but I'm not sure Scott that doing such on a decision to hire Bill instead of Fred Scott is one of those cases where it woudl be useful, feasiable Scott (due to confidential info including recommendations) or Scott produce any useful results (unless teh reason to hire Bill Scott was that he was the IAD's dad) I agree it will be rarely useful. However rarely useful is not a strong enough justification for prohibited from my standpoint. The IAOC should have wide discretion in deciding how much effort to spend on reviews. Perhaps the IAOC should even have wide discretion in establishing rules for reviews. They might even want to establish rules (subject themselves to review) that prohibit certain kinds of review if that becomes necessary. However Margaret has made an argument I find compelling that there is not going to be a DOS condition under the current proposals. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
John == John C Klensin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John Where I, and some others, have tried to go in the interest John of finding a position that everyone can live with is well John short of what I (and I think you) would like. I suspect we John may still end up pretty close to your position or mine in John practice, but that the community will need to learn, John experimentally, that frequent and detailed interactions with John the IAOC does not serve either the IASA or the IETF well. I completely agree that frequent and detailed interactions do not serve the IETF or IASA well. My position stems from two assumptions. First, while frequent second-guessing of the IASA is problematic, there are exceptional circumstances where asking to review a specific decision will improve the quality of that decision or the underlying procedures; recalling the IAOC or removing members in these circumstances is too heavy weight of a solution. Secondly, I assume that only very limited procedural safeguards are required to make sure these interactions do not become too frequent: I believe the IETF community understands the value in rarely using exception paths and in selecting carefully decisions for which exception paths should be used. Moreover I believe that the cost of trying to design procedural limits up front is higher than the cost of figuring out if any procedural limits are needed and putting them in place later. I do have operational familiarity with being in a management role where my decisions were subject to appeal. Overall I actually prefer working in a situation where there are sanity checks on my actions. I would find it unacceptable if my decisions were often appealed. Similarly, if certain decisions were overturned I would find that I needed to move on and find other responsibilities. Provided that the appeals/review body is aware of the implications of both these limits, review procedures are a good thing. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
--On Sunday, 23 January, 2005 14:20 -0500 Michael StJohns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Responding in the areas where you are unclear about what I'm suggesting (or see it differently) Everything, although I'd expect some of the things you list to get very brief consideration. And, to give an example I'm sure won't arise in practice, if the IAB or IESG were to demand that the IAOC review explain the cost of paper at frequent intervals, I'd expect the IAOC members to make that, and its impact on getting work done, known to the community, the nomcom, etc. I'm confused - I thought you were in the hands-off camp. I consider myself to be in that camp, but believe that the best way to enforce parts of it is to allow some flexibility in the system and then hold the various actors accountable for how they handle that flexibility. You can never, never, do this rules make me too anxious, especially with a body we've never seen in action. OK - let's consider one very specific case - meeting site selection. Please describe all the actions possible around this decision listing the IAOC, ISOC, IAD, IASA, IAB, IESG and IETF in general. Please explain what should happen if we announce we're going to Beijing and 10 IETF participants complain for various reasons and cite the fact the meeting cost would be less in Minneapolis. Does the IAOC *really* need to respond to this formally? By the time things are announced they are contractual and are generally not subject to revision without great expense. To respond to the specific example: No. The IAOC should tell the ten people to go away. Or, depending on the objections, it should remember them for consideration in future meeting site selections. And, if it is ten people who have raised this type of objection in the past, or if the objection lacks substance, I'd expect the IAOC to ignore it or give it very short shrift. Now, suppose the ten people then go to to the IESG and say we don't think we should go to Beijing and the IAOC didn't change the meeting or give us an explanation we found satisfactory as to why we should. I'd expect the IESG to say too late, so sorry, probably we should review criteria for meetings within the IETF and make some suggestions for future action to the IAOC. Or, depending on the objection, I'd expect the IESG to say you are wasting everyone's time, go pound sand. If the IESG went to the IAOC and said ok, we think Beijing is maybe not such a good idea, please review your decision and change it, I'd expect the IAOC to take the time to explain to the IESG why the decision was made, that they presumably had an opportunity for input when the IAOC was considering the decision (after all, the IETF Chair is an IAOC member), and reminding them about commercial realities. And, if the IESG made that sort of request very often, I'd expect the IAOC members to try to identify the offenders and to have a discussion with the Nomcom at an appropriate time. Another case. Selection of the IASO. The IAOC/IAD writes and issues an RFP. They receive bids, evaluate them and with the ISOC issue a contract for services. Does the public in general get to challenge the signing of the contract with org A? Can the IAB/IESG force the IAOC to reconsider the award if they don't like the result? Is that even legal? First of all, if I correctly read the intent of the RFP, the IAOC/IAD write that RFP and make it available for comment from the community before bids are evaluated and contracts are awarded (and probably before it is issued). If they get reasonable input and ignore it, we have a problem, but a rather different one from the issue you raise above. So let's assume that a contract is awarded within the parameters of an RFP that had general sign-off in the community. The IESG/IAB can force the IAOC to review the decision for any improprieties, especially if they think they have information the IAOC didn't. They can force the IAOC to report to them on that review. But they cannot force reconsideration of the decision/award itself. Now, I would suggest that the IESG or IAB asking for that sort of review in the absence of allegations of fraud or other activities sufficient to invalidate the contract would be a waste of everyone's time. But the community has decided that wasting time is dealt with by individual recalls or nomcom action, not by trying to write rigid rules. Last case. IAOC/IAD take to heart the section that only the IAB/IESG can compel response. The IAOC/IAD keep getting 10's of complaints about small things which they decline to spend anytime on. The 10's of complaints come from the same 10-20 people. The IETF body as a whole says - why are you ignoring our rightful complaints?. What happens then? Does the IAB/IESG start compelling responses? Why not just have the complaints go to the IAB/IESG in the first place and have them filter them to the IAOC/IAD? There are two cases. In the
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I agree with the idea that there are extremes when we talk about our ideas on review, but please don't assume that JohnK and Michael are the only people at that end of the pool... I had assumed that the IETF would let IASA run things with periodic general feedback and rare specific feedback (only in situations when the feedback begins we can't imagine why you ...). The further we move from that end of the spectrum, the less I understand why we need an IASA in the first place. Spencer If I have correctly understood, you are at, or close to, one extreme. Your view, as I understand it, is that the IASA should be treated as a semi-independent body with periodic reviews of its performance and little or no ability of the IETF community (including the IAB and IESG) to interfere in any individual decisions either before or after the fact. deleted down to At the other extreme are those who believe that the IASA is really a functional subsidiary of the IETF, that all (or as many as possible) of its decisions should be able to be overturned by the IESG (or IAB, or both), that the community should be able to appeal individual IAD decisions, with the potential of having those decisions reversed and with the appeal chain running though the IESG and IAB to, potentially, the ISOC Board as is the case with standards-related decisions. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
John == John C Klensin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John --On Sunday, 23 January, 2005 14:20 -0500 Michael StJohns John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Who gets to kick this process into starting (e.g. who gets to file a complaint)? Anyone, but only the IAB or IESG can demand a response. I'm pretty sure that distinction won't work very well. See above. John Yes, see above for the reasons for it. Note that the John everything goes to the IAB or IESG first is just a John degenerate case so, if the distinction doesn't work, the John BCP-level procedure doesn't need changing. Is that what I'd like in a perfect world? Nope. Do I think it will need tuning over time, probably in the direction of more IASA autonomy? Yes, but maybe not in ways that change the BCP. But I think that, given the divisions in the community over this issue, it is probably about the best that any of us will be able to get. John - all I'm looking for are specific worked examples. E.g. take various cases and work through how they should be handled. Document each step. See if there are common processes for each case. Determine the cost/benefit analysis from those processes (e.g. does doing X actually improve the behavior of the IAOC?) Derive the BCP from those processes. Right now the BCP describes a process that hasn't even been validated on paper or on a white board. We have neither rough consensus nor running code. John I have been trying to make variations of that point in more John instances than this case, so we agree. But the community John doesn't seem to want to do that case analysis, or believes John that the IESG and IAB have done it for them and are taking John responsibility for it, and I don't see any way to make that John particular horse sip the water. John, thanks for doing such an excellent job of explaining why someone might believe that a loosely constrained review process could be a reasonable thing. I realize that we disagree on this issue, but I think your message is a useful tool in explaining the part of this spectrum in which I find myself. I agree with the sorts of explanations you are bringing up and they do serve to explain why I believe that Margaret or Harald's text is reasonable. I don't think particularly extensive case analysis has been done; if people in the community are assuming that has been done and believe that is important then they should speak up. I'd like to present one other example that motivates why I think having the review process is important. Say that the IASA has decided to pursue a meeting in Beijing. No contract has been signed yet, but that's getting close. Many contributors indicate they will be unable to attend. The IAOc has been focusing on the business aspects of the meeting: how affordable is it, are the necessary facilities available. The IESG and/or IAB formally asks for a review, arguing that whether the right set of people will attend a particular meeting is an important factor to consider in meeting site selection. Regardless of whether the IAOC ends up deciding to reverse its decision, having this review be available is important. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Leslie, I think this is a huge improvement, and a large step in the right direction. Two observations: (i) In the revised 3.5, it would be good to get a slightly better handle/ definition on what is, or is not, a business decision. Since the IAD and IAOC are ultimately all about business decisions (and management decisions that are arguably a subset of management decisions), an IAOC acting in poor faith could easily argue that any decision fell within that category. I'd consider saying contractual or personnel decisions, but don't know if that is sufficient. _However_, in practice, if we couldn't find satisfactory text, it probably don't make much difference: an IAOC that resorts to that sort of hair-splitting would probably need a much more drastic course correction than any quibbling about the text of the BCP would provide. (ii) In deference to one of the points Mike made, I think the first review paragraph could usefully be modified to read ...ask for a formal review (including reconsideration if that is appropriate) of the decision. I don't think that needs to be repeated further on, but will leave that to editorial judgment. Another way to accomplish the same thing, also subject to editorial preference, would be to add a sentence toward the bottom, that indicates that outcome of a review could include either a decision to do things differently in the future or reconsideration, if it is not an already-committed business decision, of the pending action. john --On Friday, 21 January, 2005 19:37 -0500 Leslie Daigle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3.5 Business Decisions Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out IASA business activities are subject to review by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented to include voting records for each formal action. 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. However, the nature of the IAOC's work involves treating the IESG and IAB as major internal customers of the administrative support services. The IAOC and the IAD should not consider their work successful unless the IESG and IAB are also satisfied with the administrative support that the IETF is receiving. In order to achieve this, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF process supporting activities. In the case where someone questions an action of the IAD or the IAOC in meeting the IETF requirements as outlined above, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi, The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. I still find the lack of direct accountability to the IETF community problematic, though I do realize that this does leave two options open to the community in the case that the IAB or IESG does not decide to honor someone's request for a review: - Protest on the IETF list and at plenary and review in the court of public opinion; i.e resort to public confrontation. - Appeal of a decision by the IESG to not ask the IAOC for a review. I am also assuming that since these appeals would always be procedural they would always be appealable through to the ISOC BoT. So while a bit contorted, there is a path for accountability for the public. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. I do not understand what happens if the IESG/IAB do ask for a review and the IAOC gives what they consider an inadequate response. Is the only recourse at that point to initiate a recall? Or to ask the ISOC BoT to fire the IAD? I am troubled that at the end of the day recall is the only way to redress an error that those in office may commit. Since this is such a large hammer to use, I expect that it will leave the IAOC and IAD free to act with relative impunity. I know we will be reviewing the procedures over the years, but initiating the restructuring without proper mechanisms for accountability seem, to me, to be a mistake. a. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
John/Leslie et al - this is a good improvement, and Leslie's 3.5 now reads in a way I can support. 3.6 still has some sticking points. After the last round of comments I went away and thought and came up with the following: There are three separate things that I think were meant by the original 3.5 phrase review. They were IAOC review of IAD decisions, IAOC reconsideration of its own actions and public review of the IAOC and IAD actions. Review above I took to have a meaning in line with judicial reexamination with all the nuances that follow from that. In other words, review can result in a revision of the action (i.e. overturned). Considering IAOC review of IAD decisions, this is probably proper and not overly burdensome to the process, and probably the most appropriate check and balance on the IAD. Its the latter two that are sticky. The questions I still have that none of the language has answered: What's the goal of the reconsideration or review? E.g. can this action result in the IAOC or IAD reversing or revising a decision? If not, why do it? What's the statute of limitations for a demand for reconsideration or review? Is an action or decision subject to reexamination 6 months after the decision? Does the IAD or IAOC need to announce such decisions with enough of a waiting period that the reexamination process can take place before the decision becomes final? What is the exact set of decisions subject to this process? Everything? Meeting sites? Meeting fees? A delay in publication of an RFC? Cost of paper needed to support an IETF meeting? The date of the public meeting? Etc. If we can't come up with a description of this that isn't everything I'm very concerned, but I'm having problems figuring out what smaller set is appropriate. Who gets to kick this process into starting (e.g. who gets to file a complaint)? I'm going to suggest this section still needs radical reworking. And, since we pay more attention to people who suggest solutions to problems I'm going to suggest some approaches that may make sense. (Note - I'm using semi-annual here - could me annual, could be monthly) The normal channel for public review of the actions of the IAOC and the IAD is during the semi-annual public meeting. Beginning 60 days prior to the meeting and ending 30 days prior the IAD will accept proposals for public hearings on past activities of the IAOC. The IAD in consultation with the IAOC, the IESG and the IAB will select no more than 3 topics for hearing and will publish such list no later than 21 days prior to the meeting including as well those topics not selected. Each topic will be heard during a 2 hour (pick a length) session. Anyone may submit questions for the IAOC and IAD on the selected topic, and the IAD will select no more than 10 to provide written answers no later than 5 days prior to the meeting. The complete list of submitted questions will be published at that time as well. Anyone may request time to speak during a session and will make that request via email no later than 5 days prior to the meeting. No more than 75% of the session time will be allocated to (OK - I'm getting way too detailed here for a comment - but you see where I'm going) The IAD shall advise the IAOC of and shall require consent from them for any decision which commits the IETF to an expenditure of funds. The IAOC may from time to time specify other decisions for which its approval shall be required. A decision for which consent is given by the IAOC is not subject to further review or revision by the IAOC. A decision made by the IAD shall be considered final and not reviewable by the IAOC 30 days after the IAOC is informed of such decision. Such notifications shall be placed on the web site once the 30 days expires or after the IAOC ratifies the related decision. The IAOC and IAD shall not be required to reconsider their decisions once made. However, IAOC and IAD shall request public comment for those decisions which will have a major change in the visible support available to the IETF and shall request such comments beginning at least 45 days prior to the date of the decision and ending no later than 7 days prior. All such comments shall be public and will be made available on the IAOC web site. The actual decision of where to hold any individual IETF meeting is not subject to the above process as the complex relationship between timing, budget, hosting proposals, and site availability does not lend itself well to public comment. However, the IAOC will solicit feedback on selected sites, proposals for future sites, needs of the participants, and general commentary on the balance of meeting sites across the various areas of the globe. Contractual issues by the ISOC on behalf of the IAOC/IAD/IETF are also not subject to the above process due to the legal constraints of the contracting process. The IAOC/IAD shall
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sam Hartman wrote: Brian == Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian I think that is not really a concern. If someone has a Brian grievance that is serious enough for them to hire a lawyer Brian to make a complaint, no words in an RFC will stop them. But Brian the right words in an RFC will allow the IAD to say: Brian If you have any complaints, please contact the IAOC. [I Brian believe the current words allow this.] Brian and the IAOC to say, very rapidly, Brian We've looked at your complaint and concluded that it is Brian out of scope of RFC . Brian I don't think the current words allow that, because they Brian are very broad. We could fix this concern quite easily, by Brian adding Contract awards and employment decisions may not be Brian appealed using this process. I could not support that change. I think it is entirely reasonable to review a contract decision and conclude that procedures need to be changed. I think doing so regularly would be very problematic. Reviewing procedures is fine. Reviewing specific awards isn't, IMHO, which is all I intended my words to exclude. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Michael StJohns wrote: 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. Yes, but the stuff about decision review in Harald's text is pretty clear that its the person or body that's subject to review. Mike, yes, this text is problematic. But it isn't in the draft. I don't find the text in the actual -04 draft anywhere near as problematic, apart from the point I am arguing with Sam in my previous note. Brian At 04:10 AM 1/20/2005, Brian E Carpenter wrote: Michael StJohns wrote: At a minimum, I'd explicitly prohibit review of the IADs actions by any body except the IAOC - direct the review to the IAOC only. But there is nothing in draft-ietf-iasa-bcp-04 suggesting that anybody except the IAOC can review the IAD's actions, and the stuff about decision review in section 3.4 is explicitly about the IAOC. It's also very clear from sections 3.1 and 3.2 that IAD reports to the IAOC. So I see no need for a text change. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
--On fredag, januar 21, 2005 11:49:04 +0100 Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, but the stuff about decision review in Harald's text is pretty clear that its the person or body that's subject to review. Mike, yes, this text is problematic. But it isn't in the draft. I don't find the text in the actual -04 draft anywhere near as problematic, apart from the point I am arguing with Sam in my previous note. I'm afraid I'm beating a dead horse even deader, but. my proposed text was: 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. What part of that text makes it pretty clear that its the person or body that's subject to review, as Mike says? Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: --On fredag, januar 21, 2005 11:49:04 +0100 Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, but the stuff about decision review in Harald's text is pretty clear that its the person or body that's subject to review. Mike, yes, this text is problematic. But it isn't in the draft. I don't find the text in the actual -04 draft anywhere near as problematic, apart from the point I am arguing with Sam in my previous note. I'm afraid I'm beating a dead horse even deader, but. my proposed text was: 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. What part of that text makes it pretty clear that its the person or body that's subject to review, as Mike says? That's how I read the 2nd sentence. But I can live with this text, even though I prefer what is in the -04 draft. The point about exempting contract awards and employment decisions is still on my list, though. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Brian clarifies: Reviewing procedures is fine. Reviewing specific awards isn't, IMHO, which is all I intended my words to exclude. I agree with Brian - allowing the review of specific awards could easily cause the DoS attack that I've been warning against Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Several people have used the term DoS attack in relation to a review/appeals process as if that were a well-defined and well-understood phenomenon, and I don't understand what it means. Here is one example that doesn't make sense to me: At 8:39 AM -0500 1/21/05, Scott Bradner wrote: Brian clarifies: Reviewing procedures is fine. Reviewing specific awards isn't, IMHO, which is all I intended my words to exclude. I agree with Brian - allowing the review of specific awards could easily cause the DoS attack that I've been warning against None of the versions of the text that we are looking at (the current BCP, Harald's, mine, Scott Brim's...) indicate that a request for review of an IAD or IAOC decision could result in: (1) reversing a legally binding decision, (2) forcing the IAOC to stop other work until the review is handled, (3) delaying the execution of the decision, (4) having any decision of the IAD/IAOC overturned by anyone other than the IAOC, or (4) anything else that would affect the operation of IASA. So, the only DoS attack I can imagine is having such a large volume of review requests that handling them in any reasonable way sucks up all of the resources of the IAOC... I attempted to address that form of attack by indicating that it is up to the IAOC to determine what level of processing a given review request requires. If the same person sends thousands of requests, I assume that the appropriate level of review for those requests would be zero. And, if that were escalated, the IESG would concur. So, where do the DoS attack come in? Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Margaret sez: None of the versions of the text that we are looking at (the current BCP, Harald's, mine, Scott Brim's...) indicate that a request for review of an IAD or IAOC decision could result in: (1) reversing a ... if all of the proposed text actually said (as the -04 text does) that awards can not be overturned then there is not a DoS threat - but Harald's suggested wording does not do that Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
ps - I'm not sure that its all that useful to be able to appeal/review awards if they can not be overturned - apealing or reviewing the process that was followed is fine but appealling the actual award seems broken this may seem like a wording nit but I think it would properly set expectations Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Following up the point I made in response to Mike St.Johns a couple days ago, I went back through the document to see if/how it distinguishes between being adequately responsive and accountable to the community, from having appropriate chains of accountability for contractual purposes (and no micromanagement of the business affairs of the IASA). It seems to me that we should: 1/ Change this section: 3.3 Relationship of the IAOC to Existing IETF Leadership to 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF and include the original text plus Harald's text adjusted to be about the general processes. And a point about objective process metrics. 2/ Add a section (3.5) specifically about business decisions -- which, as Mike St.Johns pointed out, should remain within the IAD/IAOC. That would make: 3.5 Business Decisions Decisions made by the IAD in the course of carrying out IASA business activities are subject to review by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented to include voting records for each formal action. 3.6 Responsiveness of IASA to the IETF The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the performance of the IASA. However, the nature of the IAOC's work involves treating the IESG and IAB as major internal customers of the administrative support services. The IAOC and the IAD should not consider their work successful unless the IESG and IAB are also satisfied with the administrative support that the IETF is receiving. In order to achieve this, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective performance metrics for all IETF process supporting activities. In the case where someone questions an action of the IAD or the IAOC in meeting the IETF requirements as outlined above, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. Leslie. Leslie Daigle wrote: Interesting... To the extent that the IAD and IAOC are dealing with decisions about implementing requirements, I agree. To the extent that the IAD and IAOC are applying judgement to interpret the best needs of the IETF (i.e., determining those requirements), I disagree. I think it's a little heavy-handed to have to instigate a recall procedure if the IAD (or IAOC) seem not to have heard the *community's* requirements for meeting location. So, (how) can we make the distinction without creating a decision tree of epic proportions? Leslie. Michael StJohns wrote: Hi Harald et al - I apologize for chiming in on this so late, but I had hopes it would get worked out without me pushing over apple carts. I can't support this and I recommend deleting this section in its entirety. My cut on this: The decisions of the IAD should be subject to review (and in some cases ratification) ONLY by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC should not be subject to further review by the IETF at large. The proper venue for expressing tangible displeasure with a decision is during the appointment and reappointment process. (Note, I'm not precluding pre-decision comment by the community at large, and I encourage the IAOC to seek such comment where appropriate but once the decision is made its time to stop whining and get on with things) The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented to include voting records for each formal action. The IAOC and IAD must accept public or private comment but there is no requirement to either respond or comment on such missives. The IAOC and IAD should not be subject to the IETF appeals process. The appropriate venue for egregious enough complaints on the commercial side is the legal system or the recall process. My reasoning: The IAD and IAOC are making commercial (as opposed to standards) decisions and the result of that may be contracts or other commercial relationships. Its inappropriate in the extreme to insert a third (or fourth or fifth) party into that relationship. The IAD/IAOC relationship is going to be somewhat one of employee/employer and its inappropriate to insert external parties into that relationship. The documentation requirement is so that when the appointment process happens there will be some audit trail as to who did what to whom. The IETF appeals process is not appropriate for a commercial action. A standards action may adversely affect competitors across a broad spectrum of companies. This commercial action only affects the bidders or winners. Please, let's get the IETF
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Michael StJohns wrote: At a minimum, I'd explicitly prohibit review of the IADs actions by any body except the IAOC - direct the review to the IAOC only. I think this is correct, managerially. That way the IAD knows who his or her boss is, and that is important. But there is nothing in draft-ietf-iasa-bcp-04 suggesting that anybody except the IAOC can review the IAD's actions, and the stuff about decision review in section 3.4 is explicitly about the IAOC. It's also very clear from sections 3.1 and 3.2 that IAD reports to the IAOC. So I see no need for a text change. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
--On torsdag, januar 20, 2005 00:00:36 -0500 Michael StJohns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you (general plural) really feel this section needs to stand I think you need to address at least two issues and narrow them substantially: who has standing to ask for a formal review? and on what specific issues can the IAOC/IAD be reviewed? If you can't this section needs to go. For standing you've currently got someone... *sigh* For issues you've got a decision of the IAD or IAOC ... *sigh* At a minimum, I'd explicitly prohibit review of the IADs actions by any body except the IAOC - direct the review to the IAOC only. Mike, the text that I started off this thread with had: - Standing: Anyone can *ask*, but only the IESG and IAB can demand an answer. - Issues: Any decision. I think this is right - enumerating the issues that can be reviewed is simply the wrong level of detail for this document. - Who reviews: IAD reviews IAD decisions, IAOC reviews IAOC decisions. The read review as explain why, not I override you. The fact that IAOC has oversight of the IAD is actually not mentioned here; it's mentioned in enough other places. Of course, Margaret's proposed text is different. But I believe you were starting off by objecting to the one I wrote - and I'm not sure I understand how you interpreted what I wrote. Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Margaret Wasserman wrote: Hmm. I think this bothers me a lot unless a) unsuccessful bidders and their agents and b) unsuccessful job candidates are explicitly excluded. Otherwise, every time the IASA awards a contract or hires somebody, they are exposed to public attack by the unsuccessful. In general, people do not choose to raise a public stink when they are not hired for a job or are not chosen as a contractor, perhaps due to a lack of desire to air those facts in public. But, if we do have someone who wants to raise a stink and/or waste IETF resources over that type of issue, I don't think that the lack of a formal review process would stop them. In fact, the lack of a reasonable way of dealing with this type of disagreement within the IETF context might lead people to take legal action, which would be even worse (more time consuming, expensive, damaging). I think that is not really a concern. If someone has a grievance that is serious enough for them to hire a lawyer to make a complaint, no words in an RFC will stop them. But the right words in an RFC will allow the IAD to say: If you have any complaints, please contact the IAOC. [I believe the current words allow this.] and the IAOC to say, very rapidly, We've looked at your complaint and concluded that it is out of scope of RFC . I don't think the current words allow that, because they are very broad. We could fix this concern quite easily, by adding Contract awards and employment decisions may not be appealed using this process. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. Yes, but the stuff about decision review in Harald's text is pretty clear that its the person or body that's subject to review. At 04:10 AM 1/20/2005, Brian E Carpenter wrote: Michael StJohns wrote: At a minimum, I'd explicitly prohibit review of the IADs actions by any body except the IAOC - direct the review to the IAOC only. But there is nothing in draft-ietf-iasa-bcp-04 suggesting that anybody except the IAOC can review the IAD's actions, and the stuff about decision review in section 3.4 is explicitly about the IAOC. It's also very clear from sections 3.1 and 3.2 that IAD reports to the IAOC. So I see no need for a text change. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi, In general I am happy with this formulation. Some comments below. On 19 jan 2005, at 09.38, Margaret Wasserman wrote: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone believes that a decision of the IAD or the IAOC either need an extra phrase here or need to change 'believes that' to something like 'objects to' or add the phrase: 'runs counter to the provisions of RFC ... or ... provisions of this BCP ... or maybe: 'is not in the best interests of the IETF' he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision by sending e-mail to the IAOC chair. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC, and should include details of the decision that is being reviewed, an explanation of why the decision should be reviewed, and a suggestion for what action should be taken to rectify the situation. All requests for review will be published publicly on the IAOC web site. It is up to the IAOC to determine what level of formal review is required based on the specifics of the request for review. However, the IAOC is expected to make some public response to a request for review within 90 days of the request, indicating the findings of the review. If the IAOC finds that an incorrect or unfair decision was made, it will be up to the IAOC to decide what type of action, if any, makes sense as a result. In many cases, it may not be possible or practical to change the decision (due to signed contracts or business implications), but the IAOC may choose to make changes to its policies or practices to avoid similar mistakes in the future or may simply wish to acknowledge that a mistake was made and learn from the error. If a person believes that his or her request for review was not handled properly or fairly by the IAOC, he or she may escalate the request to the IESG by sending mail to the IETF chair. The IESG will consider the IAOC's response and may take one of three actions: (1) indicate that the decision was properly reviewed and the IAOC's response was fair, (2) state why the review was improper or unfair and offer advice to the IAOC regarding what type of response or action would be justified, or (3) determine that there is a problem with the rules governing the IAOC and propose changes to this document (or other BCPs) to the IETF community. In this formulation, I would like to see one further possible step or (4) refer the issue to the ISOC BoT for further review. In no case, may the IESG reverse or change a decision of the IAOC or make a direct change to the IAOC's operating policies. a. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
At 06:25 AM 1/20/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: --On torsdag, januar 20, 2005 00:00:36 -0500 Michael StJohns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you (general plural) really feel this section needs to stand I think you need to address at least two issues and narrow them substantially: who has standing to ask for a formal review? and on what specific issues can the IAOC/IAD be reviewed? If you can't this section needs to go. For standing you've currently got someone... *sigh* For issues you've got a decision of the IAD or IAOC ... *sigh* At a minimum, I'd explicitly prohibit review of the IADs actions by any body except the IAOC - direct the review to the IAOC only. Mike, the text that I started off this thread with had: - Standing: Anyone can *ask*, but only the IESG and IAB can demand an answer. Ok - this has two interesting and potential annoying outcomes. First outcome is that the IAOC just ignores any non-IESG/IAB query, second outcome is that the ignoree petitions the IAB/IESG to get their point to be made and then appeals when the IAB/IESG says no. - Issues: Any decision. I think this is right - enumerating the issues that can be reviewed is simply the wrong level of detail for this document. Let's try it from the other end. Try and list 3 things that can/should be amenable to review and why. I think you're going to find you can't or that you're listing things that are so trivial in the extreme that they really shouldn't be reviewable. If you can list 3 and can show there are potentially a lot more I'll shut up on this point. - Who reviews: IAD reviews IAD decisions, IAOC reviews IAOC decisions. The read review as explain why, not I override you. Sorry - that's not what review means. In the context, its 2 : to examine or study again; especially : to reexamine judicially. A body does not generally review its own decisions. It reconsiders them. If you mean explain, then say explain. The fact that IAOC has oversight of the IAD is actually not mentioned here; it's mentioned in enough other places. Of course, Margaret's proposed text is different. But I believe you were starting off by objecting to the one I wrote - and I'm not sure I understand how you interpreted what I wrote. Yes - I'm looking at your text. That was the last consensus text not hers. Harald On the general topic of reconsider vs review (and partially on Margaret's note). If you want to provide a mechanism for someone to petition for reconsideration of a decision that mechanism needs to require the someone to a) describe why they believe the decision was made in error, b) a proposed remedy (might be as simple as say yes instead of no but may be much more complex.). It also needs to set a sunset or statute of limitations on when these petitions can be submitted. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Steve's email caused me to think, but first let me say that this should not be in the BCP. Is it a correct assumption to think that the IASA will give an update at every IETF plenary, along the lines of IANA and the RFC Editor? I would hope so. John L. -- original message -- Subject:Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5 From: Steve Crocker [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 01/19/2005 6:03 pm I have not been paying close attention to the debate over this section of the BCP before, so I may be covering a point that's been made before. I think there will necessarily be a mixture of formal and informal processes at work once the IASA is in operation. The IAOC is intended to be at once both independent of the day to day operation of the IESG and IAB so it can relieve them of the burden of managing the details on a day to day basis and at the same time responsive to the community. No matter what formal mechanisms are put in place, the IAOC needs to keep its eyes and ears open to understand how well it is serving the community's needs. Inevitably, there will be some decisions or actions that some will complain about. When things are working well, the IAOC will find useful ways of respoding to such complaints, either by explaining the situation more fully, adjusting its decisions and actions, or, when the complaints simply represent a small minority with an unresolvable difference of opinion, standing firm. Formal means for resolving disputes do need to exist. I haven't studied Margaret's formulation carefully, but on first glance it looks fine to me. Other formulations will also work. As we all know, if there are very many formal disputes, then something larger is probably broken and needs to be fixed. I'm confident the community will raise the noise level in that case and we'll be re-engaged in a full, open, community review of the IASA, IAOC, etc. The bottom line on this for me is that everyone should expect the IAOC to report regularly and substantively to the community and to listen carefully to the community, and that form of communication will be the primary safety valve. Steve Margaret Wasserman wrote: Okay, Harald indicated to me privately that I should be more specific about my objections to the current wording and offer some alternative, so here goes... I do not object to the use of the term review instead of appeal. However, I do object to the current wording proposed by Harald for two reasons: (1) I think that there should be an effective way for members of the community (not just members of the I*) to question the decisions of the IAOC and receive some response. If a wrong decision was made, it may not always be possible to reverse the decisions of the IAOC (contracts, etc.), but it could be possible to consider the situation and create new rules or guidelines to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future. (2) I don't think that the mechanism is appropriately specified. If we used the appeals mechanism in 2026, there is already a definition and some practical history. I understand there is some objection to using that mechanism, but if we want to invent a new one, then I think we need to specify it so that a member of he community (not just I* members) could actually use it. Here is a stab at some alternative wording... -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone believes that a decision of the IAD or the IAOC he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision by sending e-mail to the IAOC chair. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC, and should include details of the decision that is being reviewed, an explanation of why the decision should be reviewed, and a suggestion for what action should be taken to rectify the situation. All requests for review will be published publicly on the IAOC web site. It is up to the IAOC to determine what level of formal review is required based on the specifics of the request for review. However, the IAOC is expected to make some public response to a request for review within 90 days of the request, indicating the findings of the review. If the IAOC finds that an incorrect or unfair decision was made, it will be up to the IAOC to decide what type of action, if any, makes sense as a result. In many cases, it may not be possible or practical to change the decision (due to signed contracts or business implications), but the IAOC may choose to make changes to its policies or practices to avoid similar mistakes in the future or may simply wish to acknowledge that a mistake was made and learn from the error. If a person believes that his or her request for review was not handled properly or fairly by the IAOC, he or she may escalate the request to the IESG by sending mail to the IETF chair. The IESG will consider the IAOC's response and may take one
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
--On torsdag, januar 20, 2005 20:13:21 +0200 John Loughney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve's email caused me to think, but first let me say that this should not be in the BCP. Is it a correct assumption to think that the IASA will give an update at every IETF plenary, along the lines of IANA and the RFC Editor? I would hope so. I definitely think that the first IETF after the IAD has been hired will have a meet the IAD session. Regular presentations seem sensible. The draft says of the IAOC: To receive direct feedback from the community, the IAOC holds an open meeting at least once per year at an IETF meeting. This may take the form of an open IAOC plenary or a working meeting held during an IETF meeting slot. But there's certainly nothing barring us from doing more! Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Brian == Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Brian I think that is not really a concern. If someone has a Brian grievance that is serious enough for them to hire a lawyer Brian to make a complaint, no words in an RFC will stop them. But Brian the right words in an RFC will allow the IAD to say: Brian If you have any complaints, please contact the IAOC. [I Brian believe the current words allow this.] Brian and the IAOC to say, very rapidly, Brian We've looked at your complaint and concluded that it is Brian out of scope of RFC . Brian I don't think the current words allow that, because they Brian are very broad. We could fix this concern quite easily, by Brian adding Contract awards and employment decisions may not be Brian appealed using this process. I could not support that change. I think it is entirely reasonable to review a contract decision and conclude that procedures need to be changed. I think doing so regularly would be very problematic. --Sam ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Is this intended to replace the section on appeals? In other words, will we have this review mechanism _instead_ of the ability to actually appeal a decision of the IAOC? If so, I'm not comfortable with that. I understand that there needs to be some limit on the action that is taken in the event of an appeal (we can't undo a signed contract, for instance), but I don't understand why we should eliminate the appeal mechanism altogether. We already have limits on the actions that can be taken in appeals (the IAB or ISOC can't approve a document on an appeal of an IESG decision, and no one can up-publish an RFC). So, why can't we just include a clause like that and use the existing appeals mechanism? Although we haven't had very many of them rise to the formal level, I think that a formal appeals process is valuable, as it underscores the fact that a group is accountable to the community and it gives a person who is unhappy with a decision some leverage to raise the issue and get it resolved without recourse to a formal appeal. So, I'd be sorry to see us lose that leverage with the IAOC. It seems strange, IMO, to be so worried about DoS attacks through the appeal process we've been using this process for several years for IESG and WG decisions and haven't experienced that sort of problem... Margaret At 11:47 AM +0100 1/19/05, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: Trying to close this item, which is not resolved in the -04 draft: I believe that the list discussion has converged on very rough consensus (Sam and Avri being the people who worry that we're building a DoS attack defense that we don't need, but Brian, Scott and John Klensin, at least, strongly arguing that we need that mechanism) on the following text, which I suggested on Jan 13, replacing the last 3 paragraphs of section 3.4: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- Can we live with this? Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Harald suggests: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- why not make public all requests (i.e. remove Answered from the last line) I still feel that this leaves things too open (specifically it does not set expectations about the possible results of a review ) to a DoS attack but as I said before I can live with this as-is. Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Margaret notes It seems strange, IMO, to be so worried about DoS attacks through the appeal process we've been using this process for several years for IESG and WG decisions and haven't experienced that sort of problem... the current appeals process does not apply to commercial decisions such as the awarding of a contract so whatever experience we already have is not relevent to what we might experience under the new process (imo) Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: Trying to close this item, which is not resolved in the -04 draft: I believe that the list discussion has converged on very rough consensus (Sam and Avri being the people who worry that we're building a DoS attack defense that we don't need, but Brian, Scott and John Klensin, at least, strongly arguing that we need that mechanism) on the following text, which I suggested on Jan 13, replacing the last 3 paragraphs of section 3.4: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- Can we live with this? I can Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Harald writes: I suggested on Jan 13, replacing the last 3 paragraphs of section 3.4: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- Can we live with this? I can Bert Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
--On onsdag, januar 19, 2005 07:21:40 -0500 Scott Bradner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- why not make public all requests (i.e. remove Answered from the last line) because: 1) some requests are an embarassment to the sender, and the sender doesn't really want an answer 2) anything that's got a requirement to do something is a DoS vector, even if trivial - so I bent over backwards to prevent that. I still feel that this leaves things too open (specifically it does not set expectations about the possible results of a review ) to a DoS attack but as I said before I can live with this as-is. I still don't understand how not setting expectations opens to a DoS attack - setting expectations would be such an opening. Want to try to explain? ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Harald explains Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- why not make public all requests (i.e. remove Answered from the last line) because: 1) some requests are an embarassment to the sender, and the sender doesn't really want an answer not sure that giving someone an additional way to embarrass themselves (in addition to the existing public mailing lists) is all that much of a negative in the face of a general desire for openness 2) anything that's got a requirement to do something is a DoS vector, even if trivial - so I bent over backwards to prevent that. you seem to be more bendable than I am :-) - I don't see that a public archive for the request submission list would be all that big a deal to do Harald (again) asks I still don't understand how not setting expectations opens to a DoS attack - setting expectations would be such an opening. Want to try to explain? (again) for example, if the looser in a RFP process feels that they can get the decision overturned and a particular IASA does not have a strong assumption that this is outside the scope the IASA could think it could put the decision on hold (and block the delevery of a service such as getting ready to provide networking at an IETF meeting) until the review is done but I repeate - I can live with the text as Harald proposes it Scott ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Okay, Harald indicated to me privately that I should be more specific about my objections to the current wording and offer some alternative, so here goes... I do not object to the use of the term review instead of appeal. However, I do object to the current wording proposed by Harald for two reasons: (1) I think that there should be an effective way for members of the community (not just members of the I*) to question the decisions of the IAOC and receive some response. If a wrong decision was made, it may not always be possible to reverse the decisions of the IAOC (contracts, etc.), but it could be possible to consider the situation and create new rules or guidelines to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future. (2) I don't think that the mechanism is appropriately specified. If we used the appeals mechanism in 2026, there is already a definition and some practical history. I understand there is some objection to using that mechanism, but if we want to invent a new one, then I think we need to specify it so that a member of he community (not just I* members) could actually use it. Here is a stab at some alternative wording... -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone believes that a decision of the IAD or the IAOC he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision by sending e-mail to the IAOC chair. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC, and should include details of the decision that is being reviewed, an explanation of why the decision should be reviewed, and a suggestion for what action should be taken to rectify the situation. All requests for review will be published publicly on the IAOC web site. It is up to the IAOC to determine what level of formal review is required based on the specifics of the request for review. However, the IAOC is expected to make some public response to a request for review within 90 days of the request, indicating the findings of the review. If the IAOC finds that an incorrect or unfair decision was made, it will be up to the IAOC to decide what type of action, if any, makes sense as a result. In many cases, it may not be possible or practical to change the decision (due to signed contracts or business implications), but the IAOC may choose to make changes to its policies or practices to avoid similar mistakes in the future or may simply wish to acknowledge that a mistake was made and learn from the error. If a person believes that his or her request for review was not handled properly or fairly by the IAOC, he or she may escalate the request to the IESG by sending mail to the IETF chair. The IESG will consider the IAOC's response and may take one of three actions: (1) indicate that the decision was properly reviewed and the IAOC's response was fair, (2) state why the review was improper or unfair and offer advice to the IAOC regarding what type of response or action would be justified, or (3) determine that there is a problem with the rules governing the IAOC and propose changes to this document (or other BCPs) to the IETF community. In no case, may the IESG reverse or change a decision of the IAOC or make a direct change to the IAOC's operating policies. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Sorry, I somehow omitted a line in my proposed wording: 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone believes that a decision of the IAD or the IAOC violates published policy or goes against the best interests of the iETF he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision by sending e-mail to the IAOC chair. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC, and Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hmm. I think this bothers me a lot unless a) unsuccessful bidders and their agents and b) unsuccessful job candidates are explicitly excluded. Otherwise, every time the IASA awards a contract or hires somebody, they are exposed to public attack by the unsuccessful. Brian Margaret Wasserman wrote: Okay, Harald indicated to me privately that I should be more specific about my objections to the current wording and offer some alternative, so here goes... I do not object to the use of the term review instead of appeal. However, I do object to the current wording proposed by Harald for two reasons: (1) I think that there should be an effective way for members of the community (not just members of the I*) to question the decisions of the IAOC and receive some response. If a wrong decision was made, it may not always be possible to reverse the decisions of the IAOC (contracts, etc.), but it could be possible to consider the situation and create new rules or guidelines to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future. (2) I don't think that the mechanism is appropriately specified. If we used the appeals mechanism in 2026, there is already a definition and some practical history. I understand there is some objection to using that mechanism, but if we want to invent a new one, then I think we need to specify it so that a member of he community (not just I* members) could actually use it. Here is a stab at some alternative wording... -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone believes that a decision of the IAD or the IAOC he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision by sending e-mail to the IAOC chair. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC, and should include details of the decision that is being reviewed, an explanation of why the decision should be reviewed, and a suggestion for what action should be taken to rectify the situation. All requests for review will be published publicly on the IAOC web site. It is up to the IAOC to determine what level of formal review is required based on the specifics of the request for review. However, the IAOC is expected to make some public response to a request for review within 90 days of the request, indicating the findings of the review. If the IAOC finds that an incorrect or unfair decision was made, it will be up to the IAOC to decide what type of action, if any, makes sense as a result. In many cases, it may not be possible or practical to change the decision (due to signed contracts or business implications), but the IAOC may choose to make changes to its policies or practices to avoid similar mistakes in the future or may simply wish to acknowledge that a mistake was made and learn from the error. If a person believes that his or her request for review was not handled properly or fairly by the IAOC, he or she may escalate the request to the IESG by sending mail to the IETF chair. The IESG will consider the IAOC's response and may take one of three actions: (1) indicate that the decision was properly reviewed and the IAOC's response was fair, (2) state why the review was improper or unfair and offer advice to the IAOC regarding what type of response or action would be justified, or (3) determine that there is a problem with the rules governing the IAOC and propose changes to this document (or other BCPs) to the IETF community. In no case, may the IESG reverse or change a decision of the IAOC or make a direct change to the IAOC's operating policies. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I have not been paying close attention to the debate over this section of the BCP before, so I may be covering a point that's been made before. I think there will necessarily be a mixture of formal and informal processes at work once the IASA is in operation. The IAOC is intended to be at once both independent of the day to day operation of the IESG and IAB so it can relieve them of the burden of managing the details on a day to day basis and at the same time responsive to the community. No matter what formal mechanisms are put in place, the IAOC needs to keep its eyes and ears open to understand how well it is serving the community's needs. Inevitably, there will be some decisions or actions that some will complain about. When things are working well, the IAOC will find useful ways of respoding to such complaints, either by explaining the situation more fully, adjusting its decisions and actions, or, when the complaints simply represent a small minority with an unresolvable difference of opinion, standing firm. Formal means for resolving disputes do need to exist. I haven't studied Margaret's formulation carefully, but on first glance it looks fine to me. Other formulations will also work. As we all know, if there are very many formal disputes, then something larger is probably broken and needs to be fixed. I'm confident the community will raise the noise level in that case and we'll be re-engaged in a full, open, community review of the IASA, IAOC, etc. The bottom line on this for me is that everyone should expect the IAOC to report regularly and substantively to the community and to listen carefully to the community, and that form of communication will be the primary safety valve. Steve Margaret Wasserman wrote: Okay, Harald indicated to me privately that I should be more specific about my objections to the current wording and offer some alternative, so here goes... I do not object to the use of the term review instead of appeal. However, I do object to the current wording proposed by Harald for two reasons: (1) I think that there should be an effective way for members of the community (not just members of the I*) to question the decisions of the IAOC and receive some response. If a wrong decision was made, it may not always be possible to reverse the decisions of the IAOC (contracts, etc.), but it could be possible to consider the situation and create new rules or guidelines to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future. (2) I don't think that the mechanism is appropriately specified. If we used the appeals mechanism in 2026, there is already a definition and some practical history. I understand there is some objection to using that mechanism, but if we want to invent a new one, then I think we need to specify it so that a member of he community (not just I* members) could actually use it. Here is a stab at some alternative wording... -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone believes that a decision of the IAD or the IAOC he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision by sending e-mail to the IAOC chair. The request for review is addressed to the IAOC, and should include details of the decision that is being reviewed, an explanation of why the decision should be reviewed, and a suggestion for what action should be taken to rectify the situation. All requests for review will be published publicly on the IAOC web site. It is up to the IAOC to determine what level of formal review is required based on the specifics of the request for review. However, the IAOC is expected to make some public response to a request for review within 90 days of the request, indicating the findings of the review. If the IAOC finds that an incorrect or unfair decision was made, it will be up to the IAOC to decide what type of action, if any, makes sense as a result. In many cases, it may not be possible or practical to change the decision (due to signed contracts or business implications), but the IAOC may choose to make changes to its policies or practices to avoid similar mistakes in the future or may simply wish to acknowledge that a mistake was made and learn from the error. If a person believes that his or her request for review was not handled properly or fairly by the IAOC, he or she may escalate the request to the IESG by sending mail to the IETF chair. The IESG will consider the IAOC's response and may take one of three actions: (1) indicate that the decision was properly reviewed and the IAOC's response was fair, (2) state why the review was improper or unfair and offer advice to the IAOC regarding what type of response or action would be justified, or (3) determine that there is a problem with the rules governing the IAOC and propose changes to this document (or other BCPs) to the IETF community. In no case, may the IESG reverse or change a decision of the IAOC or make a
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
I prefer Margaret's wording but could live with Harld's wording. ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hmm. I think this bothers me a lot unless a) unsuccessful bidders and their agents and b) unsuccessful job candidates are explicitly excluded. Otherwise, every time the IASA awards a contract or hires somebody, they are exposed to public attack by the unsuccessful. In general, people do not choose to raise a public stink when they are not hired for a job or are not chosen as a contractor, perhaps due to a lack of desire to air those facts in public. But, if we do have someone who wants to raise a stink and/or waste IETF resources over that type of issue, I don't think that the lack of a formal review process would stop them. In fact, the lack of a reasonable way of dealing with this type of disagreement within the IETF context might lead people to take legal action, which would be even worse (more time consuming, expensive, damaging). Margaret ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Hi Harald et al - I apologize for chiming in on this so late, but I had hopes it would get worked out without me pushing over apple carts. I can't support this and I recommend deleting this section in its entirety. My cut on this: The decisions of the IAD should be subject to review (and in some cases ratification) ONLY by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC should not be subject to further review by the IETF at large. The proper venue for expressing tangible displeasure with a decision is during the appointment and reappointment process. (Note, I'm not precluding pre-decision comment by the community at large, and I encourage the IAOC to seek such comment where appropriate but once the decision is made its time to stop whining and get on with things) The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented to include voting records for each formal action. The IAOC and IAD must accept public or private comment but there is no requirement to either respond or comment on such missives. The IAOC and IAD should not be subject to the IETF appeals process. The appropriate venue for egregious enough complaints on the commercial side is the legal system or the recall process. My reasoning: The IAD and IAOC are making commercial (as opposed to standards) decisions and the result of that may be contracts or other commercial relationships. Its inappropriate in the extreme to insert a third (or fourth or fifth) party into that relationship. The IAD/IAOC relationship is going to be somewhat one of employee/employer and its inappropriate to insert external parties into that relationship. The documentation requirement is so that when the appointment process happens there will be some audit trail as to who did what to whom. The IETF appeals process is not appropriate for a commercial action. A standards action may adversely affect competitors across a broad spectrum of companies. This commercial action only affects the bidders or winners. Please, let's get the IETF out of the metaphorical administrative back seat and get them back to doing what they do well - technology. At 05:47 AM 1/19/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: Trying to close this item, which is not resolved in the -04 draft: I believe that the list discussion has converged on very rough consensus (Sam and Avri being the people who worry that we're building a DoS attack defense that we don't need, but Brian, Scott and John Klensin, at least, strongly arguing that we need that mechanism) on the following text, which I suggested on Jan 13, replacing the last 3 paragraphs of section 3.4: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- Can we live with this? Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
Interesting... To the extent that the IAD and IAOC are dealing with decisions about implementing requirements, I agree. To the extent that the IAD and IAOC are applying judgement to interpret the best needs of the IETF (i.e., determining those requirements), I disagree. I think it's a little heavy-handed to have to instigate a recall procedure if the IAD (or IAOC) seem not to have heard the *community's* requirements for meeting location. So, (how) can we make the distinction without creating a decision tree of epic proportions? Leslie. Michael StJohns wrote: Hi Harald et al - I apologize for chiming in on this so late, but I had hopes it would get worked out without me pushing over apple carts. I can't support this and I recommend deleting this section in its entirety. My cut on this: The decisions of the IAD should be subject to review (and in some cases ratification) ONLY by the IAOC. The decisions of the IAOC should not be subject to further review by the IETF at large. The proper venue for expressing tangible displeasure with a decision is during the appointment and reappointment process. (Note, I'm not precluding pre-decision comment by the community at large, and I encourage the IAOC to seek such comment where appropriate but once the decision is made its time to stop whining and get on with things) The decisions of the IAOC must be publicly documented to include voting records for each formal action. The IAOC and IAD must accept public or private comment but there is no requirement to either respond or comment on such missives. The IAOC and IAD should not be subject to the IETF appeals process. The appropriate venue for egregious enough complaints on the commercial side is the legal system or the recall process. My reasoning: The IAD and IAOC are making commercial (as opposed to standards) decisions and the result of that may be contracts or other commercial relationships. Its inappropriate in the extreme to insert a third (or fourth or fifth) party into that relationship. The IAD/IAOC relationship is going to be somewhat one of employee/employer and its inappropriate to insert external parties into that relationship. The documentation requirement is so that when the appointment process happens there will be some audit trail as to who did what to whom. The IETF appeals process is not appropriate for a commercial action. A standards action may adversely affect competitors across a broad spectrum of companies. This commercial action only affects the bidders or winners. Please, let's get the IETF out of the metaphorical administrative back seat and get them back to doing what they do well - technology. At 05:47 AM 1/19/2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote: Trying to close this item, which is not resolved in the -04 draft: I believe that the list discussion has converged on very rough consensus (Sam and Avri being the people who worry that we're building a DoS attack defense that we don't need, but Brian, Scott and John Klensin, at least, strongly arguing that we need that mechanism) on the following text, which I suggested on Jan 13, replacing the last 3 paragraphs of section 3.4: -- 3.5 Decision review In the case where someone questions a decision of the IAD or the IAOC, he or she may ask for a formal review of the decision. The request for review is addressed to the person or body that made the decision. It is up to that body to decide to make a response, and on the form of a response. The IAD is required to respond to requests for a review from the IAOC, and the IAOC is required to respond to requests for a review of a decision from the IAB or from the IESG. If members of the community feel that they are unjustly denied a response to a request for review, they may ask the IAB or the IESG to make the request on their behalf. Answered requests for review and their responses are made public. --- Can we live with this? Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5
At 00:21 20/01/2005, Leslie Daigle wrote: Interesting... To the extent that the IAD and IAOC are dealing with decisions about implementing requirements, I agree. To the extent that the IAD and IAOC are applying judgement to interpret the best needs of the IETF (i.e., determining those requirements), I disagree. I think it's a little heavy-handed to have to instigate a recall procedure if the IAD (or IAOC) seem not to have heard the *community's* requirements for meeting location. So, (how) can we make the distinction without creating a decision tree of epic proportions? Just say that they are to consult the IETF when they do not feel sure about the best needs of the IETF. A recall procedure would probably not be called the first time, even if the issue is important (preserving stability), but can be called even on a small issue if they repeatedly do not consult the IETF when a disagreement/uncertainity is obvious. So, the recall procedure is not on a possibly disputed case - the dispute would harm the whole IETF - but on a repeated Management poor practice where accumulated displeasure will probably make the case less disputed. It also permits IETF to vote warnings. jfc ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
