Joseph Salowey writes:
> The chairs feel that the following is the best approach to move forward:
> Adopt the draft and park it
There was a call _for adoption_. The specified call period is over. The
chairs now have to issue a clear declaration of either "Yes, there was
consensus to adopt" or "No, there was not consensus to adopt", so that
there's a record of the result and so that people who think the chairs
erred (in whichever direction) have the ability to appeal.
"Adopt the draft and park it" leaves the status completely unclear:
* Some people will understand "park" as an obfuscated way to say
"not adopted". If that's the situation, there should be a clear
"No, there was not consensus to adopt", rather than the chairs
playing games with terminology.
* Some people will understand "park" as an obfuscated way to say
"adopted but the chairs are suggesting that the group not move
forward on this". If that's the situation, there should be a clear
"Yes, there was consensus to adopt", and the suggestion should be
clearly labeled as merely a suggestion.
* Some people will understand "park" as an obfuscated way to say
"adopted but the chairs are announcing their plans to sabotage
forward motion on the document, so don't bother working on it". If
that's the situation, there should be a clear "Yes, there was
consensus to adopt" and a clear statement of the chair plans.
* Some people will understand "park" as the chairs declaring
consensus on some intermediate status---which is definitely
improper; there was no call for consensus on that status.
Furthermore, beyond clearly declaring the results of the call, the
chairs have to make clear how they arrived at this declaration. BCP 9
requires the chairs to "maintain a publicly accessible record of" their
work, including "complete and accurate minutes" of their meetings, and
including copies of "all written contributions"; where are the records?
A few months ago, when the chairs declared consensus to adopt
draft-connolly-tls-mlkem-key-agreement (despite unanswered objections
from several people), they first said "we have consensus to adopt"
without explanation, and then later said that they declared consensus
"because there is clearly sufficient interest to work on this draft":
i.e., there were "sufficient" +1 votes so the objections didn't matter.
For draft-reddy-tls-slhdsa, the chairs seem to be switching from looking
at "sufficient interest" to looking at "the ratio of the pros and cons".
There's no statement of who was counted as a "pro" and "con" for
double-checking; there isn't even a summary statement of what the ratio
(supposedly) was; and there's no statement of what cutoff the chairs
applied to this ratio to end up with a decision.
---D. J. Bernstein
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