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Re: IESG approval status of rfc2821bis

2008-06-06 12:21:48

On 6/6/08 at 2:36 PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:

DISCUSS should only be used if the document has a showstopper that needs discussion. The IESG needs to get their act together on that.

I disagree with the statement on how DISCUSS should be used. I don't think that's either the intent of DISCUSS or the way that it should be interpreted.

I believe DISCUSS simply means that an AD believes some item of a document needs further discussion before it should be approved for publication and/or its intended status.

OK, but go back to my two criteria:

(a) The issue cannot be addressed by a non-blocking comment.
(b) The issue is so controversial that they cannot be dealt with by an RFC Editor note at publication time.

The present document is supposed to be (a). The 2822upd problem is supposed to be (b). In the 2822upd case, I think it's perfectly clear: No "further discussion" was needed; it was just an ABNF typo. It should have been dealt with by an RFC Editor note or just a quick note to the editor. DISCUSS was the wrong mechanism.

But let's assume that the AD who put the discuss on 2821bis felt that they needed a DISCUSS and not just a non-blocking comment because discussion really needed to take place. I'm not convinced of that, but I'm happy to make that assumption. Let's look at your path for resolution:

What is needed, fundamentally, is a response to the AD's concerns. This might take the form of:

- a revised version of the document(s) with changes along the lines of the AD's request, or - a revised version of the document(s) with other changes intended to address the AD's concern, or - an explanation of why the AD's concerns do not warrant changes to the document, or - some combination of the above - e.g. a revised document with some of the AD's requested changes, or concerns otherwise addressed, along with an explanation of why the remaining changes/concerns do not warrant changes to the document.

Well, in this case, the third item was used: An explanation was sent by the author saying that the AD's concerns do not warrant changes. The answer back from the AD was, "No, sorry. Not satisfied." That's the appeal point.

I agree with you that DISCUSS is warranted for things that actually require discussion. We may disagree on how serious something needs to be in order to warrant such discussion. But in the two cases I cited, neither of our criteria warranted the DISCUSS, in 2821bis because the DISCUSS remains after the explanation was sent, and in the 2822upd case because no discussion was actually required.

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--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated