Re: draft-kolkman-appeal-support

Thanks to all that replied (and thanks to David for spawning a new  
subject header).
Below are a few thoughts and replies to things people brought up.

---

In a private communication somebody suggested that this draft is  
targeted to one or two specific individuals. That is not the case.
---

Frank wrote:
> And please withdraw...
If this turns out a extremely bad idea then I'll leave the draft be  
and we have the archive to proof that this idea has been raised and  
shot. You just shot the first bullet :-) .
---

Ned wrote:
> In any case, I think there is far more danger associated with  
> excluding the
> wanted than there is to including the unwanted.
As for my motivation to choose NOMCOM eligibility for supporters.

My underlying requirement is that supporters should understand the  
IETF culture and its structures. Besides, IETF participants should  
know the supporters. The idea behind that is that it creates a  
certain level of accountability between peers. All in all, supporters  
should individuals that can be clearly identified as stakeholder in  
the IETF (John used "materially concerned party").
I hope that we agree on that requirement; now we only have to define  
what makes a stakeholder (the devil in the detail)...
It is clear that anybody in a 'leadership' role can be clearly and  
unambiguously identified as stakeholder that understand IETF culture  
and structure. (All present and past WG-Chairs, IESG and IAB members,  
the draft should be clarified on this).
For non-leadership roles identifying stake-holders is more difficult.  
As far as I know there is only one _existing_ somewhat formal method  
to establish that; nomcom eligibility. I too, am hesitant with  
respect to using the nomcom criterion is the only  mechanism for  
which there is running code.
The immediate and obvious problem with the Nomcom criterion is that  
it excludes people that everybody knows are stake-holders  but never  
go to meetings, or go to them on less regular basis.  If there is an  
easy and unambiguous way to identify those IETF stakeholders I would  
want to include them. I've seen a few suggestions:
 - I have a feeling that writing an I-D puts the bar to low.
 - Having written an IETF-track document is a clear and unambiguous  
criterion. (Note that I used IETF-track here)
 - I do not think that membership of USENIX, IEEE, or other  
organizations helps to identify IETF stakeholders.
Have I missed suggestions?

----

In private communication it was also suggested that the supporters  
may should also take a role as mediator. I think that is not a  
requirement but I suppose that having the appellant talk to  
supporters may cause beneficial side effects.
----


John argued:
>         (1) The "supporter" procedure/requirement should be
>         triggered (...)
The problem I have with it is that it is a patch upon the patch.  
Besides, having an appeal denied is not always a _bad_ thing. I could  
imagine cases where one appeals because having the appeal denied  
actually clarifies how our procedures work.
>         
>         (2) The definition of someone permitted to be a
>         "supporter" must, as several people have pointed out
>         (Ned, IMO, most eloquently), be broad enough to include
>         active IETF contributors who don't attend meetings.
I agree; see above.


>         One class of action that might need appealing would be a
>         procedural decision that would [further] impede the
>         ability of those people to effectively get work done in
>         the IETF and they _must_ have standing to appeal such
>         measures by themselves or in conjunction with others who
>         are similarly impacted.

I understand your concern, but I think/hope it is academic.

I hope that it is clear from the I-D that _anybody_ can appeal as  
long as there are two people willing to say "the appeal body should  
put time into looking at this". And I actually trust there will be  
sufficient people in the pool that understand that their default  
response should be "support" of the appeal. That trust, I realize, is  
not hardcoded in the process.

> (...)   
>         (3) The idea that, if someone successfully appeals, or
>         supports an appeal, on one action, they should be
>         permanently barred from supporting similar appeals in
>         the future is seriously broken.
That is not what I intended, I mend to say:
If a supporter has supported an appellant, that same supporter cannot  
support that particular appellant again. The supporter can support  
other appellants.
>         It could only have a
>         chilling effect on the generation of appeals, legitimate
>         ones as well as bogus ones, because one would want to
>         save endorsements for important-enough occasions.
As long as the pool of supporters is sufficiently large compared to  
the number of appeals from one appellant I do not think that will  
happen. We could set a time-out on the "supporter not being able to  
support the same appellant".
I do not have the exact size of the nomcom eligibles but it is around  
a 1000 people.
David wrote:
> Perhaps Olafur might even be convinced to produce text in his draft
> that encourages individuals to provide their support in proxy, or to
> allow IAB/IESG members to waive.
_Olaf_ :-) wrote in the I-D:
"  Note that the appeal body may choose to consider an appeal even when
   there are not sufficient supporters."


Frank wrote:
(...)

> Maybe simply demand that appeals - and while
> we're at it interop reports - have to be formatted and published as  
> I-D,
> huge PDFs with the decent charme of "I could print my mail" are a  
> pain.
I think this that formatting is a  different issue, draft-carpenter- 
ietf-disputes is the place where it should be.
----

I hope the above clarifies where I came from and what my attentions  
are.... I must say that I find John's as quoted below pretty  
appealing too...
> We change the possible responses to an appeal from, broadly,
> "yes" or "no" to "yes", "no", and "no, and this is irrational
> and/or obviously totally without merit".  The latter, which
> could itself be appealed but not by the subject (only by someone
> else on his, her, or its behalf),  would imply something
> analogous to posting restrictions: a period in which the person
> was barred from appealing, or needed supporters, or something
> else.  Similar to posting restrictions, the requirements/
> barriers could be escalated if they needed to be applied
> additional times.
As a first response: I do not think that the outcome of appeals are  
limited to "yes" and "no" currently and that the appeal bodies in the  
IETF can actually say "sorry, no merit". However I think that it is  
time-consuming to actually make that assessment.


--Olaf
  (no hats)



-----------------------------------------------------------
Olaf M. Kolkman
NLnet Labs
http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/

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