--On Tuesday, 17 October, 2006 11:10 -0400 Sam Hartman
<hartmans-ietf(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu> wrote:
Michael> Can an appeal be rejected with merit?
Yes. I think Robert's recent appeal was rejected that way. I
personally think that Jefsey's appeal against the LTRU
registry doc set was a reasonable appeal although we declined
to make any changes. I suspect many people may disagree with
me and argue that this appeal was without merit.
I think the SPF and Sender ID appeals clearly had merit. I'm
not sure whether we rejected them though.
Sam,
For me, the bottom-line question in each of those cases is
either:
(1) Whether you think the IETF and its program and
processes were injured or improved by the questions
being raised on appeal, and
(2) Whether you think the appellants intent was negative
enough, relative to general IETF functioning, that you
think measures should be taken to discourage them from
filing further appeals or to make it more difficult for
them to do so.
You pick which question you like. To me, they are essentially
equivalent. And, to me, unless the answer to the chosen
question is "yes", then Olaf's proposal, as written, either adds
bureaucracy without accomplishing anything or, worse,
discourages the filing of appeals that are actually beneficial
to the community --in terms of the discussion they cause if not
in changing a particular decision.
If "without merit" doesn't describe the condition I'm looking
for well, then let's work on devising a different term and test.
And, if deciding which appeals are vexatious and which ones are
ok is too burdensome --especially relative to hearing a few more
appeals-- then, IMO, we shouldn't be spending time on trying to
figure out ways to make appeals harder.
To me, discouraging behavior we want (and, IMO, need) to
encourage in order to make things a little bit more difficult
for a few bad guys is a fairly poor tradeoff. If we had a lot
of bad guy-induced problems that were paralyzing us and no other
ideas, then it might be worth it. But, if we don't have that
level of obviously bad behavior, we should be considering
options that focus on the behavior we consider unacceptable, not
on making things more difficult for everyone. I guess that, if
we could figure out a way to do it, that would make me a
supporter of Mike's suggestions -- either the "community
service" version or the "orange jumpsuit" one.
Of course, as suggested in earlier notes, I'd find the idea of
endorsements ("supporters") completely acceptable and even a
good idea (i) if anyone in who participates actively in the IETF
could do an endorsement, (ii) if there were no restriction on
repeat endorsements, (iii) if the endorsements were expected to
contain analysis and information that actually contributed to
the consideration of the appeal, and (iv) if the whole
endorsement idea had been sufficient thought through that we
could have confidence that requests for endorsements did not set
off discussions firestorms on the IETF list. I haven't seen
that proposal yet, and, for me, trying to design it falls under
the moratorium on process work I'm trying to enforce on myself.
regards,
john
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