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Re: consensus and anonymity

2007-05-31 12:50:35
From: "John C Klensin" <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>

--On Thursday, 31 May, 2007 10:22 -0700 Michael Thomas
<mat(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:

So might having the ability to contact the chairs in private
to register their
preference be reasonable? I don't recall seeing this in any of
the working groups I've participated in.

(Aside to Michael - this may mean that if there WERE private discussions, they were actually private! "if you HAD seen this..." :-)

But I certainly know of cases where it has been done, often with
copies to the relevant AD as a safety precaution.  It is worth
noting that even the new instructions about last calls indicate
the option of sending comments only to the IESG, rather than the
IETF list, if there are exceptional circumstances. Judgment
about what constitutes the latter are apparently up to the
submitter.

It's worth mentioning that the recent change to last call instructions reflected a sense that back-channel discussions with the IESG should be the exception, not the rule. When the IESG discussed this, I asked about public last call comments that set off blizzards of postings, and multiple ADs thought transparency was worth having to dig out of a blizzard from time to time.

I think this is more evidence that we need more flexibility and
good sense, not more rigid rules.

I rarely rephrase John's words, but in this case, I'm thinking "more good sense and flexibility", in that order :-)

   john

Thanks,

Spencer

p.s. I also agree with John's point that changing WG chairs when one becomes an AD is not likely to improve quality or throughput in many cases, but I'm trying to rate-limit my NUMBER of postings these days... that's definitely the corner case for "no ADs/WG chairs at the same time".


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