ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: draft-housley-iesg-rfc3932bis and the optional/mandatory nature of IESG notes

2009-09-02 20:06:08


--On Wednesday, September 02, 2009 13:53 -0400 Sam Hartman
<hartmans-ietf(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu> wrote:

John, in principle,  I would be delighted by this option if
you made a few more changes to make the RFC process more
accountable:

1) Open up the rfc-editorial board so that it was selected by
some sort of nomcom/community process.  That nomcom could of
course draw from a broader community than the IETF as a whole

2) Provide an appeals path for IAB decisions related to the
RFC-editor function

I have a lot more faith in the IETF process than I do the RFC
editor process.  I believe that the RFC editor process is more
open to a different type of abuse than the IESG process, but I
believe we have a far more open process for addressing
problems with the IESG than we do with IAB decisions about the
RFC editor or with the RFC editor process itself.

However, absent these changes, I don't believe there would be
appropriate checks and balances present.

Sam,

Brian and Joel covered most of what I would have said had I
gotten to your note earlier.  I would add only three things to
their remarks:

(1) Checks and balances against what?  I trust the answer is not
"publication of high-quality articles which contain content with
which some AD happens to disagree" because that is the only
thing that has been at issue in the past.  On other matters, the
RFC Editor has _voluntarily_ deferred to the IESG, often going
well beyond what the current procedures require.  Remember that
RFC Editor acceptance of an IESG Note is voluntary today,
regardless of what the IESG might believe, _and_ that the
"written notice" procedure I suggested has been followed, as a
professional courtesy, for years, without any such requirement
being written down anywhere.   Put differently, what is the
threat model against which you are trying to defend?

(2) If I have to make a choice, I prefer to design systems to
deal with real and identified threats rather than purely
theoretical ones.  As I pointed out, we've had repeated examples
over the years of the IESG and/or individual ADs abusing the
independent submission process and/or the RFC Editor and zero
examples of the RFC Editor handling a request from the IESG
unreasonably or arbitrarily.   So why do you believe we need
more protection against the possibility of RFC Editor abuse than
we do against IESG abuse or, from a different perspective,
believe that the wider community would be better served by
tilting the balance even further toward the IESG?

(3) As Dave Crocker is fond of pointing out, the Nomcom cannot
be expected to make good appointments in areas that are outside
the expertise of most of its members... there is just no
foundation on which a Nomcom without that expertise can evaluate
candidates.  Given that, why do you believe that the Nomcom
could select an effective editorial board, with or without a
broader selection process?  Neither democracy nor randomness
seem to me to be guarantees of competence.   And, again, what
real problem do you think that would solve?

    john


     


_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>