--On Saturday, February 23, 2013 08:04 +0000 Brian E Carpenter
<brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
...
By the same token, it seems that a reasoned message saying
why something is important and valuable would help the IESG,
if the document is on a somewhat obscure topic. However, as
John Leslie pointed out, that isn't strictly necessary, since
silence is equivalent to saying "no objection".
Two small additions.
First, "no objection" and silence by IESG members are roughly
equivalent, but approval of a document with complete community
silence (either outside the relevant WG or on an individual
submission) makes some ADs nervous (and, IMO, should) and, in
theory at least, would be subject to appeal on the grounds that
there is no actual evidence of _community_ consensus. IMO at
least, if a question is asked about a document and there are
nothing but blank stares, that is not evidence of consensus. As
draft-resnick-on-consensus effectively points out, that depends
a bit on what question is asked and where. However, I note that
RFC 2026 contains language like (Section 1.2) "establishing
widespread community consensus", (Section 6.5) "genuine
consensus achieved" and that doesn't imply to me that approval
by speechless zombies is sufficient.
Second, I strongly agree about warnings again clutter on the
IETF list and that "+1" is pretty useless to all concerned.
What seems to be missing from the thread is that there are other
alternatives. In particular, I think it may be reasonable to
send a note to the IESG (not the IETF list) or even to just the
AD who is responsible for a document (who can always forward to
the IESG if he or she thinks that necessary), the says "I've
studied this and don't see any problems", "I've read this and,
while I'm not an expert in the field, I don't see a problem",
"after reviewing this, I don't see any problems and it appears
to be useful" or something along those lines. None of those
help much with "why should this be approved", but they do
provide evidence that people have actually reviewed the document
rather than letting it go on the grounds that someone else will
do so.
All IMHO, YMMV, of course.
For me as well.
john