Re: To "lose the argument in the WG"

I just posted a note on the IETF list in one of the two discussions Peteis refering to.


Yes, I watched the discussion in the WG.

It took me a while to realize that the WG had really ended up in thestate it did. A state I consider a failure in terms of the document.

So it seems to me that I need to say so during the IETF LC.

Yours,
Joel

On 2/14/17 12:25 AM, Pete Resnick wrote:

On 13 Feb 2017, at 23:07, Dave Crocker wrote:

    On 2/13/2017 8:50 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:

        The WG participant who felt that the functionality should be
        in-scope
        and is perfectly within bounds to make the case that the
        functionality
        is somehow necessary during Last Call. The chair and/or AD should
        summarize why they judged the functionality to be out of scope.
        Others
        in the community might want to take up the argument and explain
        why it
        should be added.

    This sounds like reasonable theory, but is actually rather
    destructive practice.

    It takes the position that Last Call is acceptable to use as a form
    of appeals process, where folk who have been working on the topic
    for an extended time have to defend their choices to a collection of
    other folk who are new to the topic and are, therefore, making snap
    judgements.

    While, yes, there will be times that the new folk see something new
    or better, that's not the usual occurrence. The usual occurrence is
    that folk who are experienced with the topic and are tired from the
    extended effort have to rehash their work and defend it to folk who
    have not done their homework.

    Either working groups are where the work really does get done or
    they aren't. The burden of having to worry about and deal with a
    larger, less-involved community being frankly encouraged to
    second-guess the folk who have actual skin in the game, is an
    example of what makes the formality of IETF process onerous.

    Last Call should not require a working group to be subject to random
    demands to defend itself. It should be for independent reviews that
    see something the working group missed. Missed is different from "we
    had a choice and we made it".

    If a fresh reviewer really does do their homework and really does
    present a good case for making a different decision, that's fine.
    But it also is quite different than supporting the re-hashing
    exercise that occurrs when an existing wg participant expresses
    dissatisfaction with a decision made during normal wg processes.

Would that we disagreed.

Nowhere did I say that Last Call should be an opportunity to simply
rehash, without having done homework. Indeed, you will note where I said:

        Do note that in both cases, I think it's only fair that the
        person bringing up the issue clearly states what's going on. For
        instance, in the second case the person should really have said,
        "This was judged out-of-scope by the WG/chair, but I think it
        ought not be out-of-scope because of X, Y, and Z". Simply
        saying, "Please make this change to the document" as if it were
        never discussed before is not helpful to the rest of the list
        during Last Call.

For a WG participant to just throw out the same argument made earlier
without explanation /and/ with the expectation that the WG ought be
required to relitigate the whole discussion is /not/ reasonable. The
case needs to be made that the WG (or the chair in judging) did in fact
miss something when they came to rough consensus. The chair, not the
entire WG, should explain why the conclusion was arrived at. (That
should really be written up in the shepherd report, if we're being
diligent.) Others can choose to ask questions or push back on either
position if they think something serious has been missed. But to
dismiss, out of hand, any such claim with "too late, already decided" is
also unreasonable.

Homework is required. Pointing out the failure is required. Avoiding
simply restating a preference is required. I'm just objecting to the
blanket statement, "If the WG came to consensus, even roughly, the
discussion is over."

(As I said earlier, in the case of something being declared
out-of-scope, I'd expect the person bringing up the point to explain why
being in-scope was essential. To fail to do so is bogus.)

    ps. Pete's other point was about a claim that an issue didn't really
    get settled and needs further review. That's quite a different case.
    Maybe it's worthy for LC discussion. Maybe it isn't. Dunno.

    pps. There's at least one case where I chose to attempt to use LC as
    a kind of appeals process, since I deemed the wg process to have
    been significantly flawed, including the cognizant AD. Like all good
    rules, there need to be some exceptions thoughtfully permitted,
    though of course my effort in this example of an exception bore no
    fruit...

I also agree that this should be fairly unusual. Again, what got to me
was the automatic rejection of such an argument.

pr
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Pete Resnick http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/
<http://www.qualcomm.com/%7Epresnick/>
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