--On Saturday, June 21, 2025 03:06 -0700 S Moonesamy <sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi John, > At 04:10 PM 20-06-2025, John C Klensin wrote: >> This is what motivated me to write. I think Stephen is right and, >> to some degree at least, the IESG statement (including the part >> quoted above) may be a symptom of a problem or two. I've often >> wondered if the use of the term "appeal" might be part of that >> problem. The most useful "appeals" are those focused on things >> that might have been missed, or inadequately considered as >> possibly important, in the original decision. As soon as things >> are couched as "conflict resolution" (above and in the first >> sentence of the Statement), we start losing the very useful >> assumption that we are all working together to get the right >> results -- "end up doing the right thing" in Stephen's terms -- >> and see them as an attack on an AD or the IESG. That leads to >> self-congratulatory statements if there are no appeals in a given >> period and other ways to discourage the types of appeals that >> would be the most useful. > > I sent the following message a few months back: > https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ssh/asnehgSVxlxw6ApVFqjpvqeix > 5Q/ I did it because I was afraid to ask. I did not include an > explanation for the request to keep it simple. But part of the point, IMO, is that, if we view appeals as more of a process of making sure that all perspectives were considered in reaching consensus or making a decision, then a requirement to explain --ideally in the sort of short and clear message that I seem to have trouble writing because I prefer to explore details and subtleties -- is obvious and does not require additional rules. > The IETF statement is quite bland, in my opinion. One of the > problems which happens every now and then is a disagreement on > whether there was consensus or not. It generally happens at > working group level. I don't see that as an Area Director or > Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) problem. We might disagree there. Over the years, we've seen an evolution toward WGs becoming very narrowly focused on a range of topics and, probably consequently, smaller. Sometimes that has lead to a WG all of whose participants share the same general assumptions and points of view, even though there may be others in the community with very different ones. Even if someone with a different point of view tried to participate, being the lone voice with a different (and maybe unpopular) perspective can be difficult and such people sometimes give up out of frustration even though there is no evil intent within the WG. Others may have insufficient time or resources to participate actively in the WG despite having expertise in the topic and therefore wait until WG LC or IETF LC to intervene, something that can be deeply frustrating to a WG that thought it was finished. Those kinds of things can easily lead to a situation in which there is the appearance of consensus within the WG (e.g., a report that there were no, or only one, dissent) but where those important issues have not been noted and discussed. Do these things happen? Yes, and I think increasingly so as WGs and topics get more specialized. There have been several times in recent years where I've started down the path to appeals of those sorts of situations. In almost all cases, the issues have been reopened and resolved after informal conversations with WG Chairs and with the AD at least copied; a few have ended up in appeals to the IESG. And, again, unless the IESG is dismissive without either examination of the issues or requiring the WG to reexamine them, I think that is how the system is supposed to work. > That IESG report could mean two things; everyone is doing a great > job or "we are happy when that number is zero". Anything other > number means that there are people out there who do not understand > that anything else will be viewed as an attack. Who knows; maybe > being open is also an attack? And those are places where I don't think the IETF can go if we want to remain effective and have our consensus documents be consistent with Doing the Right Thing and, to the extent possible, agreement in the larger implementer and user communities. If being open, or questioning decisions made without consideration of significant issues, is perceived as a problem, then I think we are in big trouble. But, again, I think all of that needs to occur in a spirit of trying to work together to get high quality results. If it turns into some variation on "I need to win (at any cost) and that means you need to lose" then I think we have, or are at least headed into, problems far more serious than issues about particular appeals, email functionality, etc., and may need to move toward discussions about disruptive and destructive behavior and not, e.g., quibbles about email functionality. >> With a different community -- especially IESG, but more generally-- >> view of appeals, it becomes more reasonable and obvious to treat >> quirky email setups, quirky people, and quirky submissions as >> simple cases of the nature of the mechanisms used in submitting >> the appeal as getting in the way of the IESG efficiently >> understanding the perspective and request. It then should be >> practical to move forward with a model of the IESG working with >> the appellant to be sure the issues and resulting differences of >> opinion are understood and then consider them in that light rather >> than sitting in judgment to resolve a conflict. And, from the >> appellant's side, to assume (or at least pretend to assume) good >> faith on the part of the >> decision-maker. E.g., that there was a misunderstanding or lack >> of sufficient information rather than, e.g., malice or bias. > There is a phrase in Latin: "audiatur et altera pars". It means: > "May the other side also be heard". I gather that it is because > there are two sides to a story. You may have heard of the story > before if you are not that young. It would save you some effort > not to have to listen to it again but, then, would it be fair to do > that? Yes to the point and no to "fair". Howeer, one or two of my oddities is that I not only tend to be sensitive to the possibility of even more than two sides to a story but that I am less concerned about fairness (or perceptions of it) than I am about careful consideration of all of the issues that bear on a problem, what tradeoffs (if any) exist among them, and whether a consensus middle ground is possible without creating a solution that is worse than any of the other alternatives. Of course, fairness facilitates all of that and might turn out to be the same thing, but I think better and quicker progress is often facilitated by concentrating on the issues themselves (and trying to be sure that all of them are exposed) than about debates about whether some one, or some process, is sufficiently fair or not. best, john
