Subject: [Rfced-future] 2nd draft : Non-approval resolution

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2021 15:43:39 -0000

Hi,

As previously noted, Eliot (lawd bless 'im) has bullied^H^H^H persuaded me
to take a second pass trying to factor in some of the comments on the list.

I can't promise that I have captured *exactly* what everyone said,
especially as some of the opinions were conflicting. What I have done is try
to move the text towards something that might be a compromise between the
positions. FWIW, I went back to the "Discuss" position because it carries
some implication that we are all going to try to get together and resolve
this.

I also tried to cut some of the waffle. I do tend to waffle.

There are two open points. I'd humbly suggest that the people who raised
these issues might try to throw some text at a solution. 

1. At point C there is the concept of a "community last call". This was
raised by Martin and Russ, and I suggest that they put forward a proposal.
The challenge might be to find a way to identify and reach the "community"
(it's easy in the IETF, but very hard for "the world").

2. At point J there is the concept of "an appeal" in the case of Discusses
being unreconcilable. This was raised by Adam and Mark. The challenge, as
they noted, is working out to whom one appeals.

Hope this is useful (which is, after all, the only point).

Adrian

====

Decision-making procedures

A. Development Cycle
The WG is expected to show its work to the approval group and attempt to be
aware of issues that the approval group might be concerned about.
The members of the approval group are expected to pay attention to the work
of the WG and speak up when they have concerns.
The intention is early discovery of issues and avoidance of late surprises.

B. WG last call
The WG last calls its work following the model of an IETF WG. It is assumed
that all members of the approval group will participate the WG last call, in
an attempt to expose any of their concerns that still remain, and to reach
agreement. 

C. Community last call / public comment
It is unclear whether this step (corresponding to IETF last call) exists and
how it would be operated. Further discussion needed per Martin and Russ.

D. Participation by members of the approval group
As noted in steps A and B, participation in WG work by members of the
approval group is expected.
It is understood that, from time to time, a member of the approval group may
find it impossible to participate in a particular discussion: in this case,
they are encourage to send delegates.

E. Discussion by the approval group
The approval group shall discuss the output of the WG. 
Such discussion is to take place normally within 2 weeks of the WG making a
request.
The 2 week period may be stretched by holidays or IETF meetings, but the WG
must be notified if this is the case.
All comments and concerns shall be documented to the WG which may take them
into consideration.

F. Approval by the approval group
The voting members of the approval group shall formally ballot by the end of
the discussion period in E.
Each voting member may ballot one of:
- Yes: Means "I support this work." A Yes ballot may be accompanied by
comments indicating thoughts and issues that should be looked at, but are
non-blocking. 
- Discuss: Means "I have a serious concern that I would like to Discuss
before this work can proceed." Voting members are expected to actively
engage in resolving their Discuss positions.
- No Position: Only used in exceptional cases such as illness or long
vacation. Voting members are expected to try to present a different ballot
position.
- Abstain: Means "I have a serious concern, but recognise that it will not
be resolved." An Abstain ballot is a way for a voting member to get out of
the way of progress even though it worries them. The existence of an Abstain
ballot does not imply the work is flawed, but indicates a genuinely
irreconcilable difference of opinion.
- Recuse: Means "It would be improper for me to have a position." For
example, if the proposal was to remunerate the voting member.

G. Reasons for a Discuss
The approval group shall maintain a list of reasons for a Discuss ballot. A
Discuss that does not conform to one of these reasons shall not be valid,
and must be re-balloted.
An initial draft of this list is as follows:
- The proposal would cause significant harm to one of the streams
- The proposal would cause significant harm to the series
- The proposal would cause inconvenience to a group of consumers, the
benefit of the change does not outweigh the cost of the inconvenience, and
that inconvenience could be overcome by using a different approach

G. Work proceeds if...
At the end of the discussion period (point E) or at any later time, there is
at least one "Yes" and no "Discuss" ballot. That is, work fails to proceed
unless it has approval.

H. Resolution of Discusses
A voting member who ballots Discuss shall explain their concerns to the WG
and shall engage in discussions attempting to resolve the concerns and
arrive at a compromise or other agreement.
When such agreement is reached, the voting member should transition their
ballot to a "Yes".
A voting member may transition their ballot to an "Abstain" at any time,
although all parties are encouraged to attempt to reach agreement.

I. Single Discuss resolution
In the event of there being exactly one Discuss ballot, and there being no
timely progress to agreement between the WG and the member of the approval
group who issued the ballot, the WG may request that the approval group
exercise an exception resolution process as follows:
- The approval group will discuss the concern giving rise to the ballot and
any proposed resolution from the WG
- The approval group shall attempt to reach consensus on whether to sustain
the Discuss or to release the work, but failing that shall vote with a
simple majority determining the outcome
- If the Discuss is sustained, return to step H
- If the work is released, the Discuss ballot shall be changed to an Abstain
and the work shall progress

J. Appeals
In the event that more than one Discuss cannot be resolved or that a single
Discuss is sustained by the approval group, there is a right of appeal.
The details of this need to be worked out per Adam and Mark.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 11:02:19 +1300

I'm going to say simply yes, good enough to go forward.

Especially, yes to "Discuss" rather than either "Block" or "No". Discussion is the goal.

> how it would be operated. Further discussion needed per Martin and Russ.

I'd say we're asking for trouble if we don't have a public comment period.
That could be done via a web form to limit trolling etc. And the RSA/E
(or somebody else) needs to be responsible for outreach.

Regards
   Brian C

---

From: "Martin Thomson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:30:08 +1100

I think that this is good.

The community last call process I had imagined was simple: an email is sent to a number of venues asking for input, with a 2-4 week period allowed as circumstances dictate.  This is not the internal check that the WG performs, but one that deliberately seeks input from a broader audience.  Feedback from this stage is intended to inform AB decisions, but it also might cause the WG to retract their request for approval (which would allow them to address a concern without forcing a vote).

As a starting point, I would suggest that we simply document that a list of email addresses to which the announcement/request be sent.  It might be seeded with rfc-interest@ and then added to as requested.  I expect that last-call@ would be a good candidate and iab@ might be.  The IRTF/IRSG and ISEB might also have their own preferences, but I'm not familiar enough with those to say.  It might also be of interest to other groups like IEEE, ITU-T, and so forth.  My suggestion is that all we need to document is that the AB maintain the list and that they accept all reasonable requests to be added.

Nit: There are two G's.

On Wed, Feb 17, 2021, at 02:43, Adrian Farrel wrote:
> -- 
> Rfced-future mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.iab.org/mailman/listinfo/rfced-future
>

---

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 09:03:26 +0900

> As a starting point, I would suggest that we simply document that a list of email addresses to which the announcement/request be sent.  It might be seeded with rfc-interest@ and then added to as re…

Not much to add. Putting a notice on the top page of 
https://www.rfc-editor.org/ (and a few other notorious pages) also 
should be considered.

In addition, I think the above list and locations should also be used 
for a heads-up when starting some serious work. As an example, when 
working on the RFC XML format version N, don't just send a note when you 
think you are done (at last call), but send a message that invites 
interested parties when you're starting.

Regards,   Martin.

---

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 12:34:14 +0900

> some implication that we are all going to try to get together and resolve

Looks good to me, except for two points:

- You still have the approval threshold at 1 YES. As others also have
   said, this is not appropriate for the topics at hand. The 'abstain'
   should probably also go.
   (second point G, with some influence on point F)
   (In the IESG, it's okay that a draft be approved essentially on the
    responsibility of a single AD; it should never happen that we have
    something RFC-related approved and later, one AB member gets blamed
    for some outcome because all the others can say: I didn't vote
    yes on this on.)

- Point G mentions consumers, but producers aren't mentioned anywhere.
   While it is fair to expect that we need more care to make sure we look
   out for the needs of consumers, I think producers should also be
   mentioned, at the very least for completeness.

Regards,    Martin.

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 17:20:52 +1100

This looks good.

Regarding appeals -- perhaps we could make progress by listing possible destinations for appeals and their positive/negative aspects.

To get us started:

* The IESG -- not a good idea; only the IETF. Already represented on the approval group.
* The IAB -- Better than IESG in that it has a broader/long-term function, but also represented on the approval group.
* Internet Society BoT (or Chair) -- has appropriate scope / distance; relationship to Series is a bit fuzzy?

Any other candidates?

Cheers,

> On 17 Feb 2021, at 2:43 am, Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 

--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:40:49 -0000

Thanks Martin,

Again, I'm not in the business of fighting for the rights of straw men. They are unionised and can stand up for themselves (provided they have access to a broomstick).

But just to explain my thinking...

>   said, this is not appropriate for the topics at hand.

I wonder what the benefit of setting the threshold higher is.
It would probably be benign to set it higher given the commentary on "no position" and "abstain" since the absence of a Discuss is otherwise a Yes.
But I don't see what we get by setting it higher. Perhaps I missed something.

> The 'abstain' should probably also go.

So many points 😊

- It may be popular in Western democracies to blame the people who voted for X, but we all know that the people who didn't vote are equally to blame. So I don't hold with this "blame" thing, and I don't think I've seen it on the IESG ever.

- The IESG does not approve stuff on the responsibility of a single AD. Just not how it works.

- That the IESG doesn't have many Yes ballots is a distressing but irrelevant issue in this context.

- None of this is the point of an Abstain. I see two chief reasons:
   - If the WG decides to have a proposal where the ISE is paid per RFC, I would expect
     the ISE to object at first and then move to an Abstain. It would be highly inappropriate
     to ballot Yes on the proposal.
   - If a voting member feels "in their gut" that a proposal is a bad idea and can't be
     convinced otherwise, they may still realise (either through discussion or through
     the single Discuss resolution procedure) that they should not block the proposal.
     It would be odd for them to say Yes in this situation. What else can they do to
     "get out of the way"?

>   mentioned, at the very least for completeness.

No objection to calling out "producers". In my mind a producer is also a consumer.

Adrian

---

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 20:02:16 +0900

Hello Adrian,

Many thanks for your detailed answer.

> But I don't see what we get by setting it higher. Perhaps I missed something.

I still feel that changing RFC-related stuff with one Yes and the rest 
(four or five or even more) of the responsible board in one way or 
another not really engaged is just somehow fundamentally wrong.

More details below.

> - It may be popular in Western democracies to blame the people who voted for X, but we all know that the people who didn't vote are equally to blame. So I don't hold with this "blame" thing, and I…

Good to know. Was maybe the wrong way for me to explain my doubts.

>       to ballot Yes on the proposal.

I think that cases such as this a) should be quite infrequent even among 
the already rather low expected number of overall documents, b) would 
better be handled by general abstention rules for which we don't really 
need a special category, and c) shouldn't happen to the extent that 
there's only one member left who can say YES (i.e. in cases like the 
above, I would find it doubly important that the board members not 
affected by the pay change would all or at least in a strong majority 
approve of the proposal).

>       It would be odd for them to say Yes in this situation. What else can they do to

I'm fine with this, as long as this is e.g. a single member, or a small 
minority if the number of members is higher. But if n-1 members have to 
get out of their way so that the single YES vote can move things 
forward, then for me, there's something fundamentally wrong.

> No objection to calling out "producers". In my mind a producer is also a consumer.

Of course producers are also consumers. But we need to look out for 
their needs *as producers*, too, not only as consumers.

Regards,   Martin.

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:53:48 -0500

The IAB charter (RFC 2850) makes me think that the IAB should handle appeals.  The ISOC BoT could be a second level for non-technical concerns.

Russ

> On Feb 17, 2021, at 1:20 AM, Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> This looks good.
>

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 17:28:43 +0100

Well, that’s a question:

What is the likely nature of the appeal?  If it is a question of whether or not the DISCUSSes are permitted, that seems pretty close to technical.  Will this change harm the series?  Will this change harm the stream?  Who gets to second guess on that?  Anyone?  Or are we talking about process appeals a’la were A-G properly followed?

Eliot

> On 17 Feb 2021, at 16:53, Russ Housley <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 08:47:41 +1300

> What is the likely nature of the appeal?  If it is a question of whether or not the DISCUSSes are permitted, that seems pretty close to technical.  Will this change harm the series?  Will this chan…

In the IETF process, the IAB's appeal role is limited by:

"is final with respect to the question of whether or
not the [Internet standards] procedures have been followed and with
respect to all questions of technical merit."

and the ISOC Board's role is limited by:

"only in cases in which the procedures
themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are
claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to the protection of the
rights of all parties in a fair and open [Internet Standards] Process."

It seems to me we could wordsmith equivalent limits for this case,
basically by removing the words in brackets, as long as the IAB and
ISOC Board's roles are carefully limited.

(I also believe that at the end of all this, the IAB Charter will
need a little tweak, but that can be left aside for now.)

Regards
   Brian C

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:43:18 -0500

> What is the likely nature of the appeal?  If it is a question of whether or not the DISCUSSes are permitted, that seems pretty close to technical.  Will this change harm the series?  Will this chan…

Very good question.  We do need to avoid a turtles all the way down type 
of problem though.

Maybe we do this slightly differently - have the bodies that send the AB 
members be able to override the vote of their AB member(s) through a 
majority vote of their own?  That would cover 4 of the votes on the AB. 
The request to override would take the form of an appeal and each body 
would use its own procedures to discuss the request and then vote.  The 
RSE wouldn't get a vote, but any Nomcom selected members would (Nomcom 
does not direct their vote).   Majority of those voting (including the 
directed votes by the sending bodies) will override the decision no 
matter how bad it might be for the series.

Mostly, I think there's not going to be a lot of output where a 
traditional appeal makes sense which makes the normal "who resolves the 
appeals" process kind of an iffy fit.

Mike

---

From: "Martin Thomson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 09:00:55 +1100

On Thu, Feb 18, 2021, at 07:43, Michael StJohns wrote:
> majority vote of their own?  

So if I think that the IESG representative represented incorrectly, I could take that up with the IESG?  That sounds like it could work.  There isn't similar recourse for the ISE, but I think that is entirely consistent with the nature of that position.

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:47:48 -0800

On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 7:54 AM Russ Housley <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The IAB charter (RFC 2850) makes me think that the IAB should handle
> appeals.  The ISOC BoT could be a second level for non-technical concerns.
>

This seems right to me as well.

-Ekr

> > Regarding appeals -- perhaps we could make progress by listing possible
> destinations for appeals and their positive/negative aspects.
> >
> > To get us started:
> >
> > * The IAB -- Better than IESG in that it has a broader/long-term
> function, but also represented on the approval group.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 20:33:15 +0100

This brings up a separate issue that Mirja raised: are people serving on the AB as representatives or as delegates?

Eliot

> On 17 Feb 2021, at 21:43, Michael StJohns <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Very good question.  We do need to avoid a turtles all the way down type of problem though.
> 
> Maybe we do this slightly differently - have the bodies that send the AB members be able to override the vote of their AB member(s) through a majority vote of their own?  That would cover 4 of the votes on the AB. The request to override would take the form of an appeal and each body would use its own procedures to discuss the request and then vote.  The RSE wouldn't get a vote, but any Nomcom selected members would (Nomcom does not direct their vote).   Majority of those voting (including the directed votes by the sending bodies) will override the decision no matter how bad it might be for the series.
> 
> Mostly, I think there's not going to be a lot of output where a traditional appeal makes sense which makes the normal "who resolves the appeals" process kind of an iffy fit.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> --

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:50:38 -0500

> This brings up a separate issue that Mirja raised: are people serving on the AB as representatives or as delegates?

Define those two terms as you mean them please - they mostly mean the 
same to me.

Mike

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2021 08:56:42 +1300

> Define those two terms as you mean them please - they mostly mean the 

My understanding has always been that delegates vote as they are told, but representatives vote as they think best. (At least, that's my understanding from British practice.)

    Brian

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 23:04:33 +0100

What I meant was that in one instance, representation, the person is not free to choose to take a position but must refer to the body she or he is representing, while in the other case, delegation, the person is asked to make decisions on behalf of the body she or he is representing.

Eliot

> On 18 Feb 2021, at 20:50, Michael StJohns <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Define those two terms as you mean them please - they mostly mean the same to me.
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
>> 
>> Eliot
>>

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 17:12:06 -0500

With those definitions, I sure hope all of the members of the approval 
body are delegates, that is, they are free to make decisions using their 
skills.  (If they do it wrong, and they are sent from a body, then the 
body should replace them.)

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2021 12:21:36 +0900

> What I meant was that in one instance, representation, the person is not free to choose to take a position but must refer to the body she or he is representing, while in the other case, delegation,…

Trying to avoid simple terms with ambiguous meaning.

There are probably some more shades of gray:
- Taking every decision back to the delegating body and just serving
   as a messenger.
- Taking important decisions or decisions where it's not clear
   what the interest of the delegating body is back to that body.
- Representing the interests of the delegating body on their own,
   but informally exchanging opinions with others in the delegating
   body.
- Representing only the interests of the delegating body, but doing
   that on their own, i.e. without checking back.
- Representing both the interests of the delegating body and the
   overall interest of the series (with similar variations as above).
- Serving on behalf of a delegating body, but with a duty to care
   for the overall 'cause' first and foremost.

In addition to that, it is well possible that people from different 
bodies will be selected with different criteria or purposes in mind. In 
some cases, such as the ISE, it will most probably the same person, and 
this person may have difficulties separating their ISE position from 
their position on the AB. Some bodies may select people who are good at 
coordinating back, and watch closely. Others may select people who they 
trust to do the right thing, and then not care anymore.

My preference would be to have the AB members acting on their own 
(without direction) and both in the overall interest of the series as 
well as the specific concerns of their streams, in a balanced way. I 
think this is closest to what happens anyway in other, similar cases 
(such as the ex officio member of the IESG from the IAB,...), and is 
also closest to common sense.

Regards,   Martin.