Subject: Re: Mud. Clear as. Re: Rough consensus? #425 3.5

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:58:49 -0500

Hi Eric,

>The problem is that "best interests of the IETF " is a completely
>amorophous standard (In my view, chocolate helps people think
>better so we need chocolate chip cookies in order to produce
>better standards), so I don't seee how this rules out any appeals
>at all.

This is a good point, and I could live with your formulation.

Most of the important ways that the IAOC could violate the best 
interests of the IETF are (and should continue to be) captured in the 
written rules anyway.  For instance, any reasonable example I can 
think of at the moment is covered by one of more of the IASA BCP 
principles.

>>  I feel quite strongly about principle (1), as I don't know how the
>>  IAOC could negotiate and administer contracts if they might, at any
>>  time, be overturned by someone else.  And, I don't even know what it
>>  would mean to "overturn" a signed contract, since it would then be
>>  outside the control of IASA to change it.
>Yes, I think this is absolutely correct.

Good.  I think everyone is in agreement about this.

>>  Do you have a strong opinion on this one way or the other?
>
>I could live either way, but my original thought was that in the
>case of allegations that the IAOC had not followed its internal
>rules, the IESG and IAB could overturn its decisions. Certainly,
>they can impose new rules on it through the RFC process....

Okay, so we both could go either way on this...

So, here is an attempt at some text that captures our current 
agreement.  I'm not trying to slip anything in here, so let me know 
if I seem to be getting it wrong:

Remove the current sections 3.5 and 3.6 and replace them with a new 
section 3.5:

3.5  Review and Appeal of IAD and IAOC Decision

    The IAOC is directly accountable to the IETF community for the
    performance of the IASA.  In order to achieve this, the IAOC and IAD
    will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operational
    decision making.  Where appropriate, these guidelines should be
    developed with public input.  In all cases, they must be made public.

    Additionally, the IASA should ensure there are reported objective
    performance metrics for all IETF administrative support activities.

    In the case where someone questions that a decision or action of the IAD
    or the IAOC has been undertaken in accordance with IETF BCPs or
    IASA operational guidelines (including the creation and maintenance
    of an appropriate set of operational guidelines), he or she may ask the
    IAOC for a formal review of the decision or action.

    The request for review is addressed to the IAOC chair and should include
    a description of the decision or action to be reviewed, an explanation of
    how the decision or action violates the BCPs or operational guidelines, and
    a suggestion for how the situation could be rectified.  All 
requests for review
    will be publicly posted, and the IAOC is expected to respond to these
    requests within a reasonable period, typically within 90 days.  It is up to
    the IAOC to determine what type of review and response is required, based
    on the nature of the review request.  Based on the results of the review,
    the IAOC may choose to overturn their own decision and/or to change their
    operational guidelines to prevent further misunderstandings.

    If a member of the community is not satisfied with the IAOC's response to
    his or her review request, he or she may escalate the issue by appealing
    the decision or action to the IESG, using the appeals procedures outlined
    in RFC 2026 [RFC2026].  If he or she is not satisfied with the IESG
    response, he or she can escalate the issue to the IAB and on the ISOC
    Board of Trustees, as described in RFC 2026.

    The IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT will review the decision of the IAD or IAOC
    to determine whether it was made in accordance with existing BCPs and
    operational guidelines.  As a result of this review, the IESG, IAB or ISOC
    BoT may decide to initiate changes to the BCPs governing IAOC actions.
    They may also advise the IAOC to modify existing operational guidelines
     to avoid similar issues in the future and/or may advise the IAOC to
     re-consider their decision or action.

     In exceptional cases, when no other recourse seems reasonable, the IESG,
     IAB or ISOC BoT may overturn or  reverse a non-binding decision or action
     of the IAOC.  This should be done after careful consideration and
     consultation with the IAOC regarding the ramifications of this action.  In
     no circumstances may the IESG or IAB overturn a decision of the IAOC
     that involves a binding contract or overturn a personnel-related 
action (such
     as hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, performance reviews, 
salary adjustments,
     etc.).

[The last paragraph is likely to be the most controversial, as I am 
not sure that
we have consensus that the IAB or IESG should be able to overturn or reverse
a decision or action of the IAOC at all.]

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---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:41:31 -0500

I like this formulation.

A couple of suggested tweaks, inline:

Margaret Wasserman wrote:
>    a suggestion for how the situation could be rectified.  All requests 
> for review

I'm stumbling over the "IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT".  I understand you're
saying "whichever it is at this level of the appeal", but it comes off
sounding a bit like "whoever gets around to replying".
Perhaps it could be rewritten as:

"The reviewing body (IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT, as appropriate) will ..."

and then subsequent instances of "IESG, IAB..." would be replaced
with "the reviewing body"?

>    BoT may decide to initiate changes to the BCPs governing IAOC actions.

I suggest spelling out the "initiate changes" --

"...may decide to initiate the required public consensus process to
change the BCPs..."

>     as hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, performance reviews, salary 
> adjustments,
>     etc.).
> 
> [The last paragraph is likely to be the most controversial, as I am not 
> sure that

Leslie.

---

From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:30:36 -0500

Hi Leslie,

>A couple of suggested tweaks, inline:

...and I like your tweaks :-).

They make the text much clearer.  Thanks.

Margaret

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 21:29:19 -0500

I am happy with both as well.

thanks

a.

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:44:10 -0500

I think we are very close here.  I can live with Margaret's text with
Leslie's proposed changes.  It's actually very close to something I
would be happy with.

I've been rethinking my position since yesterday.  I realized that
most of what I want does not require formalism or requires very little
formalism.  In particular, I'm happy to live with a system in which
decisions are not overturned except by the IAOC (although I like In
addition, I think requiring requests for appeal/review to be acted on
when they are simply arguing that decision is bad instead of that
decisions did not follow written procedures/rules would be open to
abuse.

Here is what I want in addition to Margaret's formulation.  I want to
see if I can get agreement on these (I suspect the answer will be yes)
before working on text.  IT may turn out that the BCP is the wrong
place for such text.

* The IAOC can choose to overturn or otherwise act to reverse a
  decision if it believes that is the best course of action to follow.
  Examples include changing procedures if they happen not to work very
  well or attempting to buy out or terminate a contract if it is clear
  that the contract is no longer in the IASA's best interest.

* Members of the IAOC may take into account comments  from the
  community   and may decide to reconsider a decision based on such
  comments even if no formal requirement to review the decision or to
  respond to the comments exists.  In other words if the community
  convinces the IAOC they were wrong, it is reasonable for the IAOC to
  go do something about it.

* The IAOC should listen to comments.  By this I mean that they should
  be aware of comments they are receiving and weight them according to
  their value.  It's fine to ignore pointless comments; probably even
  fine to pay less attention  to comments  from people who have a
  track record of not providing useful input.  It would not be
  desirable for the IAOC to have completely ignored  a constructive,
  well-reasoned comment simply because there was no formal obligation
  to respond to the comment.  (The IAOC still might not respond, but
  someone should have at least read the comment and considered what it
  said)

* It is reasonable for individuals, groups or organized bodies to
  comment to the community and the IAOC on IAOC decisions.  For
  example  if the IAOC selected a meeting sight according to its
  criteria  and the IESG noticed that  many working group chairs and
  document authors were unwilling to come to this sight, it would be
  reasonable for the IESG to inform the IAOC of this observation.
  Depending on costs of canceling a meeting, it might (although
  probably would not) be reasonable for the IESG to ask the IAOC to
  reconsider.

When I phrase things this way instead of in thinking about them in the
context of formal appeals and reviews, they become stunningly obvious
at least for me.  If these things are not true, I don't think we are
living up to an open transparent process receptive to the needs of the
IETF community.  On the other hand, these things are sufficiently
obvious that perhaps nothing needs to be said about them.  There is
one area where text might be useful.

I'd feel more comfortable if we added text encouraging members of the
community with comments about decisions to make those comments to the
community at large and/or the IAOC even if their comments did not meet
the criteria for formal review/appeal.

Sorry to run such a long chase and end up back mostly at nothing.

--Sam

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:27:08 +0100

Margaret,

I have two problems with your text:

- It does not handle the issue Mike st. Johns raised - about whether 
reviewing bodies would have privilleged access to normally-confidential 
information related to the decision being challenged.

- I don't know what it means for the IESG, IAB or ISOC BoT to "overturn" a 
decision. It could mean "IAOC, go back and start over, but you may make the 
same decision again", "IAOC, go back and start over, but you have to make 
at least some change to your decision", "IAOC, act as if you had made 
decision B, not decision A", or some other variation, depending on 
circumstances.

Unsurprisingly, I would be happier with a version that did not have the 
last paragraph - I think the actions available in the preceeding paragraphs 
are enough to address all situations where it's unreasonable to reach for 
the recall procedures.

But I think I could live with this one.

                  Harald

---

From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:21:45 -0500

Sam,

For myself, I agree these things are true.  I would like to
believe they are obvious, though I'm not certain of that.  For
example, these things are equally true of the IAB and IESG, but it's
not clear to me that everyone understands they can drop a
note to either of those groups.

I don't (personally) think the BCP is the place to try to
capture this in more detail; perhaps there is some place to
do so.

Leslie.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 09:35:36 +0100

Rather than losing these reasonable thoughts, I stuck them in the 
transition team Wiki under "IAOC Instructions". They will be remembered.

Thanks, Sam!

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 09:34:25 -0500

Sam,

For whatever it is worth, I could not agree more with your
formulation. Although you have stated it better than I have, I
think our conclusions are much the same: trying to formalize all
of this and write into formal text just gets us tied into more
knots and risks edge cases and abuses that could be quite
problematic.  At the same time, if the community --and the IAOC
and IAD-- don't accept and follow the general principles you
have described, we are in a degree of trouble that formal
appeals procedures probably won't fix.

And I don't think that is "...mostly at nothing".

best,
    john

--On Thursday, 27 January, 2005 22:44 -0500 Sam Hartman
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> I think we are very close here.  I can live with Margaret's
> text with Leslie's proposed changes.  It's actually very close
> to something I would be happy with.
> 
> I've been rethinking my position since yesterday.  I realized
> that most of what I want does not require formalism or
> requires very little formalism.  In particular, I'm happy to
> live with a system in which decisions are not overturned
> except by the IAOC (although I like In addition, I think
> requiring requests for appeal/review to be acted on when they
> are simply arguing that decision is bad instead of that
> decisions did not follow written procedures/rules would be
> open to abuse.
> 
> 
> Here is what I want in addition to Margaret's formulation.  I
> want to see if I can get agreement on these (I suspect the
> answer will be yes) before working on text.  IT may turn out
> that the BCP is the wrong place for such text.
> 
>   decision if it believes that is the best course of action to
> follow.   Examples include changing procedures if they happen
> not to work very   well or attempting to buy out or terminate
> a contract if it is clear   that the contract is no longer in
> the IASA's best interest.
> 
>   community   and may decide to reconsider a decision based on
> such   comments even if no formal requirement to review the
> decision or to   respond to the comments exists.  In other
> words if the community   convinces the IAOC they were wrong,
> it is reasonable for the IAOC to   go do something about it.
> 
> * The IAOC should listen to comments.  By this I mean that
> they should   be aware of comments they are receiving and
> weight them according to   their value.  It's fine to ignore
> pointless comments; probably even   fine to pay less attention
> to comments  from people who have a   track record of not
> providing useful input.  It would not be   desirable for the
> IAOC to have completely ignored  a constructive,
> well-reasoned comment simply because there was no formal
> obligation   to respond to the comment.  (The IAOC still might
> not respond, but   someone should have at least read the
> comment and considered what it   said)
> 
> * It is reasonable for individuals, groups or organized bodies
> to   comment to the community and the IAOC on IAOC decisions.
> For   example  if the IAOC selected a meeting sight according
> to its   criteria  and the IESG noticed that  many working
> group chairs and   document authors were unwilling to come to
> this sight, it would be   reasonable for the IESG to inform
> the IAOC of this observation.   Depending on costs of
> canceling a meeting, it might (although   probably would not)
> be reasonable for the IESG to ask the IAOC to   reconsider.
> 
> 
> 
> When I phrase things this way instead of in thinking about
> them in the context of formal appeals and reviews, they become
> stunningly obvious at least for me.  If these things are not
> true, I don't think we are living up to an open transparent
> process receptive to the needs of the IETF community.  On the
> other hand, these things are sufficiently obvious that perhaps
> nothing needs to be said about them.  There is one area where
> text might be useful.
> 
> I'd feel more comfortable if we added text encouraging members
> of the community with comments about decisions to make those
> comments to the community at large and/or the IAOC even if
> their comments did not meet the criteria for formal
> review/appeal.
> 
>