Subject: Re: consensus and anonymity

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 12:24:20 +0200

Combined response:

On 2007-05-31 21:33, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> The alternative - a WG chair who tells the working group that the apparent WG consensus on the mailing list is being overruled because of anonymous objections that the WG chair cannot share with the WG, or because of private objections that the WG chair is "channeling" from a back room - would make voting seem reasonable (or, to use Mark Allman's characterization in another thread, "seem charming"). 

I have to differ. This doesn't make voting seem reasonable; it makes
secrecy seem unreasonable.

On 2007-05-31 21:40, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
> If the wg chair is also on the iesg the appeals process is fatally compromised and littigation may be the only realistic prospect for redress.

Not at all. That is why ADs and IAB members recuse from appeals in
which they are materially concerned.

On 2007-05-31 22:08, Michael Thomas wrote:
> One thing that occurs to me is that in my initial message I implicitly
> felt that the room hands/hums were a more accurate assessment of
> consensus than the list. I guess that I should fess up that I've always
> felt that the "consensus is determined on the list" is something of a
> charming myth.

I don't think people unable to travel to meetings would agree. Since our
objective is to discover technical problems with a proposed consensus,
I think it's essential to allow any netizen to raise problems. One
email technical comment pointing out a serious flaw has far more weight
than a hundred people in a room going "mmmmmmm".

On 2007-05-31 23:07, Andy Bierman wrote:
> I think the inability of the IETF to make decisions in
> an open, deterministic, and verifiable manner is a major flaw.
> It promotes indecision and inaction.

I think the ability of some other SDOs to take go/no go decisions on
unpublished documents by a fixed deadline, based on corporate voting,
is a major flaw. It promotes superfical review and flawed documents.

On 2007-06-01 01:14, Andy Bierman wrote:
> I don't understand why such a comment needs to be private.
> Once the issue comes to light in the WG, it is no longer going
> to be private.
> 
> You are assuming the Chair can and should be a proxy for a
> WG member who wishes to remain anonymous.  I disagree. 

Why is this a problem? Again, our goal is to discover technical
flaws (or make technical improvements) in drafts. What does it
matter if someone has good reason to request anonymity and to use
the AD (or anyone else) as a proxy?

On 2007-06-01 04:09, Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
> I think a fair vote requires
> 
> - a clear definition of who can vote 

Which is fundamentally impossible in the IETF.

On 2007-06-01 04:22, Lakshminath Dondeti wrote:
> Can anyone point to me where it is written that voting at a meeting is 
> the decision making process when rough consensus (hum or whatever) has 
> been inconclusive?

Definitely, nowhere. But there is a model that has been used
where a WG agrees *by rough consensus* to accept an arbitrary decision
method when a technical rough consensus cannot be reached. Example:
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg46040.html

    Brian

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---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 06:01:39 -0500

My apologies for insufficient smileys. :-(

I consider that "makes voting seem reasonable" is still an insult in the 
IETF.

Certainly not my intention to suggest voting as an alternative to secrecy.

Spencer

From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>

>> The alternative - a WG chair who tells the working group that the 
>> apparent WG consensus on the mailing list is being overruled because of 
>> anonymous objections that the WG chair cannot share with the WG, or 
>> because of private objections that the WG chair is "channeling" from a 
>> back room - would make voting seem reasonable (or, to use Mark Allman's 
>> characterization in another thread, "seem charming").
>

---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 05:20:43 -0700

Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>....

This has more to do with corporate culture and the low priority
of 'quality' in the business model.  The IETF's reluctance to
accurately quantify consensus is a different matter.  Making bad decisions
on time is not the only other option.

> the AD (or anyone else) as a proxy?

This is only a problem as the debate escalates.
It is not a problem bringing issues to light.
I suppose if the Chair is willing to proxy for both
sides of the issue, and make it clear when they are making
a comment as a proxy or as a Chair, then it is not an issue.

>> the decision making process when rough consensus (hum or whatever) has 

There must be something in between humming and corporate voting,
which is better than flipping a coin and arbitrarily picking a winner.

> __

Andy

---

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:52:23 -0700

> than a hundred people in a room going "mmmmmmm".

It seems that people have read more into my initial idea than I had really
meant. I only meant it to be limited to consensus calls on the mailing list
where somebody might not be comfortable publicly saying their +1.
This is orthogonal to the question of anonymity of somebody who doesn't
feel comfortable bringing up a technical problem on the list ala the example
of Dean on the SIP list recently.

The reason I say it's a charming myth is that the list is pretty lousy 
since it's
usually a very small set of people who will speak up. Ie, the protagonists.
At meetings, you get a broader sense including the intensity. As somebody
who hasn't been to the last few IETF's, I well aware of the "not being 
there"
part. Still, I think it's a myth that these hums are *just* the sense of 
the room
and no more. They're clearly a lot more than that as it almost always brings
a conclusion to some point of contention, and when it's brought up again on
the list you can almost always be guaranteed a "but we decided this in 
Oslo!".
Myth, meet reality.

       Mike

---

From: Lakshminath Dondeti <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 10:01:36 -0700

Michael,

I am definitely with you.

In practice, at least in some instances, it appears that the "decisions" 
are being made in meetings and you are right too there is that, but we 
have decided this in Timbuktu (did we ever meet there ;) ) or nowadays 
just the "fear" of it and people seem to say nothing when someone (AD or 
chair) declares that something was decided at a meeting.

In the interest of being fair, now I have seen in one contentious INT 
area WG where the sense of the room was taken at a meeting (it was 
counting numbers, err, vote) and then verified on the list -- a few 
additional people spoke up -- and finally the consensus was declared. 
Now that I can live with.  Everyone had a chance to say their piece and 
the decision was made.  Kudos to the chairs and AD for making that happen.

Finally, I will note that, if we look at the overall numbers, the 
consensus process seems to work alright (heavily skewed by "I don't care 
one way or another"), but I think if we look at all the contentious 
situations and tally them up, we may find a different story.

regards,
Lakshminath

---

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:02:37 -0700

Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
> The current process doesn't work very well when voting is required, 
> after hum-style consensus has been inconclusive.
Why should voting be required? If the goal is consensus, "inconclusive"
shows that you haven't achieved it. Right? That seems to me that the
process is *working* as intended.

       Mike

---

From: Michael Thomas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:03:41 -0700

Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
> This is not some hypothetical case. In that WG, there had been no 
> consensus for a year+ and it seemed unlikely that one would emerge, 
> except by exhaustion. Thus, the ADs proceeded with a vote, with the 
> properties described previously, which was then used as a basis for a 
> protocol decision. (Disclosure: I was at the losing end of that 
> decision.)

You could have always done what megaco did: flip a coin. At least that's
pretty hard to game.

       Mike, "before we flip that coin, lets be clear on the question again:
                   'heads I win, tails you lose' right?"
>
> On Jun 1, 2007, at 2:02 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 08:33:14 +0200

On 2007-06-01 18:52, Michael Thomas wrote:
...
> the list you can almost always be guaranteed a "but we decided this in 

That's exactly when a good WG chair or AD *should* say: Yes, but now we have
a new technical issue that we need to analyze.

Of course, there's always scope for argument whether a an issue is really
new and really significant.

     Brian