Subject: how to declare consensus when someone ignores consensus

From: John Loughney <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:27:32 +0200

I am growing tired of this meta-discussion, but I just needed to add my 2 cents, then I'll be quiet.

As someone who really wants to get work done, I find it very hard to get the work done when someone posts seemingly random comments, or at least is using argumentation that doesn't seem to have any other support in the working group.  I cannot say if this is what Jefsey is doing, as I am not active in any of the WGs in question.

What I do know, is that from time to time, on most working groups, someone pops in and derails forward progress. In my mind, we do need a mechanism to prevent this from happening.  Perfection is the enemy of the good in many, many cases.  We are the Internet 'Engineering' Task Force, we don't promise that we are always right - that's why we have three levels of standards.

People who suggest ignoring or hitting delete don't seem to really get it - as a working chair, I need to continually try to maintain forward motion on technical issues, sometimes someone shows up with what seems like an axe to grind or is trolling for attention.  I think we need mechanisms to be able to divert people who continuously disrespect rough consensus from continuing to disrupt the on-going work. 

The IETF doesn't have a strangle-hold on the Internet - there are other standardization bodies out there, and noone is preventing people from going out and designing their own solutions, outside of the IETF.  Look at various peer-to-peer protocols as a good examples of things that people use everyday, but wouldn't stand a chance of getting an RFC.

John
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From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:07:56 +0100

On 01/22/2006 22:27 PM, John Loughney allegedly wrote:
> Look at various peer-to-peer protocols as a good
> examples of things that people use everyday, but wouldn't stand a
> chance of getting an RFC.

Why not?

---

From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 18:06:58 -0500

On 1/22/06, [email-masked] <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> Please, if you don't have
> an opinion specifically related to Jefsey then stay out of the Jefsey
> discussion.

> > chance of getting an RFC.

Peer-to-peer protocols are a great example. The IETF is a miserable
place to work on them because the organization tolerates all
pseudo-technical discussion, and thus fails to hold the attention of
implementers, despite the fact that the process is designed to route
around that exact problem.

I suspect the IESG will find that the folks actually trying to get
work done in the presence of JFC's emails all feel the same way. Most
of the objections seem to be coming from people concerned with
designing the perfect bureaucratic process. In any WG, there are
implementers whose support is valuable. The rest of the participants
are valuable when they fix bugs. JFC doesn't seem to fix many bugs,
and drives implementers away in droves, from what I can see.

It has been suggested that I be placed under RFC 3683 sanctions in the
past, though I suppose the offending messages have always been in
response to misconduct (not a justification). I don't think the IETF
is in any danger of developing a trigger finger here.

--

Robert Sayre

"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 14:57:27 +0100

John Loughney writes:

> People who suggest ignoring or hitting delete don't seem to
> really get it ...

People who insist that this doesn't work don't seem to really get it.
It has worked for me for decades.

The reality is that some people are irritated by the need to do
anything they don't want to do, including something as simple as
ignoring a post that irritates them or hitting a delete button.  As a
result, they exaggerate the "effort" required to do these things by
many orders of magnitude, in an attempt to give the impression that
there is an objective reason for not doing them--which they feel will
be much more persuasive than admitting that they simply don't like it.

It's not hard to delete or ignore messages (the latter, in particular,
often requires no effort at all).  And moderating discussion groups
tends to be only as hard as one makes it.  A moderator with a
powerfully anal-retentive personality will constantly fuss and stress
over a group, perpetually deleting, editing, banning, and lecturing.
A moderator with a clue, on the other hand, will let just about
everything slide that won't get him into legal trouble and doesn't
technically compromise the system.

The real trolls know this.  They know that a technical denial of
service isn't nearly as effective as appealing to the emotions of a
moderator and the participants in a group, and then watching them fume
and flail uselessly for days, weeks, or months.  While they are busy
banning, deleting, and lecturing, they aren't getting anything else
done--the service level is zero.  And no technical magic is required;
it's all psychology.

Of course, most people who upset a moderator or the other members of a
list aren't trolls ... they've just made the mistake of expressing
unpopular opinions, and the natural intolerance that afflicts most
people takes over from there.

> - as a working chair, I need to continually try to
> maintain forward motion on technical issues, sometimes someone shows
> up with what seems like an axe to grind or is trolling for
> attention.  I think we need mechanisms to be able to divert people
> who continuously disrespect rough consensus from continuing to
> disrupt the on-going work.

The best mechanism is the silent treatment.  Unfortunately, that
requires a wise moderator and wise participants, and these are scarce.
But "diverting" people who are unpopular only adds fuel to the fire
and wastes resources.

> The IETF doesn't have a strangle-hold on the Internet - there are
> other standardization bodies out there, and noone is preventing
> people from going out and designing their own solutions, outside of
> the IETF.

They are all populated by the same species of intolerant and immature
participants that afflict the IETF.  It's very, very difficult to
assemble a group of people who are able to stay cool even when
confronted with things they don't want to hear.  The tiny minority of
people who do fit in this category tend to be excellent moderators
(and indeed excellent leaders in general).

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 15:02:28 +0100

> and drives implementers away in droves, from what I can see.

Which implementers are those?

Implementers don't spend their time jabbering on discussion groups;
they are too busy implementing.  Analyze, specific, code, test,
release.  No need for chewing the fat on a mailing list in that
process.  And there are only so many hours in a day, so one can spend
them doing things or spend them talking about doing things, but it's
hard to manage both.

> is in any danger of developing a trigger finger here.

If all the time spent discussing this most useless of RFCs were
dedicated to actually addressing real problems, what might be
accomplished?

---

From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 06:40:32 -0800 (PST)

> they are too busy implementing.

Gee, it's nice to know I don't exist - that will save me tons of time...

As it happens I'm actively involved in the implementation of almost all of the
protocol specifications I work on. I typically write the code myself for SMTP
and sieve  stuff, IMAP stuff is usually done by other people on my team. And
this code usually ends up in commercial products used at lots of sites to
support many millions of users - it is hardly an academic exercise.

I know lots of other IETF participants who are involved in specification
implementation. Quite a few of them write the code themselves. Some work on
open source, others on propietary implementations, and there are even some that
appear to do it just to make sure things really are implementable. In fact
there are entire WGs (e.g., sieve) where almost all of the active participants
appear to be implementors.

> Analyze, specific, code, test,
> process.

How very wrong you are. This sort of interaction is HUGELY valuable to
implementors.

> And there are only so many hours in a day, so one can spend

This, at least, is true. But "hard to manage" != "imposssible to manage".

> dedicated to actually addressing real problems, what might be

Aside from providing comic relief, exactly what does your your ridiculous
assertion that implmentors don't particulate in the IETF accomplish? 

				Ned