Re: [hybi] Issue tracker

[SM <[e-mail]>]

At 23:29 22-05-10, Ian Hickson wrote:
>Do you mean all the subscribers to the mailing list, or all those posting?
>If the latter, over what time period?

The IETF uses "an open process in which any technical opinion will be 
heard and any participant's concerns addressed".  Any subscriber to 
this mailing list can post comments.    The period is announced at 
the time of the consensus call.

>How large a majority is "very large"?

There is no such thing as majority as that is akin to voting.  Based 
on your questions, it seems that you have some difficult grasping the 
concept of consensus.

>It's actually very easy to determine their opinion; we can just ask them,
>or follow their discussions elsewhere. For example, I regularly partake in
>discussions about HTML5 on Reddit, on IRC, and in other forums, even
>though many people there aren't in the HTML working group. Indeed, using
>Google alerts and Backtype alerts one is able to get a very good sense of
>where people outside the working group stand.

People outside an IETF mailing list are not IETF participants.  There 
is the question of BCP 78 and BCP 79 which might affect external 
"specifications".  Some participants in this working group could invoke that.

>However, while I obviously will continue to look at those sources of
>input, I understand that we'd want to ignore this feedback when
>determining "consensus", if we're going to use a consensus-based approach.

Nobody suggested ignoring any feedback which conforms to BCP 78 and BCP 79.

At 08:43 23-05-10, Scott Ferguson wrote:
>Correct.  However, since you've also selected an editor who's 
>opposed to the IETF entirely (opposing to conforming  the HTTP spec 
>when using the HTTP port), there's only a slim chance that the 
>specification will reflect the consensus.

I doubt that the specification would be published as a RFC if it does 
not reflect the consensus of the IETF.

Regards,
-sm