Re: Dispute process (Was: Resignation request)

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 11:54:03PM -0400, Pete Resnick wrote:
> On 10 Mar 2020, at 14:45, Nico Williams wrote:
> 
> This to me says that we've got to start dealing with the disputes
> earlier in the process to avoid the "annoy and anger" part (though
> sometimes that will be unavoidable). At the time of the WG decision,
> before anything goes to the IESG, it's time to have a discussion with
> the chair. That's before 2026 6.5.1 imagines it, but I don't think
> that's a problem for the first steps.

Fair enough.

> > What I've encountered is that at the limit you have to appeal or
> > give up, and how well things go before you get to that stage depends
> > on how willing WG chairs and responsible AD are to actively mediate
> > dispute resolution.
> 
> Framing the discussion in the terms that 2026 uses is a good idea:
> Either "my views have not been adequately considered by the WG", or
> "the WG has made an incorrect technical choice". I'd start off with,
> "I think you may have blown the consensus call on this point. I'd like
> to discuss that." Not accusatory or angry, just stating the facts. If
> the chair reacts badly to that, let the AD (and perhaps some others)
> know. All of us who chair should learn how to deal with such comments
> calmly and seriously. If you and the chair both take it seriously, it
> can only improve the output of the WG for the chair to consider it.

There are ways in which chairs and authors can engage in all sorts of
passive-aggressive behaviors that are difficult to pin down.  E.g.,
someone makes a substantive comment during WGLC, WGLC ends, and then no
write-up ensues, nor consensus calls on the issue, for weeks.  When you
finally twist the chairs' arms into calling for consensus then they
don't call it for a while.  Then at some point the commenter is to blame
for delaying the I-D's progress.

At what point in such a sequence would one reach out to the AD?

Delays of that sort happen all the time for non-nefarious reasons, and
we all prefer not to be accused of nefarious reasons for such delays.
If one were to reach for an AD every time there was such a delay... then
at the very least one should also never be the source of such delays,
for example, and anyways, one may quickly be relegated to the PITA list.

The SAA function may well teach us all how to engage in aggressive
behavior that superficially passes for acceptable.

> > There's no easy way to challenge a consensus to drop a work item.
> > What are you gonna do, appeal asking the IAB to force a WG to take
> > on a work item it doesn't want to?  A WG could even conclude out of
> > spite if forced to do something it doesn't want to.
> 
> You're right that forcing the WG to do work isn't feasible. But I
> could imagine other choices. Not knowing the specifics, though, I
> don't want to speculate on what might have worked.

Technically speaking it was the chairs calling the WG's consensus to
drop the work item.  That decision would be subject to appeal, but we
felt an appeal was not worth the trouble (but see below), and that that
decision would be mode difficult to prevail on on appeal than the
alternative adverse decision that we were in the rough.

> > So there was no question of appeal, really.  But I do feel that the
> > chairs and responsible AD did not help enough ahead of the WG
> > throwing its hands up in the air -- that might be an incorrect
> > perception though, as maybe the chairs and AD were simply unable to
> > get the strongest personalities on either side of the dispute to
> > compromise, but, too, I think they could have called the consensus
> > rather than wait till the WG threw in the towel on the work item.
> 
> I think you're probably right. I know I've chaired in the past when I
> didn't see the signs of bad things happening and failed to get out in
> front of it.  But the appeal, even if fruitless in the end, would have
> at least made the chair, the AD, and IESG do a bit of post-mortem to
> figure out what went wrong, so we should figure out some way to make
> them less painful (as per your last paragraph).

Aha.  The appeal process _is_ the only post-mortem process we have.

> > > I have no doubt that this process is under-used (as a chair and an
> > > AD, I had
> > 
> > I've reached out to chairs and ADs a number of times before, and that
> > has worked, and can work where they're willing to.
> 
> That's good to hear.

IMO the process works well most of the time.

> > It's difficult to go beyond that to appeals.  We do have to be done
> > at some point with any one work item.  There is good will to tend
> > to.
> 
> On a technical point where someone feels that the WG truly failed to
> see a serious problem, it's worth certainly worth doing. But even in
> the more process cases, where it was a blown consensus call, I do
> think it's worth going through, even if it doesn't change the outcome
> for any particular work item and is just for post-mortem purposes.

Ok.

> I did a little review some time ago of the appeals brought to the
> IESG.  Approximately half of them were perfectly well-reasoned appeals
> made by serious people in the community, and as I remember in the
> majority of them the IESG said, "Oh, yeah, that wasn't a good outcome;
> let's fix it." The approximately other half of the appeals were made
> by a small number of people who I'd call "serial appealers". It's the
> latter half that makes people feel like complainers (by joining that
> club), but if you remove those folks, I think you'll find the outcome
> of the process is pretty good and nobody will call you a complainer
> for it. (No, I will not reveal my criteria for deciding between the
> two halves. Left as an exercise for the reader.)

There are rather few appeals on record.  Lately they happen less than
yearly.

> > Or at some point a party gets exhausted and gives up.
> 
> That, of course, is a horrible outcome and what we need to fix.

If they were right, sure.  It's tempting to conclude that being
exhausted is an admission to being wrong.  If a crowd of usual suspects
(aren't must of us members of such crowds at IETF?) can muster loud and
repeated assertions that the complainant is wrong, it can start to seem
like they're right, and the other party will get discouraged.

> > Not sure how to make it better, except maybe thus: it should be
> > possible to get a review of how a dispute was resolved not so much
> > as an appeal, but as a way to remediate problems to help alleviate
> > _next_ dispute.
> 
> Absolutely. Every IETF plenary, the chairs have a lunch meeting on a variety
> of topics. Doing something like this as a regular topic (and revealing the
> conclusions to the community) would be a great idea. [...]

Sure, but who shall bring up a particular dispute at that meeting, given
that it's ex-parte?

>                                               [...]. That said, I'm still
> hopeful we can make the dispute resolution and appeals process better than
> it is now.

Just how busy is the ombudsman anyways?  Maybe we can give them more to
do.

Nico
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