Re: Fully functional email address

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,
At 12:10 PM 21-06-2025, John C Klensin wrote:
>But part of the point, IMO, is that, if we view appeals as more of a
>process of making sure that all perspectives were considered in
>reaching consensus or making a decision, then a requirement to
>explain --ideally in the sort of short and clear message that I seem
>to have trouble writing because I prefer to explore details and
>subtleties -- is obvious and does not require additional rules.

I would like someone to think of the details and subtleties so that I 
am not surprised down the line.  I'll say yes to the above.

>We might disagree there.  Over the years, we've seen an evolution
>toward WGs becoming very narrowly focused on a range of topics and,
>probably consequently, smaller.  Sometimes that has lead to a WG all
>of whose participants share the same general assumptions and points
>of view, even though there may be others in the community with very
>different ones.  Even if someone with a different point of view tried
>to participate, being the lone voice with a different (and maybe
>unpopular) perspective can be difficult and such people sometimes
>give up out of frustration even though there is no evil intent within
>the WG.  Others may have insufficient time or resources to
>participate actively in the WG despite having expertise in the topic
>and therefore wait until WG LC or IETF LC to intervene, something
>that can be deeply frustrating to a WG that thought it was finished.
>Those kinds of things can easily lead to a situation in which there
>is the appearance of consensus within the WG (e.g., a report that
>there were no, or only one, dissent) but where those important issues
>have not been noted and discussed.

Yes.

>Do these things happen?  Yes, and I think increasingly so as WGs and
>topics get more specialized.  There have been several times in recent
>years where I've started down the path to appeals of those sorts of
>situations.  In almost all cases, the issues have been reopened and
>resolved after informal conversations with WG Chairs and with the AD
>at least copied; a few have ended up in appeals to the IESG.  And,
>again, unless the IESG is dismissive without either examination of
>the issues or requiring the WG to reexamine them, I think that is how
>the system is supposed to work.

Yes (to more specialized).

>And those are places where I don't think the IETF can go if we want
>to remain effective and have our consensus documents be consistent
>with Doing the Right Thing and, to the extent possible, agreement in
>the larger implementer and user communities.   If being open, or
>questioning decisions made without consideration of significant
>issues, is perceived as a problem, then I think we are in big trouble.

It's fine to ask questions.  Asking the same question again and again 
is not a good idea if the question was already answered.

>But, again, I think all of that needs to occur in a spirit of trying
>to work together to get high quality results.  If it turns into some
>variation on "I need to win (at any cost) and that means you need to
>lose" then I think we have, or are at least headed into, problems far
>more serious than issues about particular appeals, email
>functionality, etc., and may need to move toward discussions about
>disruptive and destructive behavior and not, e.g., quibbles about
>email functionality.

The environment is quite competitive.  It's not that easy to get 
everyone into such a spirit.  The "need to win" works if the person 
joined for a one-off effort.  It may not work that well if the person 
plans to spend a few years in this community.

>Yes to the point and no to "fair".  Howeer, one or two of my oddities
>is that I not only tend to be sensitive to the possibility of even
>more than two sides to a story but that I am less concerned about
>fairness (or perceptions of it) than I am about careful consideration
>of all of the issues that bear on a problem, what tradeoffs (if any)
>exist among them, and whether a consensus middle ground is possible
>without creating a solution that is worse than any of the other
>alternatives.  Of course, fairness facilitates all of that and might
>turn out to be the same thing, but I think better and quicker
>progress is often facilitated by concentrating on the issues
>themselves (and trying to be sure that all of them are exposed) than
>about debates about whether some one, or some process, is
>sufficiently fair or not.

It takes a significant amount of time to listen to the two (or more) 
sides.  It can take even more time to get a group to converge on a 
middle ground.  The perception could influence that, i.e. the 
decision-maker is favouring Person A over Person B, or Company C over 
Company D.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy