RE: Bad/Good ideas and damage control by experienced participants

["Rob Wilton (rwilton)" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Keith,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ietf <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Keith Moore
> Sent: 18 June 2022 02:45
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: Bad/Good ideas and damage control by experienced participants
> 
> On 6/17/22 21:11, Wes Hardaker wrote:
> 
> > A nice aspect about the IETF is that new drafts and proposals require
> > others to agree to its merits and approach before it will be adopted.
> > Thus, if someone doesn't have the time to write a constructive review of
> > an idea, then the saying "if you don't have something nice to say, then
> > don't say anything at all" actually works.
> 
> I disagree, at least as a general statement.  Of course, not every
> participant who understands why something is a Bad Idea needs to take
> the time to write a constructive review.   But expecting that someone
> else will write a constructive review is approximately like asking a
> large group of people "will somebody do this <unpleasant and thankless
> task>?"   The chances are good that most or all of that group will see
> that task as Somebody Else's Problem.

I'm trying to understand what you are really expecting IETF newcomers to know or do.

I presume that you are not asking them to review 20+ years of email/discussion across multiple WGs before they post a new idea?  Am I also right to presume that you agree that it would be wrong to have harsh reviews and criticism directed at them just because they lack the historical knowledge that there seems to be no easy way for them to obtain?

I also agree with PHB's comments, that ideas that have been dismissed in the past may have been so for many different reasons and re-evaluating an approach may reasonably come to a different conclusion.  To cite an example, for a long time "Postel's law" has been taken as gospel as the right way to develop protocols, but draft-iab-protocol-maintenance suggests that this may not be the best approach (specifically, that Postel's law also comes with downsides as well).   I'm not saying that we should relitigate every idea forever, but I suspect that many new ideas that IETF ends up working on are variations of similar ideas that have been considered in the past, we are protocol designers and engineers and the vast majority of decisions that we make are technical compromises between competing requirements, and just because an idea has historically worked reasonably doesn't necessarily mean that it is still the best approach today.

If a new draft is an obviously naïve idea, then normally it shouldn't take more than a few sentences to explain why that approach doesn't work.  I don't think that anyone is saying that we shouldn’t provide that feedback, but the observation is that if we provide that feedback in a very negative way then it is likely to drive that person away, whereas if we try and provide that feedback in a more constructive way then there is a possibility that we inspire the individual to participate in the IETF even though the original idea/reason that they came to the IETF might not be so great (perhaps due to the lack of experience and domain knowledge).

If a given WG keeps receiving the same ideas again and again, then maybe the WG members could arrange a hackathon before the next IETF meeting to write up a quick wiki explaining commonly presented ideas and the reasons why those ideas have been rejected previously.  This would seem to help both educate the newcomers and perhaps reduce some of the apparent animosity towards newcomers in some WGs?

But, for me:

- If the IETF stops being open to new ideas and sensible evolution of existing protocols then overtime it will likely become less relevant.  Communities will form together and develop their ideas elsewhere, and the IETF eventually becomes obsolete. 

- Similarly, if we continually discourage newcomers from participating in the IETF (e.g., because their expectations of reasonable conduct and communication are apparently incompatible with some of the older IETFers) then the numbers of participants will dwindle as the older IETFs retire or find other things that they want to spend their precious time on.


> 
> And sometimes Bad Ideas start to get traction from inexperienced people,
> after which it becomes fairly difficult to slow them down.

Perhaps the inexperienced people are not presenting a "Bad Idea" at all, but it is actually now a "Good Idea", but instead it is older experienced IETF folks who are resistant to change.


> 
> I see this as sort of a structural problem with IETF.    Most people
> don't like to deliver bad news.

Hum, I thought that the origin of this thread was that some IETF participants are only too happy to deliver bad news, and it is the way that there are delivering that feedback that is putting off some, perhaps many, new participants.


   It's unpleasant even when it's
> necessary, as it often is.  Discouraging people from making critical
> reviews only makes the situation worse.
> 
> >   This is a potentially less
> > demoralizing approach than responding with statements like "this is a
> > stupid idea".
> 
> Well, sure.  And there's really no reason why a statement like "this is
> a stupid idea" should have any credibility.   Though again, I do
> understand why experienced IETF participants might have short fuses
> sometimes.
> 
> >    Furthermore, if someone else does take the effort to
> > write a solid, well-reasoned argument about why an approach lacks the
> > necessary technical merit, then responding in that thread with "this
> > sums up my concerns with the approach too" requires only a small number
> > of words and still registers proper disinterest or concern.
> Yes, and that happens sometimes.   But even when it does happen,
> sometimes the ensuing discussion causes significant distraction as large
> numbers of people discuss the finer points of Why This Obviously Bad
> Idea Doesn't Work.
> > We have a process for dealing with ideas that do not get enough
> > attention: WG chairs have the job of explaining to draft authors that
> > their draft failed to achieve a necessary level of support to be
> > adopted.
> 
> Lack of attention is a different problem than lack of clue. Truly Bad
> Ideas sometimes find significant popular support.

If those ideas are gaining significant popular support (i.e., consensus) then perhaps that is because they are not necessarily a bad idea at all, and perhaps those ideas are finding significant popular support because the technical arguments against trying that idea or approach are weak or subjective.


> 
> I don't think there's any way to get around it:  Sometimes we need
> people to object to popular but Bad ideas, and sometimes those
> explanations will not satisfy the supporters of Bad Ideas. And we need
> to NOT rely on only those with appointed positions to do those jobs.

This sounds remarkably like "RFC 8962: Establishing the Protocol Police" to me.

Regards,
Rob


> 
> Keith
>