Re: Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-resnick-variance-00.txt

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 3/27/20 4:02 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:

> When I posted my suggestion for the short-term fix for the 2020-2021 
> NomCom, I mentioned that we would have to publish it as a BCP. 
> Offline, Barry asked me why I thought publishing a new BCP was 
> necessary for this one-off exception. But we don't have a mechanism in 
> the IETF to directly violate a requirement of a BCP without writing 
> another BCP. (Even the variance procedure for the standards-track 
> document process defined in 2026 section 9 requires a published BCP.) 
> He suggested that maybe we should have a process to do so. So I wrote 
> a 3-page (well, 2-page plus boilerplate) BCP for a variance procedure 
> for one-off or short-lived circumstances. I stole most of the text 
> from 2026 section 9. If folks think this is sane, this will give us a 
> simple procedure for saying, "Crazy thing happened that doesn't need 
> to be documented beyond the mailing list and the IETF web site."

I think it's perfectly reasonable to publish a BCP for a one-time 
variance.  On the other hand I think it's a Very Bad Idea to invent a 
lightweight variance procedure that allows for process exceptions that 
aren't documented in the normal means, and which fragment the historical 
record.   Though I don't doubt anyone's intentions here, a lightweight 
variance procedure will sooner or later inevitably be misused.    Also, 
it's never a great idea to hurriedly invent new process when doing so 
can be avoided.

Keith