Re: AD Sponsorship of draft-moonesamy-recall-rev

[Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>]

Hi John,

> On Apr 17, 2019, at 2:56 PM, John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> --On Wednesday, April 17, 2019 13:22 -0400 Aaron Falk
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> On 17 Apr 2019, at 11:10, Adrian Farrel wrote:
>> 
>>> Can I suggest:
>>> ...
>>> - A virtual/interim BoF be held in (say) four weeks from now.
>> 
>> What a cool and (now that you've stated it) obvious idea!
>> Has it been done before?
> 
> Let me take Adrian's suggestion a step further: since the
> primary issue the draft is trying to address is associated with
> remote participants, perhaps we could schedule two or three
> virtual BOF sessions to make participation from different
> timezones convenient?
> 
> In addition...
> 
> --On Wednesday, April 17, 2019 10:46 -0400 Alissa Cooper
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> I discussed this with the IESG and our recommendation is for
>> you to submit a BOF proposal if you'd like to pursue this
>> further. We think these kinds of changes to the IETF's
>> governance structure need the more in-depth problem statement
>> discussion and broader review that a chartering process and
>> working group would provide.
> 
> With the disclaimer that, while I'm somewhat implicated in the
> document, I've turned over the decision-making to SM, part of
> the intent was to keep the draft very narrowly focused rather
> than opening up the range of possible changes to the IETF's
> governance structures that the above seems to imply and that
> would almost certainly require another iteration on the POISED/
> POISSON work that built the foundation of those processes.  I
> persuaded him to include the change to allow IESG/ IAB members
> to initiate recalls because that had come up years ago but there
> seemed to be insufficient energy at the time to carry it
> forward.  If the conclusion from the IESG's informal discussion
> is that including that change broadens the scope from making an
> adjustment to increase the ability of mostly-remote participants
> to ensure fair treatment to changes requiring broader review,
> then I would recommend removing that change and narrowing the
> focus of the document.   

I can only speak for myself and will let other ADs chime in if they want to. 

I think the problem statement definition and the breadth of the changes to be proposed are intertwined, and require the depth of discussion we can get through a working group process. The underlying problem(s) that the draft seeks to address appear broader than the solutions proposed. Is the statement of the problem that the IETF process or its governance are unfair to remote participants? If so, the proposal in this draft is an incomplete solution to that problem. Is the statement of the problem that the recall process is dysfunctional because of barriers to using it? If so, the proposal in this draft is an incomplete solution to that problem and IMO misses the most compelling reason why recall petitions are not issued, which is that the perceived reputational risk to petitioners outweighs the perceived potential gain from issuing a recall petition.

The proposal in this draft can also be trivially gamed by a single or small handful of individuals creating a set of 10 email accounts, registering them to participate remotely, and having them join remote sessions. Even if all this would result in is a series of recall committees being forced to be constituted to deal with recall petitions that get rejected, this could be a significant tax on our community. I think analyzing the countervailing benefits of this proposal against this tax or analyzing the costs and benefits of doing identity verification to overcome it are important tasks that would require the kind of discussion a WG can provide, and also require a clear understanding of what the problem statement is.

Alissa

> 
> Conversely, if the IESG has concluded that a more general review
> of procedures is needed (nearly 20 years after what I think was
> the last such review in POISSON), then let's try to solicit
> proposals for such a WG and its scope and figure out whether
> that actually needs a BOF.
> 
> best,
>   john
> 
> 
>