Re: [Last-Call] Consensus call (was: Other stuff)

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 10/26/22 16:29, Pete Resnick wrote:

> Second, determining (rough) consensus is not our call to make. It's 
> the IESG's in the case of IETF-wide Last Calls. Pointing out that a 
> particular view has not been taken into account in the discussion 
> seems perfectly reasonable to me, but I don't think claiming that 
> there is or isn't rough consensus is particularly useful or 
> appropriate (anymore than saying, "Pete's point definitely beats Stu's 
> point" is). 

I almost agree, except for two things:

(1) A volunteer organization is ultimately responsible to its 
volunteers, and it's vital that we keep our facilitators honest. When a 
WG chair, or for that matter IESG, declares consensus and there's 
clearly not a consensus (or vice versa) the first line of defense from 
the community is to point out that they've made a dubious call.   
Sometimes the chair will reconsider their decision in light of such 
feedback, which is a lot less overhead and less stress than an appeal.

(2) In this case, however, private responses to iesg@ are explicitly 
permitted.   So in this case there's no way that anyone but IESG can be 
expected to take into account the full spectrum of responses when 
determining consensus.

(In the event of an appeal on the consensus call, presumably IAB can 
request to see all of those messages, and IAB's liason to IESG will 
presumably be able to provide them.)

Keith