Re: [Rfced-future] Comments on draft-iab-rfcefdp-rfced-model

["Murray S. Kucherawy" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Eliot,

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 7:49 AM Eliot Lear <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 10.03.22 16:37, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 11:10 PM Eliot Lear <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> The philosophy behind CONCERNs is that they should be rare, and that the
>> community really should be taking responsibility for the content of a
>> document.  Thus, unless something truly rises to a threat to a stream or
>> the long term health of the series, the RSAB should stay out of the
>> way.  Those two CONCERN criteria are sufficiently broad to permit
>> members to act if the policy truly looks like it will cause harm in some
>> way.
>>
>
> If we are to think of the RSWG as a typical working group (which the
> document otherwise suggests is how we should think of it), then I can't
> discount the possibility that something might be handed to the RSAB that is
> not really ready for consideration, for whatever reason.  As I read what
> you're saying here, this proposal presumes that can't (or won't) happen.
>
> I think the way to look at it is risk-based, and that authority is
> balanced such that the risks of authority abuse by the RSAB are prioritized
> certain classes of errors made by the community.
>

This document suggests to me that abuse concerns are handled by the appeals
process, not by the balloting phase.

I think my review of this is informed by my experience on the IESG.   The
IESG has a ballot position called "DISCUSS" that lets us require further
discussion in several situations before the document under review can
advance to publication.  Four prime examples of this are: (a) a document
that is trying to present a good idea, but does it quite poorly; (b) a
document that is trying to advance a bad idea, even if clearly; (c) a
document whose development process was not properly followed; and (d) a
document that was tainted by a process abuse of some kind, such as a
conflict of interest or improper use of discretion.

As I read the proposed "CONCERN" criteria, they cover some but not all of
those possibilities, and that's what caught my attention.  Now, it could be
the case that "serious harm" and "serious problem" in the "CONCERN"
criteria are meant to cover all of those possibilities, but that wasn't
evident when I read it.  I suggest that be made explicit if that's the
intent.

It's been pointed out to me separately that there's an expectation that the
RSAB will be more directly involved with the development of a proposal in
the RSWG than would be the case with similar work in the IETF stream.  If
so, then a "CONCERN" would indeed be unique (just like me putting a
"DISCUSS" on a document that I approved at the WG level would be pretty
weird), but it also means this expectation of direct involvement was not
sufficiently evident in the document when I read it.

-MSK