Re: [spring] Dispute process (Was: Resignation request)

[Warren Kumari <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 1:13 PM Pete Resnick <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
> On 10 Mar 2020, at 10:41, Nico Williams wrote:
>
> > ...the process we have for
> > dealing with complaints is heavily biased against plaintiffs -- which
> > is
> > probably as it should be, as otherwise we might never get anything
> > done,
> > but then legitimate complaints don't get heard.  I feel OP's
> > frustration.
>
> Nico, could you (or others) expand on this?
>
> I really think this is worthy of a separate discussion: What is it about
> the current process that you find biased against those who bring up a
> dispute? (I take it we're talking about RFC 2026 section 6.5
> <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2026#section-6.5>.) Have you encountered
> a bias in undertaking such a dispute?
>
> I have no doubt that this process is under-used (as a chair and an AD, I
> had to actively encourage people to use the dispute process instead of
> just giving up), but I've always assumed that it was just people not
> wanting to "rock the boat", or not wanting to be seen as a "complainer",
> or thought that nobody up the chain would take them seriously. Those are
> serious problems and we should be figuring out how to address them,
> since people bringing up failures is the only way we can stop bad things
> from happening when a WG or someone in leadership gets tunnel vision and
> does the wrong thing. However, this is the first time I've heard someone
> express that the process itself is stacked against someone with a
> dispute. If that's true, we should really talk about how to fix that.

+1.

I realize that +1 is largely content free, but I believe that appeals
and recalls are an incredibly important part of the IETF process -
they are the reason that we can have a process which uses rough
consensus (not voting), and where our process has the flexibility to
(as Spencer would say) "Do the right thing!", and not blindly follow
checklists. In order for these to work, people need to be able, and
comfortable invoking appeals and recalls[0]...

W
[0]: In my copious free time, I still want to organize an exercise
where we fully exercise the recall process - have a pretend AD who
does something outrageous, and then work the entire process (with some
optimizations to not waste everyone's time!)  to fully make sure there
are not any hidden gotcha's. We have worked most of it, and have
thought about it in table-tops, etc - but I'd hate to discover a
hidden issue right when it is most contentions and needed....

>
> pr
> --
> Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
> All connections to the world are tenuous at best
>


-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf