Subject: Re: Consensus? #746 Section 3.4 - IAOC decision making

From: [email-masked] (Scott Bradner)
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 07:24:46 -0500 (EST)

harald asks
> My reading of the discussion is that there is no support for making such a 
> requirement (too many corner cases with absent members), and that writing 
> detailed rules on IAOC decision making into the BCP is a Bad Idea.
> 
> However, the idea of IAOC *having* such decision rules seems good.
> Suggested resolution:
> 
> Add after the first section of 3.4:
> 
>   The IAOC decides further details about its decision-making rules.
>   These rules will be made public.
> 
> OK?

I think the added statement is fine 

I do not like this resolution - I think it would be very bad to have a 
situation where a bare majority of the IAOC (5) can hold a face to face (or
conference call) meeting and then have a bare majority (3) of those 
present make a binding decision (to approve a contractor for example) -
this would wind up with a minority of the IAOC making such a decision.
That minority (or even the discussion) might not include the IETF or 
IAB chair, the ISOC prez etc - that seems like a very bad situation.

it seems to me to be a no brainer to require that decisions be
only binding if the majority of the IAOC agree one way of another
(in person or via email)

(the situation of one member being (literally) in the woods does not make 
any difference -- if 4 members were in the woods such that one cound not
get a majority of the 8-member IAOC then maybe the decision should wait
anyway)

Scott

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 13:59:50 +0100

--On onsdag, desember 22, 2004 07:24:46 -0500 Scott Bradner 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> situation where a bare majority of the IAOC (5) can hold a face to face
> (or conference call) meeting and then have a bare majority (3) of those
> That minority (or even the discussion) might not include the IETF or  IAB
> chair, the ISOC prez etc - that seems like a very bad situation.
>

this is not what your previous emails said, which is one reason why I did 
not want to accept them - there you talked about the "whole IAOC being 
involved", which was different from "4 of the IAOC being in favour".

However, there can be situations where less than half the IAOC *is* an 
appropriate majority - consider, for instance, a situation where two of the 
IAOC are on holiday (leaving us with 6), one of the IAOC is employed by 
EvilCorp, and the IAOC has to handle a complaint on awarding a contract to 
EvilCorp (causing one to recuse), and for some reason the issue is urgent 
and can't wait for the remaining 2 members to come back.

I think attempting to work all these corner cases out in the BCP is not a 
Good Thing.

                   Harald

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 08:11:59 -0600

OK, you guys are playing out of my depth, but ...

> However, there can be situations where less than half the IAOC *is* 
> an appropriate majority - consider, for instance, a situation where 
> two of the IAOC are on holiday (leaving us with 6), one of the IAOC 
> is employed by EvilCorp, and the IAOC has to handle a complaint on 
> awarding a contract to EvilCorp (causing one to recuse), and for 
> some reason the issue is urgent and can't wait for the remaining 2 
> members to come back.

Previously, I was speaking in favor of a very minimal appeal process 
for IAOC decisions (in the thread "Re: Adminrest: section 3.5b").

I'm not sure I'm as happy with limited appeals if two IAOC members can 
lock themselves in a closet and start making decisions. Maybe this is 
so far outside "reasonable" that I shouldn't be worried?

I guess I can live with this, if the expectation is that the rest of 
the IAOC DOES return and reopens previously-made egregious decisions - 
and I'm not sure I can imagine a decision that is so urgent that it 
can't wait for something like a representative sample to assemble AND 
cannot be reversed by the IAOC.

> I think attempting to work all these corner cases out in the BCP is 
> not a Good Thing.

After talking with Margaret Wasserman about her two-stop flight from 
the Bay Area to western Alaska to Seattle to Seoul (did I get this 
right?) with entirely too many IAB and IESG members on one flight, I 
have to think that it is likely that we'll have a corner case some day 
where the IAOC has to make decisions and there isn't a "serving 
majority" available - I'm thinking of the planes and passengers 
stacked up at Halifax, Nova Scotia after 9/11 for a few days, for 
example - and trying to accommodate every possible scenario in a BCP 
is definitely Not A Good Thing.

Spencer