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

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2019 09:08:43 -0700

Dear General Area Director,

In March, I sent a message to the IETF discussion list about the 
recall process.  As you are probably aware, there was a lively 
discussion on the subject.  I submitted an I-D [1] about the 
subject.  There were a comments on the I-D and they were addressed in 
draft-moonesamy-recall-rev-01

I am enquiring about whether you, or any other Area Director, would 
like to sponsor the I-D or whether you would like a proposal for a 
working group to look into the draft and other related issues.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-moonesamy-recall-rev-01

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 10:46:16 -0400

Hi SM,

> On Apr 5, 2019, at 12:08 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> In March, I sent a message to the IETF discussion list about the recall process.  As you are probably aware, there was a lively discussion on the subject.  I submitted an I-D [1] about the subject.  There were a comments on the I-D and they were addressed in draft-moonesamy-recall-rev-01
> 
> I am enquiring about whether you, or any other Area Director, would like to sponsor the I-D or whether you would like a proposal for a working group to look into the draft and other related issues.

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.

Thanks,
Alissa

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:10:59 +0100

Thanks for this email, Alissa. It's interesting. I presume it means that the IESG is unanimous, because it only takes one AD to AD sponsor a draft.

BoFs are very good forums for debating stuff. Good for focussing in on requirements. Good for scoping work. Good for establishing a community to do the work.

But:
- why wait until Montreal to discuss this?
- why use a predominantly face-to-face meeting to discuss an issue that is considerably about non-attendance at face-to-face meetings?
- what more work is needed beyond debating the content of the current draft?

Can I suggest:
- An AD needs to "adopt" this idea. That doesn't mean support it, but it does mean facilitation
- A mailing list venue is needed (either this list or a new specific list)
- A virtual/interim BoF be held in (say) four weeks from now.

Why rush? We've lasted this long with the current system, why do a few extra months matter?

Well, the answer is that the energy to do the work is there now. Let's use that energy to discuss and (if agreed) make changes. Let's not risk anyone suggesting that we are deferring discussions in the hope that the issue goes away :-)

Thanks,
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Alissa Cooper
Sent: 17 April 2019 15:46
To: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Cc: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>; IESG <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: AD Sponsorship of draft-moonesamy-recall-rev

Hi SM,

Thanks,
Alissa

---

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 13:22:31 -0400

On 17 Apr 2019, at 11:10, Adrian Farrel wrote:

> ...

What a cool and (now that you’ve stated it) obvious idea!  Has it been 
done before?

--aaron

---

From: Loganaden Velvindron <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 21:49:57 +0400

I would also support the idea of a virtual BOF, as a person who
participates mostly remotely.

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:24 PM Aaron Falk <[email-masked]> wrote:
> What a cool and (now that you’ve stated it) obvious idea! Has it been done before?
>
> --aaron

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 14:56:43 -0400

--On Wednesday, April 17, 2019 13:22 -0400 Aaron Falk
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> 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
<[email-masked]> 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.   

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

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2019 08:38:44 +1200

It would certainly be ironic if a proposal to alleviate some
of the disadvantages of remote participation couldn't be be
discussed by remote participants in multiple time zones.

With all due respect, etc. etc., I've always understood that
discussion by email was intended to alleviate exactly that
problem, and this list *is* the IETF plenary. So exactly who
has been disenfranchised from this discussion who would be
enfranchised by a physical or virtual BOF?

Regards
   Brian

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 16:57:22 -0400

Brian,

(speaking strictly as an individual, independent of being a
listed co-author of the document)

> discussed by remote participants in multiple time zones.

Indeed.

> enfranchised by a physical or virtual BOF?

Agreed.  My suggestion (and version of Aaron's and Adrian's
suggestions) was only that, if the IESG is going to insist that
the document as written requires a BOF (and, if I understand
Alissa's note correctly, a WG-forming one and a WG), then it
would be better to do the BOF virtually rather than physically,
precisely because of the nature of the problem.  

Personally, I see the scope of the document as so narrow as to
make a BOF, rather than a healthy discussion on this list (much
of which has already occurred) followed by the IETF Last Call,
as being completely unnecessary.  If the problem the IESG sees
is that, by addressing two issues with eligibility to petition
for a recall, the document's scope is too broad, I suggest we
remove the sections that would allow nomcom-appointed incumbents
to sign such petitions and view that as a separate problem.

best,
   john

>> 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...
>> 
>> 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.   
>> 
>> 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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 22:04:56 -0500

> enfranchised by a physical or virtual BOF?

Taking this question at face value: technically, "no one", since membership
in the list is open modulo posting actions or SAA actions (I think there
may be one or two of the latter still active, hence scare quotes).
But in practice, I hear from the grapevine that many people are unwilling
to subscribe to or participate in discussions solely on this list, because
the volume of traffic is large and the perceived signal/noise ratio
insufficient to merit the time commitment.

Having a dedicated discussion forum other than this one is both in keeping
with the list charter and would provide a lower barrier to participation
from those who have stayed away from the general discussion list but do
care about remote participation.  It is fair to debate the cardinality of
that set, if you have a different perception than me, of course.

-Ben

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 22:29:43 -0500

If I might make an observation, and a suggestion ...

On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 10:12 Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Thanks for this email, Alissa. It's interesting. I presume it means that
> the IESG is unanimous, because it only takes one AD to AD sponsor a draft.
>

If you mean "all of the IESG has discussed this and agreed" on much of
anything, I'd be pleasantly surprised if that happened. The new IESG has
been seated for less than a month, right?

If you mean "all of the ADs have considered AD sponsoring this draft and
decided not to", I'd be surprised, because it usually takes new ADs more
than one or two telechat cycles to focus on much more than document reviews.

But either way, I think at least waiting until the IESG retreat before
using "the IESG" as a collective noun is realistic.

But, beyond that ...

BoFs are very good forums for debating stuff. Good for focussing in on
> requirements. Good for scoping work. Good for establishing a community to
> do the work.
>
> But:
> - why use a predominantly face-to-face meeting to discuss an issue that is
> considerably about non-attendance at face-to-face meetings?

That could be a fine plan. It assumes that The S is For Steering.

Another orthogonal Fine Plan could be for an AD to ask the IAB to provide a
BOF Shepherd to help the proponents - which almost certainly means "more
people than just SM" - to produce a BOF request that will result in a
successful BOF, so participants who rarely if ever see each other face to
face don't have to figure that out.

The procedure for this is described at
https://www.iab.org/documents/correspondence-reports-documents/2012-2/iab-member-roles-in-evaluating-new-work-proposals/,
unless the IAB has changed that procedure since 2012.

And if this discussion is only about the definition of who is eligible to
sign recall petitions, whether with or without John Klensin's proposal, I
note that https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ietf-nomcom/ is still an
active list, and seems to be exactly the right place for limited
discussion. If what's wanted is POISED2019, that's another mailing list, of
course, which any AD can approve.

But do the right thing, of course.

Spencer

Why rush? We've lasted this long with the current system, why do a few
> extra months matter?
>
> Well, the answer is that the energy to do the work is there now. Let's use
> that energy to discuss and (if agreed) make changes. Let's not risk anyone
> suggesting that we are deferring discussions in the hope that the issue
> goes away :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Adrian
> > In March, I sent a message to the IETF discussion list about the recall
> process.  As you are probably aware, there was a lively discussion on the
> subject.  I submitted an I-D [1] about the subject.  There were a comments
> on the I-D and they were addressed in draft-moonesamy-recall-rev-01
> >
> > I am enquiring about whether you, or any other Area Director, would like
> to sponsor the I-D or whether you would like a proposal for a working group
> to look into the draft and other related issues.
>
> 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.
>
> Thanks,
> Alissa
>
> >
> > Regards,
> > S. Moonesamy
> >

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2019 23:38:00 -0400

--On Wednesday, April 17, 2019 22:04 -0500 Benjamin Kaduk
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Taking this question at face value: technically, "no one",
> since membership in the list is open modulo posting actions or
> SAA actions (I think there may be one or two of the latter
> still active, hence scare quotes). But in practice, I hear
> from the grapevine that many people are unwilling to subscribe
> to or participate in discussions solely on this list, because
> the volume of traffic is large and the perceived signal/noise
> ratio insufficient to merit the time commitment.
> 
> Having a dedicated discussion forum other than this one is
> both in keeping with the list charter and would provide a
> lower barrier to participation from those who have stayed away
> from the general discussion list but do care about remote
> participation.  It is fair to debate the cardinality of that
> set, if you have a different perception than me, of course.

Ben,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you have just made an
argument for either a dedicated mailing list or, as Spencer
suggested, using something like the ietf-nomcom (more like
co-opting, because this really isn't about the nomcom) list and
no argument at all for a BOF.   

    john

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2019 12:31:37 -0400

Hi Adrian,

> On Apr 17, 2019, at 11:10 AM, Adrian Farrel <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

I asked the IESG. I did not get responses from everyone, but of the people who did respond none of them volunteered to AD-sponsor.

> - A virtual/interim BoF be held in (say) four weeks from now.

A virtual or physical BOF is certainly possible. We did a virtual BOF for LURK, and I think one other one recently that I’m failing to remember. And typically a successful BOF is preceded by active discussion on a mailing list, which of course anyone can request (or re-use ietf-nomcom as Spencer suggested).

The IESG will discuss at our retreat next week if there is an AD available to shepherd this effort right now. 

Alissa

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2019 12:50:49 -0400

Hi John,

> On Apr 17, 2019, at 2:56 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> 
> 

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

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2019 13:03:14 -0400

> I asked the IESG. I did not get responses from everyone, but of the people who did respond none of them volunteered to AD-sponsor.

In the past, what's worked for dealing with small things is the 
formation of a design team to look at the problem and figure out if 
there's a document or two to be had.  Perhaps that's a better approach 
than WG forming BOFs or even trying to find a sponsor for this one 
little piece of the problem?

Asa general model, people leave "elected" positions due to term 
expiration, resignation, expulsion (not IETF), recall, death, or 
disability (partial IETF - self-reporting yes as a resignation, 
non-self-reporting no).   It may make sense to fill out the full score 
card while we're updating the recall process.

Later, Mike

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 10:32:19 -0500

I'm actually enjoying this more than I should be ...

On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 12:03 PM Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> >> Thanks for this email, Alissa. It's interesting. I presume it means
> that the IESG is unanimous, because it only takes one AD to AD sponsor a
> draft.
> > I asked the IESG. I did not get responses from everyone, but of the
> people who did respond none of them volunteered to AD-sponsor.
>
>

And the reason Mike knows this, is that he (and something like the first 10
Nomcom chairs) were on a design team that Russ Housley formed to look at
issues that had recurred across Nomcoms, which we don't really have much
visibility because there's not a lot of overlap of Nomcom membership over
time.

The report that design team produced is at
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-dawkins-nomcom-3777-issues-00.txt. It
resulted in most of the updates to RFC 3777 before they were all obsoleted
by https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7437/.

Do the right thing, of course :D

Spencer

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:58:34 -0400

> I'm actually enjoying this more than I should be ...

*Hah!*

I should have also mentioned that changes to the Nomcom process do not 
and should not require participation or agreement by those being 
appointed by the Nomcom process nor do their voices weigh heavier on the 
process than any other IETF participant.  E.g. While having an AD 
sponsor this is fine, this is one of those documents that really needs 
to be a community consensus document rather than an IESG approved 
document.  (If you don't understand what I mean by this, ask an old 
timer about Kobe over beers some time).

Mike

>
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 12:03 PM Michael StJohns <[email-masked] 
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>
>     >> On Apr 17, 2019, at 11:10 AM, Adrian Farrel
>     <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
>     >>
>     >> Thanks for this email, Alissa. It's interesting. I presume it
>     means that the IESG is unanimous, because it only takes one AD to
>     AD sponsor a draft.
>     > I asked the IESG. I did not get responses from everyone, but of
>     the people who did respond none of them volunteered to AD-sponsor.
>
>
> And the reason Mike knows this, is that he (and something like the 
> first 10 Nomcom chairs) were on a design team that Russ Housley formed 
> to look at issues that had recurred across Nomcoms, which we don't 
> really have much visibility because there's not a lot of overlap of 
> Nomcom membership over time.
>
> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-dawkins-nomcom-3777-issues-00.txt. 
> It resulted in most of the updates to RFC 3777 before they were all 
> obsoleted by https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7437/.
>

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 20:52:39 -0500

Hi John,

I don't think that's the point I was making.  I was attempting to make a
narrowly scoped statement about the IETF general discussion list *not*
being an appropriate venue for a specific topic, something that I've had to
think about repeatedly while holding the post of Sergeant-at-Arms.

In contrast to my negative statement, we've seen some positive statements
in this thread considering what *would* be an appropriate venue for this
topic, and what level of community engagement is appropriate to expect for
publication of a document this entwined with IETF process, all of which I
am happy to see.

-Ben

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 19:06:45 -0700

Hi Alissa,
At 07:46 AM 17-04-2019, Alissa Cooper 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.

Thank you for discussing the request with the IESG.

There is currently a working group discussing the governance 
structure of the IETF.  I doubt that the draft would be in scope for 
that working group given that its charter specifically sets "the 
standards process" as outside its scope.  Is the IESG recommending an 
in-depth problem statement about the Internet Standards Process?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2019 23:07:46 -0700

Dear Internet Engineering Steering Group,
At 09:50 AM 18-04-2019, Alissa Cooper wrote:
>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.

 From what I understand, the governance part of the IETF is done by 
the IETF LLC.  The draft does not get into IETF LLC matters.  A 
person conversant with corporate affairs would likely understand the 
legal aspects of that.

The proposal does not mention the word "dysfunctional".  This is a 
sentence from Section 2.2: 'Restricting signatories to those who are 
"nomcom qualified" disenfranchises active remote participants who 
reside in emerging countries as they lack the extensive travel 
resources required to seek redress'.

As for reputational risk, does the reputation of a person who can 
afford to spend USD 10,000 outweigh the reputation of a person who 
actively participates even though he or she does not attend IETF meetings?

>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.

Does the above mean that the Internet Engineering Steering Group 
(IESG) is aware that BCP 78/79 can be easily "gamed"?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Scott O. Bradner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 14:38:29 -0400

> On Apr 20, 2019, at 2:07 AM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> From what I understand, the governance part of the IETF is done by the IETF LLC.

kind of depends on what you mean by “governance”

the LLC does not have the authority to modify the IETF standards track or the documents such as RFC 2026 * 2418 
that say how the process works - other IETF-adopted RFCs define the noncom and recall processes

Scott

>  The draft does not get into IETF LLC matters.  A person conversant with corporate affairs would likely understand the legal aspects of that.
> 
> The proposal does not mention the word "dysfunctional".  This is a sentence from Section 2.2: 'Restricting signatories to those who are "nomcom qualified" disenfranchises active remote participants who reside in emerging countries as they lack the extensive travel resources required to seek redress'.
> 
> As for reputational risk, does the reputation of a person who can afford to spend USD 10,000 outweigh the reputation of a person who actively participates even though he or she does not attend IETF meetings?
> 
> Does the above mean that the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is aware that BCP 78/79 can be easily "gamed"?
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 11:43:39 -0700

Hi Spencer,
>That could be a fine plan. It assumes that The S is For Steering.

:-)

>Another orthogonal Fine Plan could be for an AD to ask the IAB to 
>provide a BOF Shepherd to help the proponents - which almost 
>certainly means "more people than just SM" - to produce a BOF 
>request that will result in a successful BOF, so participants who 
>rarely if ever see each other face to face don't have to figure that out.
>
>And if this discussion is only about the definition of who is 
>eligible to sign recall petitions, whether with or without John 
>Klensin's proposal, I note that 
>https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ietf-nomcom/ is still an 
>discussion. If what's wanted is POISED2019, that's another mailing 
>list, of course, which any AD can approve.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.  Several years ago, you and I had 
a discussion on that mailing list.

BCP 39 is about architectural oversight.  Anyway, a "BOF" is 
described as a session for
"market research" and technical "brainstorming".  There are working 
group which have been formed without a "BOF".  If I am not mistaken, 
I may have chaired that type of working group.  As for a "Fine Plan", 
it will be very difficult to find/justify funding for the subject 
(please see the email from the General Area Director).

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 14:44:21 -0400

Alissa,

Just focusing on this one comment...

--On Thursday, April 18, 2019 12:50 -0400 Alissa Cooper
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>...
> 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.

I note first that leaving the number at 20 wouldn't change that
scenario significantly, if one had the skills and motivation to
set up 10 such accounts, one could almost as easily set up 20 or
50.  Second, the requirement is a little more complicated: one
would not only have to set up those accounts but, if the 3 of 5
rule is preserved, they would have to join remote sessions
during at least three consecutive IETF meetings, taking up most
of a year.   If one were trying to disrupt the IETF, mount a DoS
attack, or impose large costs on the community, the need to work
that far in advance would be a significant deterrent given that
other, faster and easier mechanisms are readily available.

>  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

We may need to agree to disagree, but let me suggest a different
way to look at this:

Keep in mind that, as far as I know, we still have a rule that
all substantive community decisions, including technical reviews
in WGs and IETF Last Calls, get made on mailing lists.  I feel
as if that principle is eroding, but that might be just me and
is a different topic in any event.  Suppose there is a bad guy
who wants to disrupt the IETF and prevent anything from getting
done.  So, following your scenario above, they set up a number
of fake email accounts identities.  Ten would probably be enough
given how easily our mailing lists can be led into repeated
discussions and down ratholes by a single person pushing an idea
that is a little off-target or close to one that was considered
earlier and rejected, but, as pointed out above, once someone
decides to create a few such accounts, twenty or fifty is not
much harder than ten and they don't need to be (and shouldn't
be) created all as once.   Now those virtual people show up on
the IETF list and a selection of WG and other discussion lists,
advocating positions that are either unacceptable or
slightly-plausible but short of complete nonsense.   They could
even draw candidate topics and possible threads from discussions
of the past, e.g., "SMTP is obsolete and attack-prone and it is
time to replace it with..." or "the failure, after 24 years, of
IPv6 to deploy, be the primary protocol at that layer, and
restore unique addresses and the end to end model indicates that
we should drop it and make another plan focused on...".

One could think about identity verification as a counterattack,
but I note that is another noise-inducing topic with which we
have had a good deal of contentious experience.   Other
counterattacks include revocation of posting rights, but that
has to be done one mail account at a time (unless we can prove
that that all have the same origin and identify that origin,
something we have massively failed to do with, e.g., spammers)
and is also very expensive of community time.

That alternate approach may be a little bit harder for some
would-be evildoers than the one you posit because it requires
either typing in messages or setting up and using a script
generator, but if someone decides to disrupt the IETF (or impose
taxes on the community), it has the huge advantage of
almost-instant gratification.  That attack has been available
since the IETF got large enough that all participants ceased to
know each other personally, certainly since the early 1990s.
Despite some claims of deployment of "sock puppets", it has
never been used effectively, or even, AFAICT, attempted in a
serious way.

Bottom line: An attack roughly equivalent to the one you
outline, one that requires less calendar-time delay before
causing the IETF to feel significant pain, does not depend on
details of the recall procedure, has been available for a
quarter-century and has never been attempted.  Unless your
analysis shows that the proposed change to the recall procedure
would measurably and significantly increase the risk relative to
what has been available for years, I suggest that we move on.

best,
   john

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2019 09:57:32 +1200

>> having them join remote sessions.

As others have pointed out, gaming the IETF by email is not
impossible, has been attempted, and could be attempted at any
time.

One thing we could discuss is whether subscription to any IETF
email list should require the subscriber to have a current tracker
account**. Since anybody can register for a tracker account, this
would not disenfranchise anybody. It would have two advantages, and
one obvious disadvantage:

+1: Ensures that there is only one place where a bogus subscriber
needs to be detected - i.e. the tracker.

+2: Would allow us to close the security loophole where mailman
sends passwords in the clear. (Details TBD, but it could certainly
be done.)

-1: Provides a single point of attack for the sock puppets.

** I can't remember whether remote participants require a tracker
account, but if they don't, they probably should.

Regards
    Brian

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 23:19:14 +0100

On 20/04/2019 22:57, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> It would have two advantages, and

Another non-trivial disadvantage is that requiring a
tracker account would require another stupid password
for no reason (compared to the status quo ante, for
those who don't bother with a tracker login).

For me, that's a winning argument, in what is a fairly
ridiculous discussion overall.

S.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2019 10:27:09 +1200

> those who don't bother with a tracker login).

I don't agree, because done right, it would avoid the need
for a separate (and rather insecure) mailman password for
each mailing list. That's my biggest password management problem
today.

   Brian

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 20:57:01 -0500

> in-depth problem statement about the Internet Standards Process?

Well, an IESG did exactly that in the early 2000s, resulting in
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3774.

We have addressed a minority of the problems we identified a decade and a
half ago, but ISTM that taking a look at RFC 3774 and seeing what remains
to be fixed, and whether it's worth fixing, might be a FABulous place to
start ...

Spencer

Regards,

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2019 01:23:46 -0700

Hi Spencer,
At 06:57 PM 20-04-2019, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
>We have addressed a minority of the problems we identified a decade 
>and a half ago, but ISTM that taking a look at RFC 3774 and seeing 
>what remains to be fixed, and whether it's worth fixing, might be a 
>FABulous place to start ...

The current administration [1] has not expressed any interest in the 
recall-rev draft.  If it is interested in that RFC, it could talk 
with the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) to find proponents willing 
to tackle some other set of the minority of problems.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. The word has a different meaning in some countries.

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2019 16:35:05 +0000

>  If one were trying to disrupt the IETF, mount a DoS

There are national-scale attackers which probably find it cheap to get people doing this.

It's not a threat model I worry about but YMMV.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2019 19:51:52 -0400

--On Sunday, April 21, 2019 16:35 +0000 "Salz, Rich"
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>     attack, or impose large costs on the community, the need
> to work     that far in advance would be a significant
> deterrent given that     other, faster and easier mechanisms
> are readily available.
> 

I wasn't commenting on "cheap".   I contend that either the
scenario Alissa explained or my "just attack the IETF's
decision-making mailing list" one would be cheap.  The question
is whether an attack on the recall procedure would be
sufficiently more attractive way to attack the IETF (by someone
motivated to that - state actor or otherwise) to justify the
needed eight months or a year of advanced planning rather than
getting more or less instant gratification.   My guess is no,
but there may be circumstances and scenarios I haven't thought
about and, as you say, YMMD.

> It's not a threat model I worry about but YMMV.

Yep.
    john

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 19:19:12 -0700

On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 8:33 AM Spencer Dawkins at IETF <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> And the reason Mike knows this, is that he (and something like the first
> 10 Nomcom chairs) were on a design team that Russ Housley formed to look at

Thanks for pointing us to this document. Useful to avoid reinventing
the issues list.

In that vein, I think it would be useful to get crisp about the
problem statement. It seems to me that this document implicitly makes
two arguments:

- It's too difficult to initiate a recall (because the threshold
  is too high and because members of the leadership who might have
  special knowledge are excluded) [S 2.1, 2.3]

- It's unfair to exclude remote participants [S 2.2]

I'm not sure how persuaded I am by the second argument, but I think
the overall thrust of the first argument has some merit. However,
I tend to agree with Alissa that the main obstacle isn't so much
the number of people or excluding leadership, but rather the
reputational risk to people of signing the petition, especially
if the recall fails [0].

So, if the idea is to make recalls easier, then it seems to me
that the easiest thing to do would be to make the signatures
on the petition anonymous; the Secretariat can still verify them,
of course, and the recall proceedings themselves would still
be conducted in our usual fashion.

-Ekr

[0] "If you come at the king, you best not miss".
[1] It's also possible to build a system that allows third party
    verification that the right number of sigantures were provided
    while not identifying the signers, but the amount of crypto
    required seems somewhat prohibitive.

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:32:58 -0400

On 4/22/2019 10:19 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 8:33 AM Spencer Dawkins at IETF 
> <[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>> 
> wrote:
>
>     <deleted several levels of response>
>

>     It resulted in most of the updates to RFC 3777 before they were
>     all obsoleted by https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7437/.
>
>
The more I listen to this thread, the more I'm thinking that the whole 
concept of recall as described in the appropriate documents makes little 
sense for the IETF/IAB as currently constituted.  It certainly makes no 
sense for any of the other entities for which the Nomcom proposes 
candidates (e.g. the LLC and Trust) for which the appropriate remedies 
implicate various laws or contractual issues.

The ONLY time we've ever come close to running a recall, it was for the 
IAOC and it was to deal with the fact that we hadn't created procedures 
to deal with abandonment of a position or disability of a member 
especially where we had (with one person AWOL from a normal set of 5 
members) a potential quorum problem.

When the problem occurred, it took only about a day to get 20 members to 
sign the petition once it was decided to handle it via recall.  The 
member in question ended up resigning quickly enough that the recall 
committee was not formed. (I think I've got this timing correct...)   It 
would have taken something like 6 weeks or so to get the recall 
committee up and running and then more time to actually complete the 
recall, then another 4-6 weeks to fill the spot - call it 2-3 months to 
fix a problem.

Instead, I'd like to propose that we move to an expulsion model for the 
IAB and IESG where the members of the organizations are able to remove a 
member under certain circumstances:  Behavior inconsistent with a 
fiduciary (e.g. acting for your company or contracting entity to the 
detriment of the standards process); behavior that adversely affects the 
standardization process (IESG) or behavior that adversely affects the 
general operation of the IAB (e.g. things like harassment); abandonment 
of the position or lack of communication from the member.

2/3 of the permanent members can vote to remove.   For the IETF chair, a 
majority of both the IESG and IAB (e.g. two groups each with majority 
approvals) are needed.

This would at least be a lot faster to resolve if there is a great 
enough issue.

If we still want to talk about recalls, let's talk about *why* we might 
want to recall someone?  Is there a current or potential (within the 
next year or so) reasonable scenario that we need to address?  Once we 
figure out what the possible offenses are, we can figure out if recall 
is the remedy or if we need to think about something else.  I'm still 
puzzled as to why we need to make recalls easier to accomplish and 
whether there is an actual issue with not allowing remote participants 
to trigger a petition.

Later, Mike

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 00:39:29 -0400

On 4/22/19 11:32 PM, Michael StJohns wrote:

> Instead, I'd like to propose that we move to an expulsion model for 
> the IAB and IESG where the members of the organizations are able to 
> remove a member under certain circumstances:  Behavior inconsistent 
> with a fiduciary (e.g. acting for your company or contracting entity 
> to the detriment of the standards process); behavior that adversely 
> affects the standardization process (IESG) or behavior that adversely 
> affects the general operation of the IAB (e.g. things like 
> harassment); abandonment of the position or  lack of communication 
> from the member. 

I definitely think it's worth looking at alternative models for removing 
IAB/IESG members who misbehave.   However for your proposal:

a) I suspect there's a risk that an IESG would not support expulsion of 
a member who had clearly discriminated against a participant out of some 
kind of prejudice (other than technical judgment), because that IESG 
wished to protect its own.   If nothing else, the perception of such a 
choice by IESG would harm IETF's reputation and thereby harm its ability 
to do work.   So I think IESG cannot be its own sole watchdog of its 
members; there must be the possibility for some other "last resort" 
means of recalling an AD from outside of IESG.   Perhaps that could be 
managed as a kind of an appeal rather than initiating a recall petition 
as is currently envisioned.

b) On the flip side, there's also some risk that an IESG would seek to 
marginalize a lone voice within its ranks that argued for sanity against 
a widely-accepted madness, and use the expulsion process as a way to 
silence that individual.   So I don't think IESG should be able to expel 
one of its members without external scrutiny as to what justified it.   
(note that I didn't say _public_ scrutiny.)   In such a case, review by 
the current nomcom might be appropriate.

All of this is tricky to get right though, and we could easily end up 
with worse (e.g. more easily gamed) than what we have now.

Keith

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 15:37:57 +0000

*   Instead, I'd like to propose that we move to an expulsion model for the IAB and IESG where the members of the organizations are able to remove a member under certain circumstances:  Behavior inconsistent with a fiduciary (e.g. acting for your company or contracting entity to the detriment of the standards process); behavior that adversely affects the standardization process (IESG) or behavior that adversely affects the general operation of the IAB (e.g. things like harassment); abandonment of the position or  lack of communication from the member.

This and Ekr’s note on anonymous signers (verified by paid staff) seems like the first original thoughts on this thread (as opposed to tweaking the dials to get RTT’s down. :)

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 13:21:21 -0400

On Sun, Apr 21, 2019 at 12:35 PM Salz, Rich <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Exactly.  Sock puppets are used to carry out this type of attack with one
person acting as tens of personas.  Bots have also been quite effective,
with it taking multiple angles to detect that they are a bot (not trivial).

I'm not either as the cost may be too high now, but that may not persist
for too much longer.  "Like War" is an interesting read on this topic.

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 09:57:25 -0700

Hello,
At 08:32 PM 22-04-2019, Michael StJohns wrote:
>affects the standardization process (IESG) or behavior that 
>adversely affects the general operation of the IAB (e.g. things like 

There is the following in Section 2.2:

    The "nomcom qualified" requirement for a recall petition is contrary
    to the spirit and one of the goals of the Internet Standards Process
    [RFC2026] about procedures which are intended to be fair.

Would the decision of an Area Director/IESG not to sponsor the draft 
be considered as behaviour that adversely affect the standardization process?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:58:44 +0000

No, because the concern seems to be about deciding the right venue where *more input* can be put into the document.

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:19:40 -0500

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 06:58:44PM +0000, Salz, Rich wrote:
> >    Would the decision of an Area Director/IESG not to sponsor the
> >    draft be considered as behaviour that adversely affect the
> >    standardization process?
>   
> No, because the concern seems to be about deciding the right venue
> where *more input* can be put into the document.

+1.  AD decisions to not sponsor a draft are really not the sort of
decisions that can be appealed.  You've got two ADs per-area, if you
can't get either of them, or any of the others, to sponsor your draft,
then maybe you're doing things wrong.  A BoF/WG seems like a fine
starting point.

I'd also like to second EKR's proposal that the IAB and IESG should get
a first crack at policing themselves.  That wouldn't exclude a proper
recall mechanism that can be initiated outside the IAB/IESG, but maybe
we wouldn't need to make that mechanism too easy to start.  Lastly, a
mechanism for quickly dealing with frivolous petitions can make it
tolerable to make starting a recall process too easy.

Nico
--

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 16:59:12 -0400

Nico,

What is the definition of a "frivolous" petition? Just curious how that
would work...

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 14:08:18 -0700

Hi Nico, Rich,
>then maybe you're doing things wrong.  A BoF/WG seems like a fine

I added a Cc to the Area Director as it is useful to know whether the 
decision can be appealed or not.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 16:10:27 -0500

> What is the definition of a "frivolous" petition? Just curious how that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

Still, I'd say something like: when the specifics of petitioner's
grievance is thin justification, perhaps personal in a way that doesn't
rise to the level justifying recall, petitioner's grievance easily
addressed in some other way than by recalling an officer, and so on.

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 16:11:24 -0500

> decision can be appealed or not.

What's the problem with holding a BoF?

---

From: Dave Taht <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 23:22:20 +0200

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 10:20 PM Nico Williams <[email-masked]> wrote:
> a first crack at policing themselves.

Is that something happening at this IESG retreat?

> That wouldn't exclude a proper

-- 

Dave Täht
CTO, TekLibre, LLC
http://www.teklibre.com
Tel: 1-831-205-9740

---

From: Eric Rescorla <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 14:37:01 -0700

> Is that something happening at this IESG retreat?

Two points here:
1. This was actually MSJ's suggestion on-list a few daya ago, though I
think it's an interesting one.
2. I am no longer on the IESG, so not at the retreat.

-Ekr

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:22:53 -0400

Hi Nico,

> On 24 Apr 2019, at 16:19, Nico Williams <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

I’m all for steady incremental change.  Having a mechanism to address a situation in the IESG, with notice, would be a good thing.  Even having the mechanism available might have eliminated several instances where it might otherwise have been used.  I feel a little differently about the IAB.  If someone skips out on the IAB, it’s not earth shattering.

Eliot

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 22:26:25 +0000

I don't get it.  Something about recalling IESG members should not progress as a standard without the whole IETF having the chance to provide input and discussion.  As it stands now, you're pushing this to be "take my words as gospel" approach.

Please stop.

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:28:19 -0700

Hi Nico,
>What's the problem with holding a BoF?

It doesn't make sense to ask a person who lacks extensive travel 
resources to fly to Canada to hold a BoF about a short draft.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Salz, Rich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 22:53:32 +0000

I understand the situation, and having been in that place for years, am empathetic.

But the proposed alternative seems to be "take my draft as-is"

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 19:17:20 -0400

The proposed alternative I thought I saw was to
a) establish a mailing list (because we do not like holding discussions 
of specific documents on the IETF list)
b) hold some explicit virtual sessions to discuss the draft

Given how small and focused the draft is, creating a working group seems 
rather odd.
Making even small process changes in the IETF is hard.  The handling of 
this seems designed to make it even harder.  Note: I do not believe that 
is the actual intent of the responders.  It is however the apparent result.

Yours,
Joel

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:43:35 -0500

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 03:28:19PM -0700, S Moonesamy wrote:
> It doesn't make sense to ask a person who lacks extensive travel resources
> to fly to Canada to hold a BoF about a short draft.

You could participate remotely.

Seriously, please stop suggesting that your I-D not getting sponsored is
a moral or ethical failure on the part of the ADs.  You've been given a
way forward that fits our publication process.

We have a process for publication of Standards-Track and BCP RFCs.  That
process involves an optional BoF, a WG Last Call, definitely IETF Last
Call, and IESG review.  It would be strange to skip the BoF and the WG
LC steps, and it would be stranger still to have an IETF LC on a draft
that has had this much discussion and no other forum for discussing it.

An AD sponsoring this I-D as it is might well be grounds for a recall
petition!  :^/

Nico
--

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 15:20:51 +1200

On 25-Apr-19 10:26, Salz, Rich wrote:
> I don't get it.  Something about recalling IESG members should not progress as a standard without the whole IETF having the chance to provide input and discussion. 

But they do. On this list, which by our own rules trumps face to face discussion.

If people choose to disenfranchise themselves by not reading the IETF's plenary discussion list, my sympathy is limited. Yes, there have been periods when I've disabled delivery from this list, and during those periods I've disenfranchised myself from some discussions, and that was entirely my own problem.

> As it stands now, you're pushing this to be "take my words as gospel" approach.

I don't think so. The draft is public and the discussion is public.

A BOF may be a perfectly good next step, or even a WG, but neither is required by the IETF process.

    Brian

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:10:04 -0400

> resources to fly to Canada to hold a BoF about a short draft.

It's not strictly necessary to make a BoF presentation in-person.   It's 
possible to present to a BoF session from a remote location, and I'm 
pretty sure I've seen it done more than once.

(It may require a bit more prior arrangement to make sure it goes 
well.   e.g. Have someone physically present with a laptop to connect to 
the on-site projector and advance to the next slide when asked, also be 
able to telephone in just in case the normal audio conferencing 
facilities don't work.   But if you can get an AD to agree to sponsor a 
BOF, making such arrangements should not be difficult.)

However I agree with those who say that a "virtual BoF" or even just 
mailing list discussion, would be reasonable ways to initially evaluate 
the problem and this proposal.

Keith

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 09:26:01 +0100

> But the proposed alternative seems to be "take my draft as-is"

That would certainly be a Bad Thing (TM).

But why can't we operate through IETF business as usual? That is, debate the content of the draft on the mailing list (whichever one is deemed appropriate), make concrete proposals for change, update the draft until concerns have been addressed (RFC7282), test consensus with a last call, and move ahead to publication?

Oh, I know why we can't do that: That approach requires an AD to sponsor the draft, and no AD has stepped up. (Just recall that agreeing to sponsor does not mean instant acceptance of the work and publication as an RFC, it is the start of the process that might still need long years of debate on the mailing list.)

If (and this is perfectly possible) the problem statement is not obvious to readers of the draft, the answer is surely not to have a BoF where the proponents are asked to clarify the problem and scope: the answer would be to write a short email saying "I read your draft and I find the scope and problem statement unclear. Could you please write some more words to help me understand it." If (equally possible) someone wants to address a different problem or has a different view of what the scope should be, they do not need a BoF to have that discussion, they can raise their aspirations in an email.

We do not need to hold a BoF every time anyone wants to suggest a small change to IETF process.

Adrian

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 10:03:41 +0100

Nico, you over-stretch the "normality" of the process, IMHO.

If I can point to a few random RFCs that made changes to process without a
BoF or WG...
- RFC 7942 (which replaced RFC 6982)
- RFC 7776 (lots of discussion)
- RFC 8126
- RFC 8318 (this one is very relevant to our discussion)
- RFC 7475

These RFCs received varying amounts of discussion on mailing lists. Mainly
on this list.

It is only a quick sample from recent times, but I hope it demonstrates the
point that process changes are often (more often than not, I would say)
brought to publication without a BoF, WG, or WG last call.

We can debate whether *this* change needs a BoF etc., but we cannot use
precedent to claim that it would be strange to not have a BoF or that
AD-sponsorship would be grounds for recall or appeal.

Thanks,
Adrian

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of Nico Williams
Sent: 25 April 2019 00:44
To: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Cc: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: AD Sponsorship of draft-moonesamy-recall-rev

Nico
--

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 10:28:55 +0100

> Oh, I know why we can't do that: That approach requires an AD to sponsor the draft, and no AD has stepped up. (Just recall that agreeing to sponsor does not mean instant acceptance of the work and…

Given the amount of discussion, the "normal" process for something like 
this would be for the IETF Chair to ask for an IESG volunteer to sponsor
the draft, and if one were not forthcoming to sponsor it themselves.

Even if it was not to their personal liking all that is required is 
studied neutrality on the part of the IESG member and a fair hearing
from all members of the IETF community.

If it goes through due process, the result is the result, even if the 
result is not to the taste of the IESG.

> We do not need to hold a BoF every time anyone wants to suggest a small change to IETF process.

I would agree.

- Stewart

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 10:47:42 -0400

I agree with Stewart, I think a BOF is overkill for this particular short
and focused draft. Even absent current AD sponsorship, discussion and
refinement of the draft can continue on this list. If general community
consensus around a future revision of the draft can be shown on the list
(as usual, by the absence of continued commenting following a new
revision), it may then be more difficult for the IESG to not find at least
one member to sponsor the publication process, including IETF last call.

Cheers,
Andy

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 5:29 AM Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> > But why can't we operate through IETF business as usual? That is, debate
> the content of the draft on the mailing list (whichever one is deemed
> appropriate), make concrete proposals for change, update the draft until
> concerns have been addressed (RFC7282), test consensus with a last call,
> and move ahead to publication?
> >
> > Oh, I know why we can't do that: That approach requires an AD to sponsor
> the draft, and no AD has stepped up. (Just recall that agreeing to sponsor
> does not mean instant acceptance of the work and publication as an RFC, it
> is the start of the process that might still need long years of debate on
> the mailing list.)
>
> > If (and this is perfectly possible) the problem statement is not obvious
> to readers of the draft, the answer is surely not to have a BoF where the
> proponents are asked to clarify the problem and scope: the answer would be
> to write a short email saying "I read your draft and I find the scope and
> problem statement unclear. Could you please write some more words to help
> me understand it." If (equally possible) someone wants to address a
> different problem or has a different view of what the scope should be, they
> do not need a BoF to have that discussion, they can raise their aspirations
> in an email.
> >

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:04:41 -0500

> Nico, you over-stretch the "normality" of the process, IMHO.

A bit, but the point is that if you cannot get an AD to sponsor the I-D
without a WG, well, then you still have that path.

Having to go through a WG is very much a possible and legitimate
outcome.

Nico
--

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 17:17:00 +0100

> Having to go through a WG is very much a possible and legitimate

Well, that is not the only path.

Procedurally the authors could consider initiating an appeal or even 
perhaps a recall over the matter.

- Stewart

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:21:16 -0500

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 05:17:00PM +0100, Stewart Bryant wrote:
> Procedurally the authors could consider initiating an appeal or even perhaps
> a recall over the matter.

I did not know that an (all) AD's decision not to sponsor could be
appealed.  I don't see how a recall petition over the ADs' refusal to
sponsor could be anything other than frivolous.

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 17:37:47 +0100

> sponsor could be anything other than frivolous.

It is my understanding that in the IETF the will of the community 
overrules the will of the IESG. Thus, if there is community will for 
something, the IESG must either resign or concede. That is why we need 
to last call anything of significance.

Whether such a recall would be frivolous would firstly be a matter for
the community to decide in terms of gathering the required signatures, 
and then it be would be a matter for the recall committee to decide.

- Stewart

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:57:07 -0500

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 05:37:47PM +0100, Stewart Bryant wrote:
> It is my understanding that in the IETF the will of the community overrules
> the will of the IESG. Thus, if there is community will for something, the
> IESG must either resign or concede. That is why we need to last call
> anything of significance.
> 
> the community to decide in terms of gathering the required signatures, and
> then it be would be a matter for the recall committee to decide.

Sure.  I don't disagree with any of that.

I suppose that if the current slate of ADs all felt personally
threatened by the current proposal, then that might be grounds for
recalling them.  That's just not my take for what's going on.  And the
fact that the author has a way forward makes me think it's not a big
deal to just have a BoF.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 13:24:11 -0400

--On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 18:43 -0500 Nico Williams
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> It doesn't make sense to ask a person who lacks extensive
>> travel resources to fly to Canada to hold a BoF about a short
>> draft.
> 
> Seriously, please stop suggesting that your I-D not getting
> sponsored is a moral or ethical failure on the part of the
> ADs.  You've been given a way forward that fits our
> publication process.
> 
> We have a process for publication of Standards-Track and BCP
> RFCs.  That process involves an optional BoF, a WG Last Call,
> definitely IETF Last Call, and IESG review.  It would be
> strange to skip the BoF and the WG LC steps, and it would be
> stranger still to have an IETF LC on a draft that has had this
> much discussion and no other forum for discussing it.
> 
> An AD sponsoring this I-D as it is might well be grounds for a
> recall petition!  :^/

Nico,

Let me note two bits of history and then suggest that you (and
others who have responded to the idea of reviewing and
potentially approving this document by an Individual Submission
process with the sort of righteous outrage that I read into your
last comment/jest above) tone it down a bit. 

(1) Document processing history... 

RFC 8318 was processed and approved as an Individual Submission
(no BOF, no WG).  It was a rather small, fine-tuning, change,
but some of us believe that the changes suggested by
draft-moonesamy-recall-rev are no larger.  YMMD about that,
however...

RFC 7776, which laid out a whole new policy area and, in the
process, slightly updated the recall procedures of RFC 7437, was
discussed and approved as an Individual Submission (no WG).  I
find it hard to believe that the implications of the present I-D
are broader than the implications of the anti-harassment policy
and procedures.  But, again, YMMD.

RFC 7437, which completely replaced the prior specifications of
the nominating and recall processes, was processed and approved
as an Individual Submission (no WG and, as far as I can remember
or tell from the tracker, no BOF).   It would be very hard to
argue that such a complete replacement, "roll-up", document has
less sweeping effect or risk of inadvertent changes than the
present I-D.

RFC 6859, a clarification about nomcom eligibility, was
processed as an Individual Submission.   Whether it is a more or
less significant change than the one now proposed depends on
whether one thinks it actually changed anything versus
reinforcing an interpretation of prior documents that was
generally accepted, but the point remains: no WG and, AFAICT, no
BOF.

We need to go all the way back to RFC 3777 (six years ago) to
find a document related to the recall process that actually came
out of a WG.

It seems to me that, unless you (or others) are ready to claim
that all of the documents listed above other than 3777 are not
legitimate, arguing that this I-D must go through a WG and WG
Last Call (with or without a BOF) prior to IETF Last Call as a
matter of our normal procedure with no other path permitted, is,
to use your term, "strange".   There is, of course, an IETF Last
Call and IETF review inherent in the AD-sponsored Individual
Submission process: no one has proposed to eliminate or bypass
either of those steps.

(2) Moral or ethical failures...

I don't believe anyone has explicitly made either of those
claims.  _However_, one effect of what the I-D proposes is to
increase the fraction of the IETF participant community who can
participate in directly holding IESG members accountable through
the _only_ mechanism now available to the community (other than,
e.g., throwing of ripe fruit during plenaries, an activity we
haven't figured out how to support over Meetecho).   Any time,
in any organization, that a leadership body requires
otherwise-optional procedures that put obstacles in the way of
rapid processing and approval of a proposal that would cause
additional accountability (or accountability to a broader
population) for that body, it is reasonable to raise the
question of whether the risk of increased accountability is part
of the motivation for the requirement.  It is also appropriate
for the leadership body itself to carefully examine its own
motives.  That is not to suggest that the decision to require
additional procedures is inherently wrong: on a case-by-case
basis, it may be exactly right.  However, it is not an accident
that there are well-established metaphors in many cultures for
situations in which a body is asked to consider increasing some
other group's control over it -- e.g., "asking turkeys to vote
for Thanksgiving" (or Christmas) or "allowing the foxes to take
charge of the henhouse" -- it seems to me entirely appropriate
to ask questions about motives rather than casting aspersions on
those who do so.

So, again, whether this proposal actually needs a WG-forming
BOF, AD or IESG approval or a WG, etc., is something we can
continue to debate (much as I'd rather be discussing substance).
And people can raise (again, btw) and debate (although I'd much
rather see a different thread and a draft first and believe the
issue is completely separate from the ones covered by the I-D)
such topics as whether the IESG and IAB should be able to remove
their own members.   But please let's cut back on the hyperbole,
claims for procedural requirements that have never existed, and
assertions (even if by implication) that some people have
accused others of being morally or ethically defective.

best,
   john

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 12:32:19 -0500

> last comment/jest above) tone it down a bit. 

I think you may have misread my note.  There was no outrage.  My point
was that having to host a BoF due to no AD sponsoring the I-D is hardly
a serious problem.  The author seemed more upset than I thought should
be the case.

Nico
--

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 13:36:06 -0400

In line

On 4/23/2019 12:39 AM, Keith Moore wrote:
> I definitely think it's worth looking at alternative models for 
> removing IAB/IESG members who misbehave.   However for your proposal:
>
> a) I suspect there's a risk that an IESG would not support expulsion 
> of a member who had clearly discriminated against a participant out of 
> some kind of prejudice (other than technical judgment), because that 
> IESG wished to protect its own.   If nothing else, the perception of 
> such a choice by IESG would harm IETF's reputation and thereby harm 
> its ability to do work.   So I think IESG cannot be its own sole 
> watchdog of its members; there must be the possibility for some other 
> "last resort" means of recalling an AD from outside of IESG.   Perhaps 
> that could be managed as a kind of an appeal rather than initiating a 
> recall petition as is currently envisioned.
>

Good comments overall.  But:

Appeals are generally taken against final decisions rather than just 
hanging there loose to be applied against something that might not 
actually have had a formal appraisal and decision.

WRT to "protect its own" - if there's a problem that has enough 
consensus of a need for resolution, and the IAB or IESG does not take 
action, then you address it  at the next Nomcom cycle and remove not 
only the problem child, but the folks that didn't act. But I'd be 
surprised if we end up with that result.  I don't always get along with 
the leadership and some actions they've taken over the years annoy the 
hell out of me, but for the most part I consider them honorable and 
generally good fiduciaries of the IETF process.

> marginalize a lone voice within its ranks that argued for sanity 
> against a widely-accepted madness, and use the expulsion process as a 
> way to silence that individual.   So I don't think IESG should be able 
> to expel one of its members without external scrutiny as to what 
> justified it.   (note that I didn't say _public_ scrutiny.)   In such 
> a case, review by the current nomcom might be appropriate.

There are a few ways of dealing with this -  either have a second body 
confirm the expulsion - or - my preference - make the expulsion 
appealable and use normal appeals process to act as a check and 
balance.  I don't think it's an unsolvable problem.

> with worse (e.g. more easily gamed) than what we have now.

To be blunt - I think the "easy to game" argument is a red herring in 
all its forms, such argument only given some small amount of life based 
on the actual black and white text of the recall process and vivid 
imaginations.  A bigger problem - IMHO - is the ridiculous amount of 
time it would take to process the recall after the petition is 
certified.  I neither think it would be difficult to got 20 signatures 
using the current criteria for something sufficiently serious for a 
recall, nor would the IETF fall for any of the various permutations of 
sock puppets and trolling and DOS attacks we've discussed in this and 
other related threads.

Later, Mike

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 16:09:59 -0400

--On Thursday, April 25, 2019 12:32 -0500 Nico Williams
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> potentially approving this document by an Individual
>> Submission process with the sort of righteous outrage that I
>> read into your last comment/jest above) tone it down a bit. 
> 
> I think you may have misread my note.  There was no outrage.
> My point was that having to host a BoF due to no AD sponsoring
> the I-D is hardly a serious problem.  The author seemed more
> upset than I thought should be the case.

I won't try to speak for the author (as I've said, it would
exaggerate my role in the I-D to describe it as "secondary"),
but let me address what you are interpreting (correctly or not)
as "upset".  First note the comments in my earlier message about
asking a body to make changes that increase its accountability
and the vunerability of its members to unpleasant removal
actions.  Also note that, although different people can, and do,
interpret actions in different ways and that, ADAIK, none of the
people on the IESG now were on the IESG "then", the IESG doesn't
have a great track record for processing community-initiated
procedural changes that constrain AD behavior.  The two examples
that come to mind are the efforts many years ago to change WG
creation and retention rules to avoid regular increases in the
size of the IESG and/or the length of f2f meetings and the
results of the NEWTRK WG that would have actually changed the
standards process.  In the first cases, despite considerable
discussion, one interpretation of events is that the IESG
refused to either initiate a Last Call on any of the proposals
or to move in the direction of creating a WG to work on the
topic.  Again, people's interpretations and recollections will
differ on whether there were good and substantive reasons such
as an accurate judgment that the community really didn't care.
NEWTRK is probably more complicated and, again, other
interpretations of what happened are possible (and certainly out
there) but after a BOF, long discussions about charter, and
creation of a WG that did considerable work, the WG came up with
I-Ds that successfully went through WG Last Call... and the IESG
essentially refused to conduct an IETF Last Call on the subset
of those I-Ds that would have constrained the IESG's behavior.

I'm not suggesting that, in declining to handle this document as
an Individual Submission that is almost entirely fine tuning,
the IESG had any motivations along those lines, but, from the
standpoint of those who think the proposed changes are
fine-tuning needed to restore the appearance of fairness as the
population of people who mostly participate remotely increases,
the two possible ways to progress the document look like:

(1) Focus the discussion, walling off discussions of other
things that might or might not be desirable to create new
mechanisms for removing members of the leadership or even make
other changes to the recall procedure, hold an IETF Last Call,
and, if there is community support for the proposal, approve it
and move on.   Assuming approval for calculation purposes, by my
count and allowing for another week or so of discussion, a
four-week IETF Last Call, and a month for the IESG to do its
evaluation (shouldn't take that long, but...), that leads to a
document in the RFC Editor's hands in mid-August.  

(2) Start down the path of a BOF in Montreal to think about
things, possibly one organized to discuss these changes as part
of a general review of nominations and accountability
procedures.  I think the latter is consistent with Alissa's
note, although it is possible that I misinterpreted it.  Now,
that could move along swiftly: BOF the third week in July,
approval of a charter and appointment of WG leadership on July
26, a WG meeting at IETF 106, a couple of weeks of WG Last Call
starting around Dec 1, IETF Last Call starting sometime in
January, document to the RFC Editor in February sometime.  There
are ways to make that go faster, but, if the justification for a
BOF and WG is really to allow opening up the broader issues,
that schedule might be optimistic.    In addition, while I trust
it is not the case, if the purpose of asking for a BOF and WG is
to drag this out until people lose interest and move on, then
the Montreal BOF is determined to be inconclusive (at least as
much as matter of IESG discretion as how to handle an Individual
Submission), leading to another BOF in Bangkok if people don't
just give up, a WG chartering process that stretches at least
into January, discussions continuing until at least halfway
through 2020 (again, if people don't just lose interest), and
then no guarantees that the IESG will actually act on the WG's
conclusions if, against all odds, it reaches conclusions.

Again, not speaking for either Subramanian or even myself, it is
not completely irrational for those who see the I-D as making a
very small but important change to restore to appearance of
fairness to compare the two options, consider the Independent
Submission one _much_ more appropriate, and to question the
effects and motivation for the BOF-plus-WG plan... especially in
the light of the last several new documents and updates to older
ones that affect the recall process being handled as Individual
Submissions/

     john

p.s. If one wants to open the entire can of worms, I've believed
for some years that, as the IETF becomes more diverse, the whole
idea of handling Individual Submissions at the discretion of ADs
has become inappropriate and prone to abuse and unfairness.
Many of us can find at least a few examples of documents that
appear to have been processed on that track because the
submitters were friends,  cronies, or co-workers of the relevant
ADs (even if some other AD nominally takes over formal
responsibility) while other submitters who have lacked that type
of qualification get their documents ignored or are forced
toward the BOF and WG approach only to be told that not enough
of the community cares about the document to be worth the
investment of resources.  Perhaps Individual Submissions, at
least for Standards track documents, should require a petition
signed by a significant number of active IETF participants with
bars against too many people from the same organization.   I'd
hope we would not feel a need to bias _those_ petition
requirements against people who contribute remotely.

---

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 20:09:40 -0500

> I agree with Stewart, I think a BOF is overkill for this particular short

I'm not sure that we need to focus too much on "BoF" -- I don't see many
people specifically pushing for a BoF, whether virtual or in Montreal, when
work could get done on a non-WG mailing list as well.

> refinement of the draft can continue on this list. If general community

I respectfully disagree: RFC 3005 is pretty explicit that the general
discussion list is only for "initial discussion only [...] unless the issue
is one for which the working group needs wider input or direction".  The
IESG is working on a place to continue this discussion and work through any
complications and/or subtleties of this and related topics, before it
returns to the general list for IETF LC and the wider input from the
community.

> one member to sponsor the publication process, including IETF last call.

Indeed.  I note that, per my understanding of
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/iesg/wiki/AreasDescription, an AD sponsoring a
draft should have personally reviewed that document and believe it ready
for publication as-is.  Given the continued discussion regarding this
document, I believe that a conclusion that the document is not ready for
publication "as-is" is justified, but I'm happy to see the discussion
progress.

-Ben

---

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 07:05:07 -0400

Ben,

Thanks for your clarification of the use of the main ietf list (I had
forgotten that detail from RFC 3005) and also note the formation of
[email-masked] the discussion.

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 11:04:36 -0400

Hi John,

I note that I am posting as an individual, and certainly not in any
capacity on behalf of the Internet Society, but that my thoughts below
are informed by my experience.

> Submission process: no one has proposed to eliminate or bypass

My concern about this document is rather different.  It lays out a
bunch of reasons to make adjustments, and does not in fact address
most of those reasons.  The main thing it does is make the procedure
easier to start, but it also doesn't adjust the procedure at all.

The procedure, however, is not itself inexpensive, it entails a degree
of collegial damage to the organization that ought to be taken quite
seriously, and it does not have a lot of clean exit procedures (so,
for instance, the procedure can't AFAICT be called off once it has
been initiated, if the petitioners pull out).  It seems to me to be
worth some pretty careful, even-tempered discussion. Perhaps the
procedure as designed is so designed because of an implicit
understanding that it would be somewhat hard to inititate.  Perhaps it
was designed in a cultural context of much greater social cohesion and
cultural homogeneity of the IETF than may be the case today.  The
present age is fractious and divided everywhere, and the IETF does not
appear, to me, to be resisting that zeitgeist.

Speaking selfishly, the procedure also imposes a burden on the
Internet Society President to find and appoint a Recall Committee
Chair.  As the incumbent who'd have to do that, my first problem is to
write a job description, then to find a suitable candidate who has the
time and motivation and reputation to do this.  Making this burden
easier to impose on me at surprising intervals is something that,
quite frankly, I would be inclined to resist were someone to ask me in
my professional capacity what I thought.  That suggests to me that the
procedure would need some additional modifications in order to make
the changes practical, and once the worm-can is open who knows what
additional red wrigglers will start moving around?

I just don't see how to treat this change as "fine tuning".  It's an
effort to make a nuclear option easier to use, and I do not understand
how that could be understood as anything other than a fundamental,
community-altering decision.  That kind of decision seems to me to
warrant the use of every mechanism one has to ensure one proceeds
with the right care.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:57:45 -0400

Hi all,

Responding to my own mail now that the IESG retreat has concluded.

> On Apr 18, 2019, at 12:31 PM, Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Adrian,
> 

The IESG discussed this topic at our retreat. We have setup [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> to be the home for the discussions of draft-moonesamy-recall-rev and related discussions about recall and nomcom elgibility criteria, the recall process, and remote participation. If you’re interested in these topics, please subscribe to that list. 

Alexey, Warren, and Suresh will be guiding discussions on that mailing list and will be reaching out to the draft authors about next steps. We have also requested a shepherd from the IAB to help with this.

I will send to [email-masked] my own responses to some outstanding emails in this thread that were addressed to me and deal with the substance of the draft.

Best,
Alissa
for the IESG

---

From: Alissa Cooper <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:58:04 -0400

Hi SM,

> On Apr 24, 2019, at 5:08 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Nico, Rich,
> I added a Cc to the Area Director as it is useful to know whether the decision can be appealed or not.

IETF participants are not constrained in what they can appeal, so this is appealable. The process in RFC 2026 Section 6.5.2 applies.

Note the guidance at https://www.ietf.org/blog/guidance-area-director-sponsoring-documents/#choosing <https://www.ietf.org/blog/guidance-area-director-sponsoring-documents/#choosing>.

Alissa

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 21:10:15 +0100

Hi Andrew,

Useful thoughts, thanks.

> most of those reasons.

Well, doesn't the draft offer three areas of concern, and address them with
specific proposed changes:
- Eligibility of IAB and IESG members and other Nomcom appointees
- Eligibility of remote participants
- Number of signatures required

> The main thing it does is make the procedure

These are two truths. 
I think that questioning the first of these has an interesting oppositional
view: do you propose making it *harder* to start the procedure? Perhaps we
could say all signatories must have first names starting with the letter A
:-)  But seriously, what in the last n years suggests that starting the
procedure has been "easy enough"? Have we already been overrun with recall
petitions?

> seriously

That is true. And it must be weighed against the damage caused by an
unaddressed need for a recall.
We actually don't have any evidence on either side of this issue and so must
aim to strike a balance letting it be "reasonably" possible to start a
recall process, but not having the IETF swamped by recalls. We start from
knowing that the current process is not causing swamping. This document
proposes some relaxations (that are not extreme). I should imagine that if
the number of recall petitions is suddenly found to be too many (and without
good cause - i.e., the recalls are unsuccessful) we could adjust again.

> and it does not have a lot of clean exit procedures (so,
> been initiated, if the petitioners pull out).

We have no knowledge of how this works. But if I was on a recall committee
and the petitioners sent me mail to say that they had changed their mind, I
might talk to them and possibly conclude that the petition can be deemed to
have failed.

> It seems to me to be worth some pretty careful, even-tempered 
> discussion. 

Yes, hopefully.

> Perhaps the

Perhaps all of those things.

I tend to believe that resistance to fractiousness is best achieved by open
accountability.

For the other points we could consult some people a little older than us.
Was it an abundance of caution or a deliberate attempt to make it "too hard
to execute"?

> my professional capacity what I thought.  

Well, I certainly don't want to make your life harder.

But, assume there is a real need for a recall: in that case, I guess you
would be more than pleased to appoint a recall committee chair.

And, since there is a potential for a recall petition at any time, I don't
think you escape the need for a policy/process/job-description for the
recall committee chair. The only way around that would be to deprecate
recalls, which I don't think you are suggesting.

> That suggests to me that the

Do you have some suggestions for a vermicide? 
Perhaps if the proposed changes were time-limited?
Perhaps if they were limited by a count of recall petitions?

> warrant the use of every mechanism one has to ensure one proceeds

I think applying "the right care" is absolutely spot on.

I disagree with you about a recall petition being a nuclear option. It seems
to me to be a reasonable check in the event of unreasonable behaviour. Not
something to be feared, but a tool that shows that the IETF is a mature
organisation.

Ciao,
Adrian

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2019 17:27:45 -0400

> additional red wrigglers will start moving around?

Way back when I wrote 
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-stjohns-alt-3777bis-00  - especially 
section 6 - to address some of this.  Basically, what I suggested was 
that the chair of the recall committee should be the most recent chair  
of the nomcom committee who wasn't currently serving on a nomcom and who 
would accept the appointment.  I also suggested that the list of 
volunteers for the most recent nomcom instance be used to select the 
recall committee (after being pruned of the actual nomcom selectees).  I 
proposed a model where the recall committee could be stood up in about a 
week and finish in either two or three.

There is no need to refer to the ISOC for any of this (seriously - 
"write a job description"?????  serious overkill), and  avoiding all the 
issues that you mention by avoiding the ISOC is a "good thing".  
Instead, work with known quantities and people and a pre-agreed upon plan.

Later, Mike

---

From: 'Andrew Sullivan' <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2019 12:00:24 -0400

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your detailed reply.  In an effort to follow the apparent
desires of the IETF, I've set Reply-To on this message to the Other
List :)  Whether it will make the list manager header munging I dunno.

Again, I represent no voice but my own.

> - Eligibility of IAB and IESG members and other Nomcom appointees

It simply deletes this consideration, yet it quite explicitly notes
how unseemly it is that an appointing nomcom member could participate.
So it doesn't address the issue it raises.

> - Eligibility of remote participants

Only sort of.  It allows registered remote participants to count
(good) but then sets up a rule in which people "have participated
physically or remotely" without defining that term.  If ever there
were an opportunity for confusion and arguments over what constitutes
"participation", I'd like to hope that its first official duty would
not be in determining how we pick everyone else to manage the
organization.  The existing arrangement is quite clear: you register
for and attend the meetings.  The new proposal adds a notion of
participation that is at least in serious need of unpacking. 

> could say all signatories must have first names starting with the letter A

I think this is a false alternative: it simply doesn't admit of the
possibility that the _status quo_ is ok.  In any case, no, I do not
propose making it harder.  What I oppose is making it easier without
thinking about the procedure itself.

> But seriously, what in the last n years suggests that starting the

This puts the burden of proof entirely in the wrong place.  In order
to show that you need a threshold change, you'd need an argument that
there was a case that should have caused a recall, but that didn't
because the threshold couldn't be met.  To show _that_, you'd at least
need a definition of "should have caused a recall" that was
uncontroversial.  None of that argumentation has been made.  Without
it, I don't understand why anyone argues for a change in the required
number.

In other words, we have no evidence whether the procedure is "easy
enough", but we have exactly the same evidence that it is hard enough
or too hard.  It seems to me that most of the IETF wants to get their
work done, and that they'll do that under many circumstances until the
structure is manifestly unfit for purpose, at which point finding 20
people ought to be a trivial hurdle to clear.

This is also completely unrelated to the question of equity for remote
participants, which AIUI is what got all this going.  

> recall process

I am not sure what to make of a defence of a change in the rules that
starts with the proposition that there is no evidence for any of it.
I will certainly grant the proposition that there is evidence neither
of a need to change nor of adequacy of the current arrangement.  

> might talk to them and possibly conclude that the petition can be deemed to

You might do anything at all, of course, and another person might do
something else yet again.  The point is that good organizational
procedures intended to be triggered frequently ought to be well
understood.  The current draft proposes that 10 random people who sign
up for free remote participation 3 times and "participate" in some
unspecified way can hold the entire IETF so-called "leadership" to
ransom, and we have no idea how those demands would be processed.  It
seems like the sort of decision that requires careful community
deliberation.  I don't see that this document has reached that
threshold.

> I tend to believe that resistance to fractiousness is best achieved by open

And yet, here we are.  We have an organization that by any measure is,
compared to just about anything I can name, super open and
accountable.  Yet it appears to be beset by fractiousness.  One might
be forgiven for thinking that the effort to lower the threshold for
recall signatures is an effort that will aid that fractiousness.

> Was it an abundance of caution or a deliberate attempt to make it "too hard

Experience by scholars of history suggests that asking people who did
a thing why they did it will quite often (but unpredictably) yield
justifications that were not made explicit (or were even contradicted)
at the time the thing happened.  We cannot invite the testimony of
those who were there; we can invite only the testimony of those who
remember being one of the people there.  Memory is imperfect.

> would be more than pleased to appoint a recall committee chair.

No, but I would do my duty.

It is a _lot of work_ to find a nomcom chair.  I have to canvass a lot
of people.  I have to describe what I'm looking for.  And I have to
use such reputation as I have to cajole people into accepting.

A recall chair would be more contentious without the upside of the
nomcom chair (e.g. that one appointed the right person).  So it is not
clear to me how easy it will be to fill this position, and that seems
like something we ought to take into account if we are going to make
it easier to trigger this procedure both by increasing the class of
people who can participate in the triggering and by lowering the
numbers needed.

> And, since there is a potential for a recall petition at any time

Sure.  My very point was that the draft made that situation easier to
happen without evidence about why such a change ought to happen.

> Do you have some suggestions for a vermicide? 

No, but it seems to me that this is a good example of why a WG needs
to work on this.

> I think applying "the right care" is absolutely spot on.

I'm glad we're in agreement.

> I disagree with you about a recall petition being a nuclear option.

Lots of people do.  But a one-step procedure that moves from "20
people support this" to "committee decides to fire or not" without
intermediate steps is the sort of thing that works well when there are
lots of informal, functioning ways for people to come to agreement.
The excitement among some to reduce the threshold of signatures needed
to invoke this procedure suggests to me that the informal, functioning
ways may be fraying under current community strain.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2019 12:16:45 -0700

Hi Andrew,
>participation that is at least in serious need of unpacking.

The draft does not make any change to the section about the Internet 
Society President.

There is the following sentence in the Note Well: "By participating 
in the IETF, you agree to follow IETF processes and 
policies".  Signatories are "expected to be familiar with the IETF 
processes and procedures, which are readily learned by active 
participation ..."  It is the up to a signatory to show that he or 
she participated in those IETF meetings.

>deliberation.  I don't see that this document has reached that

Please see draft-sullivan-mtgvenue-decisions-00 as it discusses about 
different types of attendees.

 From what I recall, it only took one appointee to negatively impact 
the work of the administrative support activity.  Russ explained why 
it was not possible for the body to exercise the recall process option.

There are 10 random persons who choose the so-called "leadership" 
each year.  The persons  do not have to have to participate on this 
mailing list even though this is usually the place where IETF 
policies are discussed.  What is the difference between them and 10 
random persons who participate remotely?

Is an accountability mechanism a way to hold the so-called 
"leadership" to ransom?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2019 21:33:21 +0100

Andrew,

Apologies for a delayed response, I was working the last couple of days.

Thank you for your time and careful thought. It's really insightful and
helpful. And, of course, the care and effort you put into selecting Nomcom
chairs is really appreciated - I suspect most members of the community just
see it as "something that happens".

I wonder whether we need to break up this discussion into different topics
(threads?) so that the bleed-over doesn't get in the way of our
conversation.

I see a number of separate topics. Of course they are related, but I think
we might try to keep them distinct as much as possible. We should qualify
this with the knowledge that a recall is very-much a position of last
resort, but with the understanding that the very existence of the
possibility of a recall is an important part of the structure of the IETF.
Just like appeals, a recall is an element that allows us to trust the
operational management of the IETF. It is not the use of these mechanisms,
it is their availability.

The topics are:

1. Should members of the IESG and IAB (and other Nomcom-appointed people) be
allowed to sign recall petitions?
2. Should seated Nomcom members be allowed to sign recall petitions?
3. How do we qualify "participation" at IETF meetings?
4. Should remote participants at IETF meetings be qualified to sign recall
petitions?
5. What should be the number of signatories on a recall petition?
6. What is the right number of recall petitions?

Let's run through these in some more detail.

1. Currently serving Nomcom-appointed people are excluded from being able to
sign a recall petition. Several people have suggested that the IESG might be
in a position to police itself, and it does seem that there might be cases
where the IESG or IAB is uniquely positioned to know of issues that make a
recall a realistic option. I don't suppose that adding two dozen people to
the list of potential signatories makes a big difference to the potential of
a recall being initiated. I don't see any harm in this change and there
seems to be some small potential benefit.

2. Currently seated Nomcom members are allowed to sign recall petitions.
There seems to be general agreement that this would be a poor idea subject
to concerns about Nomcom confidentiality. It may be an oversight in the
original specification and is easy to fix. It doesn't seem that this change
would have a substantial impact on the pool of people who may sign a recall
petition, and the clarification looks like a good idea.

3. There is another thread running about how we might qualify people as
having participated in IETF meetings. Currently we judge this by looking for
those who have registered, paid and picked up badges: there is no actual
measure of participation. So there is a theoretical puppetry that could
occur, but it comes at a price.
For remote participants we have several tools available: registration and
Meetecho logs are the most obvious; physical presence at a remote hub is
also a possible.

4. I think that this whole thing started with consideration of whether we
should give more attention to the rights of remote participants. Let's set
this in a couple of contexts:
- Nomcom qualification requires physical participation in 3/5 meetings with 
  the belief that only people who have recent and full experience of the
IETF
  can properly make decisions about what the community wants/needs.
- All IETF decisions and the majority of discussions happen remotely (i.e.,
on
  mailing lists).
- The IETF (supported strongly by ISOC) has been working to extend the
  level of remote participation through increased tooling and the
  establishment of remote hubs. Part of that process is intended to enable
  new people with the appropriate skills to be as active as possible in the
  IETF. Part of it is to enable participation from parts of the world where
  the cost of physical attendance at IETF meetings may be prohibitive.
- The IETF has a strong ethos of non-discrimination: we work hard to make
  the only thing that counts be the reasoned discussion of technology. The
  IETF is well aware that it is not just the reality of fairness that
counts, but
  the appearance of fairness.
Considering these points, the current draft proposes to allow "qualified
remote participants" to sign recall petitions. Obviously the question of
qualification depends on point 3, and further discussion of that is
necessary. 
But supposing we work out the element of qualification, the proposal seems
to leave some concerns:
- It is easier to have "fake" signatories than with physical attendance.
  This is true, but we have only very slight evidence that there has ever
  been any attempt to subvert any other part of the IETF process by
  these means, and they are equally vulnerable. I conclude that the risk
  is both manageable and small. Furthermore, if this ever became a 
  problem, it could be addressed by a subsequent reversal of the 
  proposed change.
- There would be an increase in the pool of qualified signatories and 
  so an increase in the number of petitions. I don't think much effort
  has been put into working the numbers here: I think I saw a count
  of 700 Nomcom-qualified people, all of whom can currently sign a 
  petition. IIRC we have around 400 remote participants at any one
  IETF meeting, so we could *guess* that that might yield another
  200 potential signatories. Of course, given that we have never had
  a recall committee formed, it is hard to guess what impact this
  change would have 9/7 of nothing is still nothing.
- Participants who have only attended remotely don't fully
  understand the IETF and are not in a position to make requests for
  recall. This case can certainly be argued as it is for Nomcom, but it
  is also true that (unlike Nomcom) the signatory of a recall petition
  is not making any fundamental change: that change is left to the
  recall committee.
What this boils down to, then, is that there may be more work to do in terms
of more petitions to handle. That argument can be looked at several ways:
- If petitions are needed, then having them is a good thing
- Each properly formed petition requires a recall committee and
  chair: that is work to set up and administer, and a strain on the
  ISOC President
- There is a risk of attack that could be harmful although we have
  no reason to believe we will be attacked, and we do understand
  how to shut it down if it happens.

5. Once upon a time the number of signatures required for a recall petition
was 1. There were no attempts at recall, but this was increased to 20. There
may be no value in researching why that change was made and why the number
20 was selected. To me it seems that 1 was a fragile situation in a growing
organisation, but that 20 reflects an abundance of caution. We have never
had a recall and that could be because we have never needed one or because
it has been too hard to form one. I'm not sure that discussing that point
will get us anywhere but if we continue to not need any recalls, then
lowering the number will not matter, while if it has been too hard, lowering
the number of signatures needed will help.
Of course, the risk is that lowering the number makes us vulnerable to
recall petitions that have to be serviced. If they are valid, that is a
price we have to pay for good governance. I would argue that if the
petitions had a good case to answer but did not lead to a recall, that would
still be good governance. If it led to a number (any number) of frivolous,
fatuous, or otherwise spiteful petitions, then we would have empirical
evidence that increasing the number to 20 again would be wise.

6.  You said, "In order to show that you need a threshold change, you'd need
an argument that there was a case that should have caused a recall, but that
didn't because the threshold couldn't be met." I doubt that this is a
conversation that can be had on a public mailing list: we don't want to open
up the horrors of trial in the court of public opinion. And it is pretty
likely to be anecdotal in any case.
But, as I said above, the right number of actual recalls is the number we
actually have: I someone needs to be recalled then they need to be recalled.
And part of the price of getting that right is having a recall process that
can be started and executed even if it doesn't always deliver. The cost of
having no recall process or one that is hard to execute is that we lose
credibility for having sound governance.

One last point from me that might be applicable to the discussion of
fractiousness. I don't think any of this discussion comes about because
anyone is trying to form a recall petition. I don't think there is anyone
expressing such extreme discontent or agitating to remove anyone. To the
contrary: the best time to discuss and work on the backstop procedures is
precisely when they are not needed.

Could all or some of this be put into a/the draft? Unquestionably. Is the
current draft perfect? No, but it is an early revision. Should the ideas be
split into separate drafts? Well that all depends on how smoothly the
discussion goes since history teaches us that the IETF is very good at using
one issue to block progress on the resolution of other issues.

Let's move forward.

But you raised one other point. That we shouldn't look at anything that
makes the process for starting a recall easier without also looking at the
whole procedure. I think the two can be decoupled, but I also think that if
you have concerns about the recall procedure (and clearly not just limited
to your responsibility to appoint a recall committee chair) you should
document them (probably in a draft) so that we can all work on them.

Thanks,
Adrian

>> Well, doesn't the draft offer three areas of concern, and address
>> them with specific proposed changes:
>> procedure has been "easy enough"? Have we already been overrun
>> with recall petitions?
>