[ Not sure if this is adding to the Signal or the Noise on the Discuss list, but it *will* help bump up my ranking on the "Weekly posting summary", which I use to justify my participation to my management. That's what it's for, isn't it?!* ] On Jun 10, 2013, at 4:37 PM, Pete Resnick <presn...@qti.qualcomm.com> wrote:
> Russ, our IAB chair and former IETF chair, just sent a message to the IETF > list regarding a Last Call on draft-ietf-pkix-est. Here is the entire > contents of his message, save quoting the whole Last Call request: > > On 6/10/13 1:45 PM, Russ Housley wrote: >> I have read the document, I a support publication on the standards track. >> >> Russ > > A month ago, we had another very senior member of the community post just > such a message (in that case directly to the IESG) in response to a different > Last Call. I took that senior member of the community to task for it. But > apparently Russ either disagrees with my complaint or didn't notice that > discussion on the IESG list, so I think it's worth airing here in public: > > A statement such as the above is almost entirely useless to me as an IESG > member trying to determine consensus. It is content-free. I disagree. > > We don't vote in the IETF, so a statement of support without a reason is > meaningless. We should not be encouraging folks to send such things, and > having the IAB chair do so is encouraging bad behavior. Had I not known Russ > and his particular expertise, I would have no reason to take it into > consideration *at all*. We should not have to determine the reputation of the > poster to determine the weight of the message. Even given my background > knowledge of who Russ is, I cannot tell from that message which one of the > following Russ is saying: > > - This document precisely describes a protocol of which I have been an > implementer, and I was able to independently develop an interoperable > implementation from the document. > - This document is about a technology with which I have familiarity and I > have reviewed the technical details. It's fine. > - I've seen objection X to the document and I think the objection is > incorrect for such-and-so reasons. > - My company has a vested interest in this technology becoming a standard, > and even though I know nothing about it, I support it becoming a standards > track document. > - My Aunt Gertrude is the document editor and she said that she needs > statements of support, so here I am. > - I have a running wager on when we're going to reach RFC 7000 and I want to > increase my odds of winning. > > I take it I am supposed to presume from my friendship and knowledge of Russ > that one of the first three is true and that the last three are not. > (Well, maybe the last one might be true.) But if instead of from "Russ > Housely", the message was from "Foo Bar", I would have absolutely no way to > distinguish among the above. Actually, yes. Russ has been participating in the IETF (and specifically in the area where he posted the above email) for a long time -- you know this, because you've also been participating. In *my opinion* he has shown himself to be diligent and sane. This means that *I* would give his comment and support great weight -- I'd *assume* he has read and understood the document, and is supporting it because #1, 2, 3 and / or 6. If Foo Bar had posted the comment, and in *my* opinion Foo Bar is a total nutter, I would give his comment less, or possibly negative, weight. Obviously your opinions of Russ and Foo may be opposite to mine -- you apply your own weighting to each comment -- that's why we pay you the big bucks… If Foo Bar is new enough to the IETF and cannot reasonably expect everyone on the IESG (or in a WG or wherever) to know and have formed an opinion of him, then it is *Foo Bar's* responsibility to more fully support his comments. Do folk who actually *participate* actively and sanely get to assume that they have earned some standing and credibility? Yup. I view this as a feature, not a bug. If I go to my doctor and he tells me that I simply have a cold (and not, like I'm convinced, the plague), I should presumably weight his comments higher than those of my crazy next door neighbor (who, apparently, routinely communicates with beings from another dimension), yes? We want to reward merit and participation, not make the process so annoying that those who participate get annoyed and wander off. If anyone *opposes* a draft, I think that it behooves them to explain what the issue is, regardless of who they are. This is similar to at a restaurant -- when the waiter asks if you are enjoying your [steak|tofu] it's fine to say "Yes thanks, great", but if express displeasure you should be ready to explain what you didn't like. > > I think we should stop with these one-line statements of support. They don't > add anything to the consensus call. I'm disappointed that Russ contributed to > this pattern. > > Other opinions? My opinion is that the folk on the IETF / WG chairs / anyone evaluating information uses their opinion on the source of that information as input to it's weight. This is why we have people judging consensus (see http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-resnick-on-consensus-01 :-P) and not voting / an algorithm. W > > pr > > -- > Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/> > Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478 > [*]: :-P -- "He who laughs last, thinks slowest." -- Anonymous
