Re: deadlock problem

[RJ Atkinson <rja@extremenetworks.com>]

On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 01:30 America/Montreal, Brian E Carpenter 
wrote:
> I would prefer to remove the rule completely and leave the
> CBs to set their own rules.

During my time on IAB, (at least once) a lack of pre-planning (e.g. with
respect to handling 'abstain' votes) by the collective IAB (i.e. what
happened is really no one's fault) created serious issues in convergence
on one or more IESG nominees.

Based on that experience, I think that it would be a disaster to have
the confirming bodies set their own rules.  Instead of having a 
straight-
forward confirm/reject/abstain vote with a clearly defined outcome,
letting each CB set their own rules has strong potential for (1)
different procedures each year and (2) individuals trying to arrange
the rules in a given year to favour particular nominees.  In short,
letting each CB set their own rules would reduce consistency 
year-to-year
and would increase the political quotient of the confirming activity.
I view increasing the political quotient of anything in the IETF
to be a bad result.

By contrast, having a small number of simple, clearly defined, rules
would tend to reduce the political quotient and help ensure consistency
in the procedures from one year to the next.

> If we don't remove the rule, I would support (A) which is
> effectively the status quo.

I wish it were the status quo.  Thanks for that support.

Ran