Document Blocking (Was: I-D

[Scott Bradner]

some background on the blocking documents thread based on my experience on
the IESG

lets split documents that the IESG looks at into two piles
	1/ documents forwarded to the IESG by the RFC Editor to get the
IESG's recommendation 
	2/ documents that are the product of IETF working groups or
independent documents (mostly for standards track) that are being evaluated
as if they were WG documents 

case 1: 
the document is normally assigned to a specific AD - that AD does an
evaluation and comes up with a suggestion as to what the IESG should say to
the RFC Editor - this can take an arbitrarily long time

when the designated AD has done the review the document is put onto the
agenda for an IESG teleconference

the IESG then discusses the document during the teleconference - most of
the time the IESG winds up sending a note to the RFC Editor saying that it
has no objections to the document being published

sometimes the AD will work with the document authors/editors to deal with
issues that the AD finds during their review, sometimes this happens before
the document getting on the IESG agenda sometime after the IESG discussion

it is not common for the IESG to recommend that the RFC Editor not publish
a document (but it does happen a few times a year) - when it does happen
the RFC Editor is sent a 'do not publish' (DNP) recommendation.  The DNP is
written by one or two ADs - this can take an arbitrarily long time  

The RFC Editor uses the IESG response in deciding whether to publish the
document

case 2:
it is quite common for issues/questions to be raised by one or more ADs
during the IESG evaluation of a document - if the AD(s) feel strongly
enough that there is an issue that needs to be addresses they vote
"discuss" - this will block a document until the AD(s) are satisfied by
revisions in the document or as a result of discussion

when an AD has an issue with a document and has voted "discuss" the
document and the issues are discussed during an IESG teleconference -
sometimes the discussion results in the AD changing their evaluation and
removing their "discuss"

generally when an AD keeps their "discuss" after the IESG teleconference
there is some level of consensus in the IESG that the issues raised are
real and do need to get fixed - in this case it is generally the case that
other ADs to not also vote "discuss" to indicate their agreement, they
delegate one AD as the discuss holder - that AD will evaluate the document
changes and give a OK when they are happy - i.e. the fact that only one
security AD is recorded as having a discuss on a document should not be
read to say that the rest of the IESG does not support that discuss

in my experience, from time to time it was the case that I did not see IESG
consensus support for the concerns of a specific AD but the normal IESG
process does not make it easy to get around a single AD's discuss - there
is a process that was defined to do this but it has never been used, and
that process would not get around a case where two ADs had issues that the
rest of the IESG did not share

I do not recall that the IESG has ever specifically decided to not publish
a document in this group but since it can take an arbitrarily long time for
the working group (or document authors/editors) to respond to the concerns
and an arbitrarily long time for the back and forth between the AD for the
working group, the AD holding the discuss, the working group chairs, and
the working group the effect of the process may not be distinguishable from
a decision to not publish.

Scott