[Internal-cg] Handling process complaints

[Jari Arkko]

In thinking about the process complaints process :-) we should be 
careful to not just consider the current step but also steps a bit
further forward. 

If you think about the full scope of the transition, there will be some 
number of people that will disagree. As we expand the circle of people 
commenting on this, and as we get further away from the current core 
group of people who know this stuff reasonably well, in those further 
steps we are likely to run into mistaken assumptions and maybe even 
some that disagree on principle. As we run an open process, it is 
important that we keep the “broad agreement is what matters” principle
in our minds,  and do not set ourselves up for doing a lot of work if
anyone in the world asks us to. Re-opening of a debate lost in a 
earlier in the consensus process is a real danger*. 

I think the key aspects of looking at complaints of any sort are 
checking (a) whether the process was run as needed and (b) 
whether the specific issue was is in scope and whether it 
was considered. The former is something that we can do 
in a general sense, as opposed to running an investigation 
on every point someone isn’t in agreement. The latter is
hopefully relatively quick, unless we indeed spot something
that was not considered.

Jari

*) In the IETF we have some experience of appeals processes, 
and one of the challenges in that process is that you have to 
balance making sure that you’ve not made a mistake with 
accidentally giving too much weight to one opinion over the 
community opinion. Just because some one screams “appeal” 
does not mean that we have to give more weight to the opinion.
We have to look at all opinions with the same weight, and if we
missed an issue and that is raised in an appeal, we need to fix
it. But otherwise, appeals are not a way for a person to change
informed community consensus.
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