Notes on the IESG PR-action Discussion

Legal requirements for suspension and expulsion of members

Right to democratic participation, Hobbs Act

Miscellaneous Resources:

• Instructions for Taking Minutes
• Dave Crocker in his own words
• Brian Carpenter in his own words. "The IESG did not initiate this action"
• Anderson reviews question of Morphin misbehavior.
• Anderson on abuse of Nick Staff by Carpenter
• Nick Staff very articulate. RE: On PR-actions, signatures and debate
  "What I'm saying is, if this were Lord of The Flies some of you would be the one who kills Piggy."
• Marshall Rose (author of RFC 3683) on RFC 3683
  "3683 requires a considered deliberate effort by the decision-making bodies to use. it invokes the full process mechanisms of the ietf,"
• October 7, 2005 The IETF Announcment on IETF-announce
• Legal requirements for expulsion and suspension of Members

Discussion of PR Action.

IAB IESG lied on Consensus claims

1. September 30th Julien Maisonneuve Process is slanted
2. September 30th Julien Maisonneuve More detail. Worried about fairness of process
3. September 30th Anthony G. Atkielski "If the IESG has the time to compile blacklists and go on witch hunts, perhaps it doesn't have enough work to justify its existence."
4. September 30th Michael Thomas Advocates killfiles
5. October 2nd Dean Anderson Says Morfin has claim for defamation and disparagement, bylaw violations. In only 5 days, the IESG will announce a PR-action on Anderson.
6. October 3rd Brian Carpenter says IETF is not known for witch hunts [Ed. note: I guess it will be, now]
7. October 3rd Dean Anderson on abuse of Nick Staff
8. October 6th Frank Ellermann Thinks RFC3683 should be obsoleted
9. October 6th Sean Dorman Thinks RFC3683 process is a waste of time.
10. October 6th Margaret Wasserman Thinks RFC3683 should be obsoleted
11. October 6th Eric Gray Thinks RFC3683 should be obsoleted
12. October 6th Bill Manning Not in favor of Pr-action against anyone
13. October 6th Peter and Karin Dambier Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
14. October 6th Randy Dunlap Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
15. October 6th Avri Doria Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
16. October 6th Anita Kremer Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
17. October 6th Mark Manthey Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
18. October 6th Nick Staff Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
19. October 6th Melinda Shore Not in favor of a "vote" [Ed. note: Huh? Isn't that what consensus is? But this message appears to stop the cascade of voices opposed to PR-actions.]
20. October 6th Anthony Atkielski Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
21. October 7th Ole Jacobsen Happy to go with the majority, [Ed. note: Ole sees majority against PR-action]
22. October 7th Brian Carpenter Objects to discusion topic of "we don't like RFC3683"
23. October 7th Marshall Eubanks Approves PR-action Against Anderson
24. October 10th Eduardo Mendez questions what is going on.
25. October 10th Brian Carpenter Responds to Eduardo Mendez.
26. October 12th Eduardo Mendez Opposes PR-action against Anderson
27. October 12th Dean Anderson Questions where PR-action posted
28. October 12th C.M. Heard Responds to Anderson. Opposes PR-action against Anderson
    "FWIW, now that I see RFC 3683 in action I have to say I have severe misgivings about it."
29. October 14th David Kessens Announces new Last Call
30. October 15th Eduardo Mendez Notes irregularity, non-participation in Last Call
31. October 15th Mark Manthey Thinks Mendez note is funny. Expresses no other opinion.
32. October 16th Spencer Dawkins (IESG Scribe/Minute-taker) Ridicules Mendez
33. October 17th David Kessens Attacks Mendez for questioning motives.
34. October 17th Spencer Dawkins (IESG Scribe/Minute-taker) Thanks Kessens
35. October 17th Eduardo Mendez Says he is sorry if he offended Kessens, notes cultural differences of other countries. But asserts injustice of PR-action
36. October 17th Noel Chiappa To Mendez Says nationalism should stay out.
37. October 17th Eduardo Mendez Says that he did not mean nationalism. Indicates that he advises government. Asserts injustice of PR-action.
38. October 17th David Singer Attempts to "interpret" Mendez
39. October 17th Alexis Turner Questions Mendez
40. October 17th Dean Anderson Defends Mendez. Notes conflicts of Kessens. Notes that response will be withheld pending advice of attorney.
41. October 17th Sandy Wills Asserts that Anderson should be expelled for wanting to discuss issue with Attorney. Makes accusation that "Dean always has the floor", "Whatever Dean wants to talk about is, by definition here, the proper subject of discussion", "Dean is always right", "etc. Offers no evidence. Appears to approve PR-action against Anderson.
42. October 17th Doug Ewell Quotes Sandy Wills, says that it reminds him of Oprah. Offers no other opinion.
43. October 18th Dean Anderson Asks for evidence of Sandy Wills. Refutes claims made by Sandy Wills. (Wills never responds.)

PR-action Consensus

Messages generally opposing PR-action for anyone

1. October 6th Frank Ellermann Thinks RFC3683 should be obsoleted [against PR action]
2. October 6th Sean Dorman Thinks RFC3683 process is a waste of time. [against PR action]
3. October 6th Margaret Wasserman Thinks RFC3683 should be obsoleted [against PR action]
4. October 6th Eric Gray Thinks RFC3683 should be obsoleted [against PR action]
5. October 6th Bill Manning Not in favor of Pr-action against anyone
6. October 6th Peter and Karin Dambier Not in favor of PR-action against anyone. [arguably two votes]
7. October 6th Randy Dunlap Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
8. October 6th Avri Doria Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
9. October 6th Anita Kremer Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
10. October 6th Mark Manthey Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
11. October 6th Nick Staff Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
12. October 6th Anthony Atkielski Not in favor of PR-action against anyone
13. October 7th Ole Jacobsen Happy to go with the majority [of no PR-actions]
14. October 12th Eduardo Mendez Opposes PR-action against Anderson
15. October 12th C.M. Heard Responds to Anderson. Opposes PR-action against Anderson
    "FWIW, now that I see RFC 3683 in action I have to say I have severe misgivings about it."

Those in favor of PR-action:

1. October 7th Marshall Eubanks Approves PR-action Against Anderson
2. October 17th Sandy Wills Asserts that Anderson should be expelled for wanting to discuss issue with Attorney. Makes accusation that "Dean always has the floor", "Whatever Dean wants to talk about is, by definition here, the proper subject of discussion", "Dean is always right", etc. Obviously, on a mailing list, anyone can talk about any subject at any time. Appears to approve PR-action against Anderson.

Results: Anderson wins 15-2

• One person definitely approves of PR-action (Marshall Eubanks) Sandy Wills, a student, may approve, but seems to be confused.
• Two specifically disapprove of PR-action (C.M. Heard, Eduardo Mendez) against Anderson.
• 13 definitely oppose PR-action on anyone. A total of 15 for Anderson, 2 against.
• If one counts Peter and Karin Dambier as two people, then the count is 16-2

Anderson wins 15-2.

The IAB, apparently based on report from the IESG Chair Brian Carpenter, falsely reports that there were "there were less than 10 messages on the main IETF Discussion list regarding this specific Last Call" in section 5.4 of http://www.iab.org/appeals/2006-07-13-anderson-response.html

There were 21 messages on Anderson specifically. More if you count the general discussion. IESG/IAB reports "less than 10"

The IAB lied, and reported "less than 10 messages" on the consensus
call. (http://www.iab.org/appeals/2006-07-13-anderson-response.html
Section 5.4, second paragraph)

Discussion with IESG and IAB

1. March 20, 2006 IESG Response to Appeal. Cites unspecified factual errors. Asserts that decision was minuted.
2. March 30, 2006 Dean Anderson request for voting records
3. March 31, 2006 Brian Carpenter Location of Minutes
4. April 1, 2006 Dean Anderson No vote
5. April 1, 2006 Dean Anderson No evaluation
6. April 1, 2006 Brian Carpenter Claims Ballot is explicit.
7. April 3, 2006 Dean Anderson Incomplete vote record
8. April 4, 2006 Sam Hartman Override Ballot used. Informally reports votes.
9. April 5, 2006 Brian Carpenter Confused. Says to imply the votes from those present.
10. April 6, 2006 Sam Hartman Advises Anderson not to wait for IESG to identify errors.
11. April 13, 2006 Brian Carpenter Claims Crocker request, Carpenter inititiated, and then passed to Kessens. Says that IESG is not prepared to re-analyze the Appeal.
12. April 13, 2006 Dean Anderson Minutes contract Carpenter's claim of who initiated the PR-action. Anderson asserts that no substance given for response.
13. April 14, 2006 Brian Carpenter IESG is done with discussion.

Recall Marshall Rose saying that "3683 requires a considered deliberate effort by the decision-making bodies to use. it invokes the full process mechanisms of the ietf," -- Marshall Rose (author of RFC 3683) on RFC 3683

Subsequent Discoveries

IAB and IESG Members Conflicts of Internet

Some persons were identified initially as having a conflict of interest. Subsequently, it was discovered that other persons had undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Russ Housley

Housley is violating RFC 3979 and deceiving the IESG and IETF. Housley votes that Bellovin and Crocker truthfully stated that RFC 3979 isn't the IETF policy, without disclosing his own conflict of interest.

Dr. Kevin Fall

Dr. Fall's co-worker (Sylvia Ratnassamy) at Intel Research in Berkeley is working on DNS Anycast. Dr. Fall does not disclose this. Votes on assertions that stateful DNS Anycast is stable. Another co-worker of Dr. Fall at Intel Research is Joseph Hellerstein. Hellerstein is a technical advisor to Nominum, which is owned in part by Paul Vixie, advocate of DNS Anycast. Vixie's company authored RFC4786, and stands to earn a great deal of money from selling Anycast Root DNS services, and other DNS Anycast services.

Other Events of Interest

RFC 4786 (draft-ietf-grow-anycast) controversy

See Sam Hartman's comments in the IETF datatracker 2006-10-15:
"I think that the area director [David Kessens --ed] chose to play hard enough ball that the process can no longer be considered open and that the IESG erred in supporting this process and approving the document.

In particular, I believe that last call comments from Dean Anderson, Sam Hartman, Lars Eggert, Eric Rescorla and David Oran were not given due consideration. [...]

The handling of Dean Anderson's comments is particularly concerning. These comments were delivered to the IESG in the form of an appeal. The IESG chose to consider Dean's technical arguments as last call comments and dismissed his appeal. The IESG made no response to these comments nor is it clear how much effort was spent considering these technical comments. Particularly considering that one of Dean's reasons for choosing an appeal rather than a last call comment was that he did not have faith that he could engage in a discussion and actually get a response to his issues, it is concerning that he did not in fact get such a response. The fairness of the handling of Dean's appeal depends critically on handling his technical comments fairly and openly as last call comments. "

David Kessens Replaced as IESG Member

No reason is given. Kessens announces his availability to continue as Area Director on 11/5/06. Kessens is replaced by Ron Bonica.

Kessens views on Last Call Comments Janurary, 14, 2007. Seems kind of hypocritical given the discussion for draft-ietf-grow-anycast

Geoff Huston Resigns as IETF GROW WG Chair

Huston approved the draft-ietf-grow-anycast document dispite obvious problems.

Huston silenced Anderson on the IETF-GROW WG mailing list without cause as "hardball", to silence technical objections to the document. This was dishonest.