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IETF Last Call Review of draft-ietf-modpod-group-processes-13
review-ietf-modpod-group-processes-13-artart-lc-amsuess-2025-11-26-00

Request Review of draft-ietf-modpod-group-processes
Requested revision No specific revision (document currently at 16)
Type IETF Last Call Review
Team ART Area Review Team (artart)
Deadline 2025-11-28
Requested 2025-11-14
Authors Lars Eggert , Eliot Lear
I-D last updated 2026-02-27 (Latest revision 2026-02-09)
Completed reviews Secdir IETF Last Call review of -14 by Tim Hollebeek (diff)
Artart IETF Last Call review of -13 by Christian Amsüss (diff)
Tsvart IETF Last Call review of -13 by Michael Scharf (diff)
Genart IETF Last Call review of -13 by Vijay K. Gurbani (diff)
Artart Telechat review of -14 by Christian Amsüss (diff)
Assignment Reviewer Christian Amsüss
State Completed
Request IETF Last Call review on draft-ietf-modpod-group-processes by ART Area Review Team Assigned
Posted at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/art/1t3zyL6hSlzJz2QOEzKDtuLQYHU
Reviewed revision 13 (document currently at 16)
Result Ready w/issues
Completed 2025-11-26
review-ietf-modpod-group-processes-13-artart-lc-amsuess-2025-11-26-00
The document does not touch on the typical ARTART review topics, so while
assigned to review for this, I'll go for more general topics.

Suggestions
-----------

* This document increases the impact moderation decisions can have. Having the
option to do this is warranted, but needs counterbalance -- some steps have
already been taken in that direction, but given recent controversies around
cryptographic recommendations, I think that more should be done.

  An aspect I find lacking in the countermeasures is ensuring that important
  technical objections do not get lost in the struggle for orderly conduct.
  This is especially important because contributors with good technical
  expertise but little (or bad) experience with IETF procedures might easily
  feel like they have exhausted all legal and peaceful means, and start drawing
  attention to the defects in other IETF venues (which might then easily be
  viewed as disruptive in those places).

  What I suggest as a counterbalance is to encourage, train and give tools to
  moderators to retain on technical points raised by those subject to
  moderation. This might happen by identifying people sympathetic to the cause
  who participate in a more orderly fashion (eg. by reaching out to those being
  moderated, or by coordinating with the responsible admins such as WG chairs),
  and invite them to present them in the appropriate venues (by shaping them
  into document contributions, by assisting the shepherd in populating the
  "extreme discontent" item, and/or as input to in the IETF last call).

  Such a mechanism might well have a place not in this document but in the
  moderation procedures, but at least the mandate to be active in this
  direction should IMO be in here.

* Ad 5.2: The expectation that LLC actions would be rare (and thus those that
do not lead to moderation being informed being rarer) could be supported by the
LLC publishing canary statements on that topic. Something like "To date, the
LLC has not performed any moderation steps as in 5.2 that the moderator team
has not been informed of". I do not have the experience in that matter to tell
whether such an arrangement would better be described here, or just be arranged
with LLC to publish without formal setup.

Editorial remarks
-----------------

* As a reviewer I found this easier to approach by reading appendix B first.
The current sequence makes sense for publication as BCP, and it is good to
still have the appendix as reference.