Re: [IAB] Appeal: Independent Submission Editor declination of draft-darley-cvss-v5-skull-emoji-01

On 17 Apr 2026, at 16:11, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> As for the principle, it seems to me that the ISE has unfettered 
> discretion about April 1st RFCs. Apart from a mention of "Satirical 
> materials" in RFC 4846, I think nothing is written down. RFC 8730 says 
> that the ISE is responsible for "Reviewing, approving, and processing 
> Independent Submissions." It doesn't define any appeal mechanism.

I agree that there is no true appeal mechanism and that the ISE has the 
final decision. But I think "unfettered" is not exactly correct: There 
is an IAB review mechanism for all ISE submissions in 4846 section 4.5, 
which presumably the ISE is expected to take in good faith (even though 
the ISE may in the end decide not change their decision). My only 
complaint was that the IAB refused to process the so-called "appeal" at 
all (while oddly pointing out 4846 section 4.5). Instead, they could 
(should) have simply taken it as a request for review (which the appeal 
did explicitly ask for), chosen whether or not to perform that review 
(which is in their discretion, and in this case they could have 
rightfully said, "No thanks, not for an April 1 submission"), and then 
refused the request to reverse the decision (which the IAB doesn't have 
the power to do anyway).

pr

> On 18-Apr-26 08:07, Independent Submissions Editor (Eliot Lear) wrote:
>> For the benefit of all, this was an April 1st candidate that was 
>> declined because the text could have been perceived to make fun of 
>> another organization, and I thought it best that we poke fun at 
>> ourselves and not others.  I welcome community feedback on this or 
>> any other publication decision.
>>
>> Eliot
>>
>> On 17.04.2026 18:46, Pete Resnick wrote:
>>> Dear IAB,
>>>
>>> I'm always a bit disappointed when leadership (be it a WG Chair, AD, 
>>> IESG, or IAB) rejects a complaint on purely procedural grounds, 
>>> particularly in cases where they could have reasonably interpreted 
>>> the complaint in a different and rational way. In this case, while 
>>> it is certainly true that there is no formal "appeal" path for 
>>> rejections from the ISE, there is a path for "IAB review" (as you 
>>> cited in your decision not to process). The appellant did say 
>>> specifically, "I am requesting that the IAB review the ISE's stated 
>>> grounds for declination...". You could have reasonably interpreted 
>>> their appeal as a request for IAB review. At that point, you could 
>>> have simply declined to do the review for whatever reasons you 
>>> wished because, as 4846 says, "the IAB is not obligated to perform 
>>> that review", or you could have done the review but reminded the 
>>> author that 4846 continues, "nor is the RFC Editor obligated to 
>>> publish it, even with a favorable IAB review". By saying you have 
>>> decided not to process the appeal instead of interpreting it as a 
>>> request for review, you are effectively telling the author that they 
>>> should re-word their appeal as a request for IAB review, which as 
>>> far as I can tell would be a hoop-jumping exercise.
>>>
>>> The Principle of Charity [1] would have gone a long way here, and 
>>> the outcome would have been no different AFAICT.
>>>
>>> pr
>>>
>>> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
>>>
>>>


-- 
Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
All connections to the world are tenuous at best