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

--On Saturday, April 18, 2026 13:49 -0500 Pete Resnick
<[email protected]> wrote:

> 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).

FWIW, and in my capacity as co-author of 4846, I mostly agree with
Pete.  I do believe "unfettered" is probably correct but only at the
price of some hair-splitting.   Because the ISE is free to make
whatever decisions they think appropriate, independent of the results
of any reviews the IAB might choose to conduct, I don't see how the
ISE is "fettered" by the review options.  We deliberately avoided
talking about appeals in 4846 other than explicitly saying that a
review request is not an appeal process.  The absence of specifics
about April 1 RFCs in 4846 was also deliberate: nothing in 4846
prevents other streams from publishing satirical RFCs should they
choose to do so and, while not as explicit as I'd like in retrospect,
the ISE can waive the requirement for Internet-Drafts prior to RFC
posting for other types of documents as well.  (The pronouns are
something else I wish we had been more careful about.)

I also think we are probably wasting too much time on this: At the
risk of repeating/summarizing Pete's original comment, I agree with
him that the IAB response to the "appeal" represented poor judgment
(and/or bad taste) and that it would have been far better for them to
say "ISE decisions cannot be appealed, but we are treating this as a
review request" or something similar.  Procedural hair-splitting is
not a good way for any of our leadership groups to make or explain
decisions.  Had the IAB said, instead, something like "we are taking
this as a review request but, as allowed by RFC 4846, we decline to
review any satirical submission to the ISE" or even "OBE, try again
next year if you want to", things would have been much cleaner and we
probably would not be having this discussion.

And, fwiw, I think we have spent far too much time and energy on
this.  AFAICT, no one has questioned the authority of the ISE to
reject this (or any other) document.  While I think their choice of
reasons and language was not optimal, there is no requirement for the
IAB to review documents involved in ISE decisions.  Even if they had
reviewed the draft and concluded that publishing it would have been
ok, the ISE might have decided to not publish anyway.  And, unless
the ISE (or someone else, like the RSAB/RSWG) decides that satirical
documents should be published year-round and not just on April 1, the
decision on this document for this year was final long before the IAB
action.

   john



>> 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
>>>>