Taking a DEFER on a ballot

["Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <bwijnen@lucent.com>]

IESG members, can you speak up of you see any issues with 
this above or the below. Pls do so by COB Friday 20 Aug,
any time zone.

Thanks,
Bert 
---------- DEFER procedures -------------
IESG,
while testing the new online balloting system we ran into the
issue of the exact process for DEFERing. Before Michael can
make any changes it would be good to make sure we have the
process correct. This is how I think the process is supposed
to work. Pls holler by COB this Friday (any timezone) if you 
see any errors or issues.

The process (as I understand it from our states-table at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/states_table.cgi and from
https://www1.ietf.org/IESG/internal/voting-procedures.txt) is:

1. Once a document appears on an IESG telechat agenda for
   the first time, then every AD has the option to request
   a DEFER in order to get more time to review.
2. That means that multiple DEFERs can be made, namely one
   by each AD. 
3. An AD who does not vote at all (either online, by email
   or at the telechat) cannot request a DEFER at the next
   (i.e. 2nd) telechat. At most he/she can take a DEFER
   in between the 1st telechat and the 2nd telechat, but
   such a DEFER cannot take longer than up to the 2nd
   telechat.
4. One or more DEFERs on a document will cause the document
   to automatically show up on the next telechat agenda,
   unless all DEFERs change to a vote other than DISCUSS
   and there are enough votes to approve the document.
5. A DEFER lasts at most till the next telechat. So normally
   that is 2 weeks, but in special circumstances (like around
   a IETF f2f meeting) it may take up to 4 weeks.
6. In very special cases, the IETF chair can grant a DEFER
   for a second telechat cycle.
7. Every DEFER automatically clears at the next telechat and
   every AD who took a DEFER is REQUIRED to cast a vote
   by that time. If the AD does NOT do so by that time,
   then his vote becomes a blank (Undefined) vote. 
8. Every AD can clear his/her DEFER at any time by casting
   a vote for the document being balloted.

Based on the above (assuming it is correct), that means
that the online-balloting system needs to cater for an
extra column that allows an AD to register a DEFER.
I think that is pretty straight forward and reasonably
simple. And implementation should be reasonably simple
too, just add one column to the ballot (labeled DEFER).

The biggest problem implementation wise probably is the
automatic expiration of a DEFER and the blocking of
taking a DEFER after a document has been on the 
agenda for the second time. And maybe even more
difficult is the special extension of s DEFER that
can only be granted with IETF Chair permission.
SO that is points 5/6/7 above.

I propose that we WANT/NEED the first part (i.e. that
every AD can cast a DEFER and change a DEFER to some other
vote) DONE BEFORE we go live.

The automatic clearing and the blocking of DEFER votes,
once a doc shows up on agenda for the second time 
and also the possible extension by IETF chair, that
is something that can wait till later. It is up to
Michael to decide if this is too dififcult to do right
away or needs to wait to later.

Bert (for (part of) the ballot testing team)