RE: What's an experiment?

["Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <pbaker at verisign.com>]

> Behalf Of Frank Ellermann

> Intentionally disrupting other running experiments or 
> breaking standards is also dubious.  

Not necessarily.

One of the most important uses of Experimental is to document the
minority position when a working group gets its cranium embedded in its
posterior. In a significant number of cases the minority position has
turned out to be right.

In a consensus based organization it is very easy for a minority to
prevent any change in the status quo simply by filibustering the
proposed change. This is not a good thing when the status quo is failure
to deploy for a decade or more.

Experimental is also an essential safeguard to prevent the game of a WG
with an unsuccessful protocol finding other groups to inflict it on.
Given the impressive lack of success of BEEP vs SOAP it would be much
better for the IESG to formally recognize that this attempt to ratify a
'me too' protocol in 9 months has backfired and is now harming IETF Web
Services efforts.

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