Dhruv & Dominque,
This is exactly the information that I was looking for. The SOP
seems reasonable although I have some suggestions below. There
were, from my perspective, two problems -- less with the
decisions than with the presentation to the community.
Like Scott, I am concerned with the [apparent] speed with which
this was done. Oddly, I am concerned about both "too fast" and
"too slow". If, as appeared to be the case with the two
announcements, the first move was about a particular egregious
posting and it was followed very quickly (and during a community
debate) by a 14 day ban, then probably "too fast". On the
other hand, if there were several previous rounds of
interactions on the subject going back to 2020, then I need to
wonder about "too slow".
And, ironically given a discussion that includes issues of
"tone", I have a problem with the tone of the SOP and supporting
materials.
So, a few suggestions. Only the last of these involves what
might be considered a substantive change to the SOP:
(1) As with the Ombudsteam model, I think you, and the
procedures, should be focused on education, not punishment. If,
as your note below suggests, there were multiple attempts to
reach out privately and quietly to the individual involved with
the idea of making suggestions and providing some education in
the process -- minimizing threats about punishments of the "or
else" variety-- the situation is very different than a policy
and set of procedures that seem to focus on escalation and
punishment. In that regard, at least some of the templates
mentioned in your note (I didn't look at all of them but see [1]
and [2]) may deserve another look to adopt more of a "we are
here to help you work better and more effectively within the
IETF" tone and rather less of of "you have been bad and, if you
don't stop it, we are going to punish you". If an extra
template or piece of one that includes "you have been
participating in the IETF for many years and hence know better
but might need a reminder" would help, consider that too. If
you need help with that sort of rephrasing, I think the
Ombudsteam should volunteer or be volunteered. Note that
requires no change in your procedural model, only a change in
tone.
(2) Of course, if an individual believes that you are behaving
unreasonably at any point in the process, nothing prevents them
from having private discussions with you or others (presumably
including the Ombudsteam if the individual sincerely believe
that you are harassing them) and/or (ideally after such
discussions) bringing the issue to the community on this list.
(3) Consider changing your "message to list" announcement
templates to make clear that there were earlier attempts at
outreach, whether or not there was any response, and over what
period that occurred. Making the distinction to/for the
community between a one-time incident that you felt was so
serious as to cause you to step in (at level one or even level
two), a "last straw" part of sequence of events, or perceived
abuses and resulting discussions about which you have tried to
reach out over an extended period is helpful. Letting the
community know if the individual never responded to those prior
outreach attempts (either with a discussion or with a change in
behavior) is important too.
(4) One thing that appears to be missing from the SOP is Level
3, at which you recommend, or encourage others to initiate, a PR
action under RFC 3683. It seems clear, at least to me, that one
14 day suspension, a brief pause, and then more of the same
would not serve either the individual or the community very
well.
I believe that, had changes like those suggested above been in
place, much of the recent discussion thread would have been
quite different and perhaps even more helpful.
best,
john
[1]
https://github.com/ietf/Moderators/blob/main/email-templates/first-message.txt
[2]
https://github.com/ietf/Moderators/blob/main/email-templates/second-pattern-of-abuse-message.txt
--On Thursday, August 25, 2022 15:23 +0530 IETF Moderators
<moderators@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi John & Scott,
>
> The process that we followed is listed at
> https://github.com/ietf/Moderators/blob/main/sop.md
>
> - We sent an initial suggestion off-list only, with an offer
> of assistance with re-framing and listing the consequences for
> continued inappropriate postings.
>
> - We made another request to take a voluntary 5-day "cooling
> off" period, with an offer of assistance with re-framing and
> listing the consequences for continued inappropriate postings.
>
> - When the request was ignored and the inappropriate posting
> continued, we took the action to temporarily restrict posting
> rights for 14 days. Before taking this action, we took an
> approval from the IETF Chair.
>
> Apart from the recent instance, the moderators team has sent
> initial requests in 2021 and 2020 as well.
>
> =
>
> Community is free to discuss what is appropriate/acceptable as
> well as comment on the process moderators team follow. And as
> Lars said the procedures can change based on the community
> consensus, but until then we are charged to act as per them.
>
> Thanks!
> Dhruv & Dominque
> The Moderators team for ietf@xxxxxxxx
