Just want to point out that the IETF is not alone. For the first few decades of life online, it was generally considered OK to be an asshole in community discourse. Disclosure: I have been such an asshole. In recent years, in many online communities, a consensus has grown that things work better when that kind of behavior is actively discouraged. Another obvious example would be the Linux kernel community, and I've seen this happen in Apache-land too. Many (most?) high-visibilty GitHub projects now have a code of conduct. These days, when you're setting up a new GitHub project that expects to have a lot of people, the conversation is usually along the lines of “We should have a CoC, right?" "Right. Let's copy the one from ${Other-Project}."
In many of these communities, there has been vigorous resistance to the cleanup efforts, with people making (to me, tired old) arguments about how their right to be rude is sacred, and that their input is being suppressed because of technical prejudice against their opinions from Those In Power. To all of them I say: You all have a right to free speech, but no particular right to anyone's attention.
I'm entirely on board with the anti-rudeness direction but I don't claim it's easy and think the input on this (painful) thread about how to do it, and how fast, has been valuable. Thanks.
Now I'm going to get lots of angry emails about Free Speech. Don't expect answers.
On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 10:34 AM Eric Rescorla <ekr@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
With regret, I support this action.
I would echo Martin Thomson's comment that we should also take the
opportunity to ask whether there is some adjustment we could make to
our processes that could have addressed this issue before now.
In particular, my experience is that it's far earlier to address
misbehavior early on with smaller interventions than to wait until
there is a long pattern of misbehavior and then ban
someone. Nominally, we do have such mechanisms (SAA, etc.) but, they
have proven so difficult to apply that the nominally last resort of
the PR Action instead becomes in practice the only resort in practice.
-Ekr--On Thu, Sep 29, 2022 at 9:15 AM IETF Chair <chair@xxxxxxxx> wrote:Following community feedback after various incidents, as documented below, the
IESG has initiated a posting rights (PR) action that would restrict the posting
rights of Dan Harkins, as per the procedures found in BCP 83 (RFC 3683).
Specifically, his posting privileges to these lists would be suspended:
* admin-discuss
* gendispatch
* ietf
* terminology
In the IESG's opinion, this individual has a history of sending emails that are
inconsistent with the IETF Guidelines for Conduct (RFC 7154) and thereby
"disrupt the consensus-driven process" (RFC 3683). Among these are contributions
that:
* Express racism in the form of denying, belittling, and ridiculing anti-racist
sentiment and efforts
* Are rude and abusive, and often amount to insulting ridicule
(Links to examples of such emails sent to the lists above during the last two
years are provided at the end of this email.)
Multiple attempts have been made to enter into a private discussion with this
individual, both by IESG and community members, to communicate disquiet with his
conduct on the lists. These attempts to restore respectful and courteous conduct
on the lists have been rebuffed with communication that can be considered both
antagonistic and hostile, and the pattern of behavior observed has continued.
The IESG also notes that the following actions have already been taken in
response to the individual's actions:
* Two I-Ds were removed from the public archive due to their offensive nature:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-les-white-intersectional-dots
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-les-white-tls-preferred-pronouns
(following these links displays the tombstone notice explaining their removal)
* His posting rights were restricted on the admin-discuss mailing list:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/admin-discuss/ZANH2VPN-U8VMvvOWLb5l03FdCs/
* A final public warning was issued on the gendispatch mailing list:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/68a4amMa1aiaRUPzPGgXdiY9gHg/
None of the attempts to discuss his participation style or warn the individual
have led to any improvements. The IESG therefore believes that a PR action is
the correct response to his continued problematic behavior across a number of
different lists.
The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final
comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
last-call@xxxxxxxx mailing lists by 27 October 2022. Exceptionally, comments may
be sent to iesg@xxxxxxxx instead. If sending private feedback to the IESG,
please indicate if you would be open to having your comments anonymized and
shared in a summary.
Please note: Comments should be limited to the criteria described in BCP 83,
notably on whether the individual in question has engaged in postings that are
"unprofessional commentary, regardless of the general subject" in a manner
disruptive enough to warrant this action.
Lars Eggert
IETF Chair, on behalf of the IESG
–-
Examples of problematic emails during the last two years include:
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/zdq3F0PV40Cyw5ooj0orOWaYyUw/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/i-d7HlWgrkmrVlC7JZQSXDwIJCQ/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/YhPI9zZ_3xfidt5V-ORRnET36yY/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/B33zk8VfOYt4b4Cj-kIHXG3AXdg/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/d3iDS4WNkCJA3aMFnX2HjP4tsps/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/gendispatch/-On8AHrdnnCMlJOOyb1M1nlYMpk/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/terminology/n6UMvDuYLKmmvpP1ajICFvf634M/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/terminology/QCdjDbokmlARcwVqQ1TV3Rlz7eQ/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/terminology/X6OF0MBKAzyLhYaAfAxS6srXRNw/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/terminology/idJhG1MsLmKHyRlaAafcW2JF6Z8/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ipsec/LoGSVatZ4EsYRq4K52rmvRZTndk/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/pl2lVqhtF4Z-0YuTjhCOmdyi1qE/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/DFgnF_j8py_eMBGI1IUFdMahTKw/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/terminology/T3oCpY3BbTNLXWAWsCnFvahRLUQ/
* https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/admin-discuss/xLuz4WTCm5ibIiMVN5ID8OWsCI0/
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