Hi John,
Thanks for your argument and hope that we can help progress for IETF participants, I think we already have participants within IETF using their chosen English name which is not their real identity name because of communication language purposes.
my comments/reply below
On Wed, Aug 2, 2023 at 6:17 PM John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
(copying the IETF list, and changing the subject line to make
more sense there, per Jay's comment about 117attendees@xxxxxxxx
shutting down)
Jordi,
Independent of the legal niceties and hair-splitting (and Jay's
response is more useful than anything I could stay on those
subjects), it seems to me that your note pushes us toward
another problem: unlike, e.g., the RIRs, one of the IETF's main
functions is to produce standards whose adoption is voluntary.
In practice, that adoption depends on the IETF's credibility as
representing broad perspective as well as doing deep and
balanced technical work. Those considerations cannot be
evaluated without knowing who is participating and, indeed, any
affiliations they might have (such as the identify of employers
who are supporting their participation).
I don't agree because we need to evaluate participants depending of their efforts within IETF and not out of IETF. Who support the participation should not direct/influence the adoption of drafts.
Noting that you said "attendees" and I said "participants" but
that some of the things the Note Well refers to blurs whatever
the difference might be under other circumstances, that gives
the IETF some real reasons for insisting on a public participant
list.
We agree this SDO needs the public participant list per IETF WG/meeting,
If those who are participating can be secret, then it
because impossible to evaluate what might, other than technical
value and correctness, have influenced a particular
specification.
It can be having real_identity_secret from the public but not secret from IETF (the organisation can save information of the real identity connected to the wg_participation name(s)).
That is particularly important when a WG is
faced with choices among a pair of options that are equally
plausible technically but where the choice might affect company
interests differently.
So, your idea (and Vittorio's) about check boxes might be
useful, but perhaps in form closer to the Note Well, i.e., "by
deciding to participate, I recognize, accept, and agreed to, the
IETF's legitimate interest in making a complete list of
attendees public". In other words, if one wants or needs one's
participation to be private/secret, don't come.
IMO, they may come under the IETF procedure if they were participating within the WG meeting and WG_list with their social_name or participation_name, which does not have to be their real_name or real_identity (as long as the name is known by the WG or community to recognise the participant and to track their effort/input with the WG_list/WG_minutes. For example I may have more that two names within my country, and other within another country, but only one real identity name for all countries. So within IETF WGs I may have different participation names within IETF but need to have one name per IETF Area, and one real identity name per all IETF.
That, in turn, raises a number of other questions that I think
we have been circling around for years. Maybe it is time to
address them via an open community discussion leading to a
consensus document rather than avoiding them or nibbling at them
via administrative decisions (such a language on a registration
forms). Things on my list of questions that have come up
directly or indirectly in the last year or so and that we might
try to ask and resolve include:
(1) If one registers to attend an IETF meeting in person, is one
allowed to opt out of the public participants list? If so, is
one allowed to be anonymous in other ways, such as having one's
name obscured on a badge or wearing a hood that covers one's
head and face?
Not socially_volunteering, not connecting_participants, or not helping progress in discussions, especially if we have many anonymous people within one WG/Area. However, the best solution is that each WG/Area is like a social_volunteer_network that needs a known fixed address/name to make progress within processes.
(2) Especially if people are not allowed to attend in-person
IETF meetings anonymously (or without being recorded as being
present), does the same principle apply to online meetings
(including --or not-- remote participation in those in-person
meetings)?
The data_tracker_registration is done first by subscribing to the IETF_WG_list with a unique_name selected by the person joining the WG, and that name should be used for all discussions within any attended_meeting and any remote_participation. The importance in IETF to have facilitate trackable information and relate ideas/input to participation_name_registered.
(3) If having one's identity published on a public list is a
condition for in-person attendance, do we need a mechanism for
anonymously attending/ observing meetings remotely in real time?
The current answer to the latter question has been "no, people
wanting to hide their identities that way can always watch the
YouTube videos" but I am not confident that position has
community consensus.
For attendance per IETF meeting, there is a need for a unique_name to be registered and does not have to be a real identity name, but that registered name can be identified per WG only if that was same of the name registered within datatracker/wg_list_subscrition/wg_discussions.
(4) Do we allow Internet-Drafts with anonymous authors? Authors
who provide a working email address but whose identities are
concealed?
Don't agree of concealed author_name, that is not reasonable per document/I-D, we need a way to reference the author/WG (i.e. any document cannot be referenced without an author name), but the affiliation can be anonymous, because overall the author is working volunteering for the IETF.
Regarding email address per I-D/WG, it should be concealed by IETF if requested by the author/participant.
(5) Do we allow anonymous participation on IETF mailing lists,
including making comments during IETF Last Call? "Allow" in
this context implies intentionally, not what people might be
able to trick the datatracker login/account process into
accepting. In other words, there is a difference between being
anonymous and participating under an obvious alias, such as of
the "M. Mouse" variety and the questions of whether the latter
is allowed, and how obvious the alias needs to be, are separate
ones.
We must not allow it. There must be a unique participation_name used per input per IETF list. No knowledge or information can be produced or tracked for IETF if we use anonymous participation.
(6) If someone is entitled to remove their names from public
attendance lists, is someone (else) who captures the participant
list for a particular meeting by screen-scraping the Meetecho
(or other) participant list breaking any rules? Note that,
while registering in Meetecho for a particular session at an
in-person meeting is required (but not enforced), remote
participants have not options other than registering under some
name.
Don't agree to allow remove of the attendance chosen_name. We need to know the exact number of attendance/ref_input per meeting/session.
(7) Should we be more or less aggressive about capturing, and
perhaps publishing, affiliations as well as names? Are we
willing to exclude people who have employer or client agreements
that bar them from disclosing that information? If so, when
none of those relationships involve current or plausible IETF
work, would a disclosure of that type be sufficient, or does the
IETF offer potential participants a choice between violating
those agreements and participating (generally or in specific
activities)?
All participants MUST be known by a unique name per IETF meeting/list. All must choose a unique_name that solves all discussion/communication problems. There is always an agreement between IETF and its participants, the IETF policies should be known.
(8) I have deliberately conflated "anonymous" with "do not
desire to have names published or made public" above, but are
there reasons to make distinctions in that area?
Any who does not want their chosen_names to be published, then should not register only in letters as W, Y, or Z. So others can avoid communicating with them if they want.
Finally, any real/truthful organisation MUST not accept or allow any participant to lie within their processes/documents, and choosing a participation_name within any public communication does not have to be real_name but should be unique and known.
Regards,
AB
