The only objection I have is that this PR action last call seems a bit
incomplete.
Just a surface-level dig into McSweeney's posts reveals a history ad
hominem attacks (cf.
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/uri-review/pDeKKQpjYrwRe4zyrGvzCmwE_ec/
and
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/ArncdBPwobpoCcf2625HsJzGVa8/).
There's more subtle subversion to be found in his historical behavior,
to such a degree that I've several times come close to asking the IESG
to consider taking action in the past. To date, though, the problematic
behavior has seemed to be masterfully crafted to be disruptive in a way
that explicitly stays within the lines of what is technically "allowable
behavior" per our own documents while still demanding excessive time
from participants, leadership, and experts. As one (of multiple)
examples: If McSweeney's early behavior is unfamiliar to anyone here,
it's worth pointing out that he harried the URI list and the registry
expert by demanding registration of a clearly syntactically invalid URI
scheme, and then appealed its rejection first to the IESG and then to
the IAB. If someone were to ask me how to waste the IETF's time as
effectively as possible, this is literally the playbook I would have
written. It was a well-crafted and clever denial-of-service attack.
Given the criteria of "unprofessional" and "disruptive," I believe this
behavior -- and the subsequent long-running pattern -- does qualify, but
it's always been just subtle enough and left just enough doubt about
intentions to be tricky to call out. And so in some regards, I'm glad
that McSweeney finally cross a line of decorum in such an explosive and
unambiguous way, since it removes this doubt entirely.
I take Yoav's point about established processes, and it's worth taking
seriously. I think there are some countervailing facts here that make
the current PR action warranted, as Roman alludes to below. One thing
that's tricky to account for a priori in these kinds of human-oriented
processes is unforeseeable and extreme behavior that is so far outside
cultural norms that it could not have been adequately treated in the
documents describing our process. The cited mail is deeply repugnant,
consisting of both personal aggression towards an IETF participant, and
general aggression towards a class of participants.
One of the things that has, in my opinion, made the IETF process
successful and resilient to intentional disruption is the fact that we
don't have votes, and we allow our processes to take many different
paths to success. We afford chairs, area directors, and other people who
have taken up the roles of progressing work a fair degree of latitude to
"do the right thing" when it comes to judging consensus, controlling
microphone lines, determining next steps, and so forth. I think it is a
tremendous strength that responsible people are allowed to use their
good faith judgement to determine what needs to happen, combined with
the safeguards of appeals when it appears that someone has either
exercised bad judgement or bad faith.
And so I think it's entirely appropriate that, should participants in
general find that a behavior is so egregious, so unprofessional, and so
toxic as to warrant doing so, then moving swiftly to protect the
community from the resulting disruption is appropriate, even if it means
that we're having to adapt our processes slightly to deal with
unforeseeable levels of bad behavior.
For my own part, I do find such action warranted in this case.
/a
On 6/8/2024 9:40 AM, IETF Chair wrote:
The IESG has initiated a posting rights (PR) action that would restrict the posting rights of Timothy Mcsweeney per the procedures in BCP 83 (RFC 3683). Specifically, his posting privileges to the ietf@xxxxxxxx discussion list would be suspended.
In the IESG's assessment, this individual’s recent post [1] was an egregious example of misogynistic harassment inconsistent with the IETF Guidelines for Conduct (RFC 7154), IETF Anti-Harassment Policy [2], and “abusive of the consensus-driven process” (per Section 2 of RFC 3683).
The IESG recognizes the role of a progressive disciplinary process, to include the escalatory moderation practices of the IETF Discussion list moderators per RFC 9245 and [3]. Additionally, the IESG appreciates the role of the Ombudsteam and the IETF Anti-Harassment Procedures (RFC 7776). However, the IESG feels that this particular response of a PR is warranted in this situation.
The IESG plans to make a decision and is soliciting final community comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the last-call@xxxxxxxx mailing lists by 6 July 2024 [4]. 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.
Note: Comments should be limited to the criteria described in BCP 83 (Section 1 of RFC3683), notably on whether the individual in question has engaged in behavior that is "unprofessional commentary, regardless of the general subject" in a manner disruptive enough to warrant this action.
Roman Danyliw
IETF Chair, on behalf of the IESG
—
[1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/NjNux65wUXXQaMmgENuwoopZPjI/
[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/statement-iesg-ietf-anti-harassment-policy-20131103/
[3] https://github.com/ietf/Moderators/blob/main/sop.md
[4] PR actions require an IETF Last Call (IETF LC). The four-week duration of this IETF LC is consistent with that of an AD-sponsored document action.
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