Toerless, there are several phenomena that I think WG chairs can and should track:
1. People posting repeatedly because they feel unheard and just making it hard to carry on a discussion
2. People being reactive and needing to chill before re-engaging
3. People who for possibly perfectly understandable reasons are behaving in ways that make others feel unsafe.
There are different ways to address each of these problems, all of which I tend to refer to as "moderation," but I see your point. The point is not to regulate the content of what people say that is relevant to the work that is being done in the IETF. That would obviously be Very Bad.
Referring to (1) above, a strategy that can be effective when someone keeps repeating the same argument is for the working group chair to acknowledge what they are saying and report back as to how it's affected the discussion, and also to say "please be aware that you seem to be repeating yourself and this is disruptive and could result in us imposing a cooling-off period." I've almost never seen WG chairs do this, but it's totally appropriate and, if done effectively, would really improve the quality of discourse and reduce peoples' stress levels. Nobody's the bad guy in a situation like this—it's just a bad feedback loop that needs to be broken.
Referring to (2), it's kind of the same thing but more on an emotional level. Pretty much the same remedies apply, but it's potentially more problematic because the responses come across as hostile rather than simply repetitive, and that can be very off-putting for some participants. I don't consider myself to be a particularly sensitive person, but Dan's response to me earlier (the first, not the second) fell into this category for me, and when coupled with the PR-action seems like justification for further blocking, rather than moderation. Again, no-one's the bad guy here—it's just dysfunctional, and for the sake of the organization it needs to be cut off quickly and not tolerated.
Referring to (3), the topic of the current discussion certainly applies. In this situation, immediate action is essential. The amount of time that the pattern we are finally addressing in this PR-action has gone on is ridiculous—in a corporate environment this would already have resulted in a lawsuit if left unchecked. I don't know if the IETF is able to dodge liability here—I suspect what's protecting us is that the targets of this behavior are too community-minded to be willing to take action that would put the community at risk. This creates a really unfair asymmetry of power: if you are willing to put the work in to keep the community safe, you are hamstrung; if you don't care one way or the other, you have power.
So while I hear that there are people here who think that "do nothing" continues to be the right direction to go. And we may well wind up going in that direction if their voices win out over the people who feel that we ought to do something.
But for those who think "do nothing" is the right move and who have been involved for years in making the IETF what it is today, I would really like to remind you all that this is actually an existential risk to the IETF. The IETF exists and is successful because of the people who participate in it. Compared to other organizations that do good work, our environment is quite hostile. We could do a lot better without even changing the BCPs, but we could do better in a way that's also good for those of us who are not great at moderating our social behavior if we considered the job of keeping shepherding mailing lists seriously.
On Wed, Jun 12, 2024 at 7:51 AM Bless, Roland (TM) <roland.bless@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi John,
though I'm not a native speaker, I disagree that harassment qualifies
as such only if such actions/behavior happen repeatedly. Harassment can
be instantaneously, esp. sexual harassment. Similarly, the particular
behavior is IMHO qualifying a misogynistic as it it a typical
patriarchal pattern to "reduce" women to their appearance (in both
directions). A quite obvious indication is that Timothy's reply would
not have been the same if a man would have written what Corinne wrote.
Luckily, times have changed and such a behavior is absolutely not
acceptable anymore.
Regards,
Roland
On 11.06.24 at 20:52 John C Klensin wrote:
> (apologies for using the Last Call list for this but, given other
> comments, it seems like the right place)
>
> --On Tuesday, June 11, 2024 08:06 +1200 Brian E Carpenter
> <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I originally refrained from an opinion on this, since only one
>> objectionable message was cited, and as I already stated,
> [...]
>
> For reasons that might have overlapped with Brian's -- but different
> because I have intermittently noticed Tim's on-list behavior patterns
> for some years -- I agree that this particular PR-action is
> appropriate and perhaps even overdue. I wrote a note to the IESG to
> that effect right after the Last Call announcement. However, the
> draft explanation that came with the Last Call, strongly reinforced
> by many of the comments in this thread (and the L2 one), have left me
> very concerned about a more general issue and risk.
>
> The Code of Conduct requires that we all speak, write, and act
> professionally. That is, IMO, particularly important in discussions
> about revoking posting rights or the underlying behaviors. The
> rather careful language and procedures of RFC 3683 are not so much to
> protect offenders at they are to protect the IETF and its reputation
> from accusations that we are forcing people out of our discussions
> because of their views or because the leadership doesn't like them.
>
> So, in this case and any that follow in the future, I hope that we
> can be extremely careful about our vocabulary and any specific
> explanations that are given in a situation like this. In
> particular, and using the IESG's language as an example, it seems to
> me that there is no question that the posting was unprofessional,
> inappropriate, obnoxious, and several other terms we could use. Many
> of Tim's earlier postings to an assortment of IETF list clearly (at
> least IMO) illustrate a continuing pattern of abuse and are, at least
> cumulatively, disruptive (the criteria identified in RFC 3638/ BCP
> 83.
>
> However, I can see nothing in that particular note that constitutes
> harassment as that term is usually understood. Harassment, as
> usually defined, requires repeated, continuing, and/or regular
> behavior and one message doesn't do that (the situation in
> combination with a more recent message or two might meet that test,
> but those messages were still in the future when the IESG posted the
> Last Call announcement).
>
> Similarly, I can find nothing in the problematic posting that is
> inherently misogynistic. It it were, than a statement by an IETF
> participant (or any gender) that they found another IETF participant
> (or any gender) attractive would constitute hating personals of the
> latter gender, whether they expressed a desire to follow up on the
> attraction or not. Again, unprofessional and obnoxious if posted to
> a public list and probably harassment if the comment and "invitation"
> where made repeatedly without any sign of interest (or indications of
> disinterest) from the target party, but "misogynistic" is quite a
> stretch.
>
> So, while I support the PR-action and believe it is entirely
> justified based on a regular pattern of behavior and at least some
> signs of disrupting the IETF's processes, I wish we could be much
> more careful about the specific accusations we make and language we
> use -- even more in the future and for the next case as to this
> particular one. If we start, even in principle, considering a single
> unprofessional and obnoxious note justification for a PR-action on
> the basis of conclusions that are not obvious from that note, the
> IETF's reputation is at risk long term.
>
> And, btw, I think we need to be very careful about proposals for
> blanket bans as well. We have several examples in the history of the
> IETF of people who have regularly been unprofessional, obnoxious, and
> disruptive but who have still made important technical contributions,
> maybe ones that no one else could have made. I think it is entirely
> appropriate to leave the decision of whether the advantages of the
> latter outweigh the disadvantages of having to put up with the former
> up to each WG and its leadership. We might tune things to let WGs
> opt out of a ban rather than requiring them to opt in, but let's not
> eliminate the option.
>
> john
>
>
>
>
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