Thanks, Ted.
To much thought to respond to all, and IMHO another example of why i still believe
in chats at in-person meetings.
On one point you raised:
The whole "moderation"/(nanny/marshal/...;-) team approach also has IMHO the big benefit of
being able to be a lot more unbiased then whatever we do get out of the current
PR process. There is only a self-elected small part of the community that participates
on each individual case, and even the willing-to-participate community members
will easily self-bias and censor themselves based on the individual case and how
the rest of the discussion goes.
How about: Our current process is judgement by mailing list flash mob.
Cheers
Toerless
On Wed, Jun 12, 2024 at 10:47:29AM -0400, Ted Lemon wrote:
> 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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> >
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