--On Saturday, June 22, 2024 12:53 +0200 Eliot Lear <lear@xxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi > > On 22.06.2024 12:45, S Moonesamy wrote: >> Many years ago, Russ informed this mailing list that he took a >> decision on a message which was posted to the list. The list's >> participants were silent about that. In my opinion, it was >> because people understood that it was what an IETF Chair may have >> do in such circumstances. > > This. We have overprocessed ourselves to death. > > So... how do we dig ourselves out of this process hole? Eliot, I think step 1 in any digging effort is to be sure we are digging out, rather than deeper. For the case of list management and moderation and given what can be a fine line between forcefully expressing opinions that differ from others in the community (especially IESG members) and being more or less deliberately disruptive, putting more authority into the hands of the IESG seems unwise and putting it in the hands of the Chair even less wise. The optics of the people who decided whether or not there is consensus deciding whether someone gets to participate in the IETF or who counts in other ways are rather poor. At least in principle, that is the attraction of both BCP 83/RFC 3683 and the Ombudsteam/Anti-Harassment procedures of RFC 7776 (with 8716): in the former case, there is a community process involved. In the latter, the ombudsteam is supposedly independent of the people who appoint them [1]. Warren's suggestion [2] is attractive in that regard because it requires three, presumably, independent, people to agree. But I think it raises a question and suggests another way to think about this without creating more processes: (1) I don't have a complete list of things that would cause a message to be so egregious and problematic as to require emergency action, nor do I think it would be wise for us to try to make such a list. However, all of them I can think of would fall into a reasonable interpretation of the "other problematic behavior that may be more personal... nonetheless is unacceptable behavior between IETF Participants" explanation that is part of the introduction to RFC 7776. I read RFC 7776 as allowing the ombudsteam to take immediate action in a sufficiently obvious and egregious case. Presumably the Respondent could appeal such action using the procedure described in Section 6 of RFC 7776. Independent of what is said there, a further appeal to the community might be possible by the Respondent choosing to make the claimed problem behavior more public than RFC7776 allows, but, for the type of cases we have been discussing and that draft-ecahc-moderation appears to address, it would already be very public, so that is a non-issue. I hope no one would ever feel a need to go there, but note that the last paragraph of Section 1 of RFC 7776 probably provides another path to a sort of appeal in cases where the actions and remedies of the Ombudsteam are, themselves, perceived of a egregious or deliberately unfair. So it appears to me that the first line of defense against egregious acts or statements should be the ombudsteam: no new procedures needed except, possibly, clarification of their ability to take immediate action and a broader appeal mechanism if the Respondent decides to make the matter public. (2) As suggested above and as part of the earlier thread, the key problem with RFC 3683 is that the process it requires is too slow for an emergency. The suggestion above should eliminate most need to use it for emergencies (and probably should have done so before this), especially for cases that broadly involve harassment. For those cases, the Reporter (possibly including the IETF Chair or the IESG) should be taking cases to the Ombudsteam rather than trying to take PR-rights actions themselves. For whatever other cases might exist, it would seem reasonable to me to allow the IESG to immediately (but temporarily) suspend posting rights for the duration of the Last Call process to prevent further damage while the PR-rights action is being considered by the community. Again, no new or complicated procedures needed other than to modify BCP 83 to allow the IESG to take that temporary action (presumably by recorded vote so that individual ADs can be held accountable if the community perceives that abuses have occurred). Finally... --On Sunday, June 23, 2024 16:23 +0200 Eliot Lear <lear@xxxxxxx> wrote: > In the case of NOMCOM-appointed people you recall them. In the > case of the IED, you complain to the LLC, and you use the appeals > process. There is always redress. But keep this in mind: we > entrust all of these people with a whole lot more responsibility > than this today. While I mostly agree, especially with your last sentence, the number of times we have successfully carried a recall procedure to completion in the last 27 years suggests either that there have never been abuses of authority by a Nomcom-selected person or that the procedure is not effective. In particular, as has been pointed out several times when attempts have been made to initiate recall procedures, the length of time that process would take in practice makes it useless, even for egregious cases, in the last six or nine months of an incumbent's term. On the other hand, I think we can view that as a separate problem which the community either has the will and ability to address or it doesn't. best, john [1] The provision for the IETF Chair to remove ombudsteam members (Sections 3.7 and 3.8 of RFC 7776) may make that independence questionable, but that is really a separate problem. [2] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/L6ssBezh6LJt66o4IKz27wZH27w
