Until this point, I quietly lurked and read this discussion with a modicum of interest, attributing the problem to nothing but overdeveloped personalities feeling the need to do a little strutting - annoying, but harmless, and in some way representative of most discussions on the list. However, I feel the need to throw in my two cents at this point. This is completely inappropriate. What do Ted Ts'o's dating rituals have to do with anything? The whole conversation is absurd and a waste of time. I initially believed the conversation was slowly devolving, but I now realize it never existed at a level high enough to allow devolution. I would say I second the motion to censor Dean's messages, except that a more accurate way of putting it would be that I hundredth the decision. -Alexis Turner On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Dean Anderson wrote: ::Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 02:55:42 -0400 (EDT) ::From: Dean Anderson <dean@xxxxxxx> ::To: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> ::Cc: Nick Staff <nick.staff@xxxxxxxxxxx>, ietf@xxxxxxxx ::Subject: Re: delegating (portions of) ietf list disciplinary process :: ::This isn't going to work, with ordinary members. :: ::But Ts'o makes good points. You can't know easily who is trustworthy. Though ::you can know sometimes who is not trustworthy. :: ::I've seen a number of people in the leadership act inappropriately. Offlist, Ted ::Ts'o, in his official role as Sargeant at Arms, was recently professionally ::dishonest by falsely attributing statements to me that I didn't make. Ts'o was ::summarizing the arguments I raised. Since Ts'o went to MIT, and since (if I ::recall correctly) we dated the same girl at different times, I'm not sure if I'm ::more comfortable thinking this is personally motivated rather than some sort of ::incompetence at the task of literature summary. But fortunately, freshman must ::now demonstrate skill at literature summary. :: ::But Ts'o also asserted false facts[*] to the IETF Chair that are easily checked. ::He did this repeatedly, after being repeatedly informed that his fact claim was ::false. The IETF Chair was informed, but took no action on these serious ethical ::lapses. :: ::One needs to hire lawyers to do this sort of thing. Lawyers are trained to find ::facts, and to approach arguments dispassionately. Further, failing an acceptable ::resolution, such disputes may wind up in litigation, so finding a fair and ::honest solution is definitely going to be worth it. :: ::[* Ts'o asserted that Alan Brown lost only one court case. In fact, Brown lost ::three: One case (Domainz) was defamatory statements on an email list. Two others ::(Xtra and Actrix) involved false claims of ISPs having open relays.] :: ::On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Theodore Ts'o wrote: :: ::> On Tue, Sep 27, 2005 at 06:47:36PM -0700, Nick Staff wrote: ::> > > 2. An IETF "netiquette" committee, to offload list banning ::> > > procedures from the IESG. ::> > ::> > I'm a big fan of the netiquette committee. I'd like to suggest that ::> > volunteers be allowed to "throw their names into the hat" and that members ::> > be selected blindly from that pool. This would of course avoid any stacking ::> > or favoritism, but we would need a "qualifier" that prevented interlopers ::> > from submitting their name. Though I hate to suggest it as it would exclude ::> > me from selection, having attended an IETF meeting in the last x years could ::> > possibly be a good filter. ::> ::> Maybe. I see two potential problems: ::> ::> 1) Serving on this committee is going to be no fun at all. Getting ::> qualified people to sign up for what will only be seen as a sh*t job ::> is going to be difficult. And how do you exclude certain known ::> (repeat) troublemakers from throwing their hat into the ring? Or ::> maybe you don't, but then if they get selected, they would then have ::> the opportunity to practice their own unique form of DOS on the ::> netiquette committee? ::> ::> 2) Unless discussion of the decisions of the netiquette committee, ::> during the committee is considering a request, and after the committee ::> has rendered a decision, is ruled out of scope, it's not going to help ::> the very long discussions such as this one which plague the IETF list. ::> In the worst case, we can assume that the mailing list abuser will ::> immediately appeal any decision of the netiquette committee, which ::> means that after inventing this entire mechanism, it may not have any ::> effect other than prolonging the agony. ::> ::> Problem (2) could be solved by making the decisions of the netiquette ::> committee not subject to appeal, but that causes its own problems and ::> potential for abuse of the people who do end up on the committee. But ::> if you don't, then people who are intent on practicing their DOS ::> attacks (or otherwise impose their view of their world on us) will ::> simply use our procedures against us. ::> ::> I suppose we could try to add some sanctions such as using a very ::> large ban time (measured in multiple years), so the benefit of trying ::> to get someone banned from the list is worth the cost, assuming we are ::> willing to preserve through the entire tortious process of (a) a ::> decision by the netiquette committe, (b) an appeal to the IESG, (c) an ::> appeal to the IAB, and eventually (d) an appeal to the Internet ::> Society --- or perhaps we could impose an automatic doubling of the ::> sanctions if someone attempts an appeal, and double the eventual ban ::> time at each level of appeal if the banning is eventually upheld. ::> ::> But there isn't really a good solution to this problem, unfortunately. ::> ::> - Ted _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf