Although I usually object to doing this, +1. Well stated and I
strongly concur.
john
--On Tuesday, October 22, 2013 10:41 -0800 Melinda Shore
<melinda.shore@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The more I've been thinking about this the less comfortable
> I am with how this was executed. I have no disagreement
> whatsoever with removing this person's posting privileges.
> But, I have a huge problem with Jordi's statement:
>
> "As Sergeant-at-arms, I agree with other previous
> postings and believe that anonymous posting is not
> tolerable in the IETF mail exploders."
>
> Clearly, there are non-trivial problems around making decisions
> on the basis of something sort of like identity in
> unauthenticated email. We don't *really* know who other
> people are - we tend to assume that they are who they say they
> are and evaluate their credibility (or not) on things like
> content, reputation, past performance, etc. The problem with
> mars.techno.cat@xxxxxxxxx isn't that he (and since we're
> pretty sure we know who this is, we'll stick with masculine
> pronouns) has an email address that doesn't look like a name
> (although his name could have been Mars Techno Cat, as
> unlikely as that is). The problem is that he had no prior
> history of posting -as that name- and posted nothing but
> off-topic rants and personal attacks. I would hope that the
> attacks would be sufficient to have his posting privileges
> revoked and that having an unfamiliar email address would not
> be sufficient.
>
> Additionally, let me suggest that finding anonymous posts
> "not tolerable" is inconsistent with the perpass discussions
> and concerns expressed *here* about privacy.
> We want accountability in our documents and that means knowing
> that the people who contribute to our work 1) have technical
> substance, and 2) are having their comments and text evaluated
> by other people of technical substance. It does not
> necessarily mean knowing their names or identities. In many
> discussions about privacy and about whether or not various
> cryptographic technologies have been deliberately weakened by
> some US government agency, there have been repeated assertion
> that open processes and aggressive review provide protection
> against that sort of problem. That ought to apply here, as
> well.
>
> Anonymity is not a problem. Behaving badly is a problem.
> I really never want to see someone's ejection justified on
> the basis of their putative "anonymity" again. I am not
> arguing that mars.techno.cat@xxxxxxxxx ought to be allowed
> anywhere near an IETF mailing list but that the reason that
> was given for throwing him off was not correct. We should
> be working to protect anonymity and privacy, not punishing it.
>
> Melinda