Hi Melinda,
At 11:41 22-10-2013, Melinda Shore 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."
As a matter of individual opinion I would not remove the person's
posting privileges. The reason is because it can be argued that
there is bias. The statement could have considered the issue instead
of what other people are saying.
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 [censored]
Yes.
Additionally, let me suggest that finding anonymous posts
"not tolerable" is inconsistent with the perpass discussions
and concerns expressed *here* about privacy.
Agreed.
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 [censored]
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.
Yes.
Anonymity is not a problem. Behaving badly is a problem.
The above is well-said.
Regards,
-sm