On 11/03/2015 17:30, Adrian Farrel wrote:
Stewart, I do wish you would reference the document before launching into your
critique.
There is nothing in this document that constitutes the IETF making up "its own
list".
The text of the document, makes an observation about the IESG statement at
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/ietf-anti-harassment-policy.html.
This statement was made on 2nd November 2013 while you were serving on the IESG.
Not withstanding that, my position is and always was that the IETF is not
a competent body when it comes to compiling this list and that we should
use a list, or perhaps the union of a number of lists, compiled by those
with the expertise.
The alternative risks creating very messy loopholes.
The text then says that the document "adopts the general definition, but does
not attempt to further precisely define behavior that falls under the set of
procedures..."
In other word, this document does not provide a list of categories that maybe
considered grounds for harassment. So your assertion is not founded.
I understand that you have good reason to believe that the list at
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents is well considered and
reasonable. People coming from other cultures might consider it missing many
categories while others might consider some of the categories it includes to be
outrageous!
Indeed that is a concern, and there is no way around asserting the set. Any
other approach risks a dispute of the form "but that is permitted (or maybe
even required) in my culture".
Unless we are going to build a full and water-tight definition of harassment and
obtain IEFT consensus on it *before* adopting any anti-harassment processes and
appointing a team to handle any complaints, I suggest we need to move ahead with
the document as it is. Personally, I would be pleasantly surprised if a body as
culturally diverse (and opinionated) as the IETF could come to consensus on such
a definition in any short period of time given (as you note) the IETF "has no
significant expertise in this area."
Perhaps a way forward here would be for us to all support this document and for
a further document to attempt to give a more precise definition as advice and
guidance to the Ombudsteam. If you would like to start a draft on that and run
it through the consensus process, we might all benefit from it.
Another way is to look at how other multi-national multi-cultural
organizations
address this. For example what is the UN (i.e. ITU, UNHCR ... ) policy
in this
regard?
- Stewart