--On Friday, March 13, 2015 21:16 -0500 Spencer Dawkins
<spencerdawkins.ietf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 03/13/2015 03:33 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
>> John,
>>
>> On 13/03/15 18:05, John C Klensin wrote:
>>> However, the responses by a few IESG members to comments
>>> about the IESG's exempting itself (and other parts of the
>>> leadership [1]) from the provisions seems to call for
>>> additional comment and probably a few more issues for the
>>> list of topics needing addressing.
>> I don't believe the above matches what the document says at
>> all.
>>
>> The IESG didn't "exempt" itself from anything - the ombudsteam
>> can very clearly exclude an AD from one or more meetings, just
>> as with any IETF participant. (If that is not clear, it needs
>> to be, but I think it is.)
>
> I agree with Stephen that this is what we _meant_.
>
> If it's not what the document says, please tell us, because
> (as Stephen says) this needs to be clear.
It is not what the document says. The document says
"(The Ombudsteam can not impose that a Respondent who is
in a IETF management position be removed from that
position. There are existing mechanisms within IETF
process for the removal of people from IETF management
positions that may be used as necessary.)"
That seems fairly clear to me although I should have been more
clear about "the provisions" from which the IESG exempted
itself. Given a document written written by two IESG members
and extensively massaged by the IESG, it is hard to read it in
any other way than "the IESG has exempted itself...". If the
IESG sees itself as a team, which I hope it always will, the
ability of the IESG Chair (sic) to remove an Ombudsperson
without cause or explanation just adds to that perception.
That statement also raises the "management position" issue on
which Brian and I have commented. And the only "existing
mechanisms" I know of amount to either recall (difficult,
inappropriate, or useless for reasons I explained in that note
plus the confidentiality problem Brian raised in his.
Moving away from hair-splitting and to the bottom line...
Because of the power and explicit and discretionary authority
the community gives them, I think it is appropriate and probably
necessary to hold ADs --and expect them to hold themselves-- to
a higher standards than random IETF participants. Consequently,
if the Ombudsteam has a discussion about a harassment claim with
an AD and the issue cannot be explained by the AD to the
Ombudsteam's satisfaction, I'd expect the AD to either correct
the behavior forthwith or resign. If neither option is taken,
if the community is really serious about eliminating harassment,
I think the community wants the AD out of there and, for
effective operation of the IESG, replaced quickly. Put
differently, having such an AD linger on for many months (see
Note 1), doing whatever he or she was doing with (as Brian has
pointed out) full community knowledge of what is going on, is
not in the best interest of the IETF.
I'm also completely unpersuaded by "well, the AD can be excluded
from meetings and/or a mailing list". Sorry, but the community
simply doesn't need ADs who are forced to function without the
full range of tools available to them. Any AD who is unable or
unwilling to cease or correct harassing behavior after the
various interventions called for by the document _and_ unwilling
to resign should probably be removed for bad judgment and
insensitivity to the needs of WGs and document processing in the
community... and that should not require a 5 - 0 month (minimum)
recall process.
I don't know whether to describe reliance on conventional recall
for these sorts of situations is "ineffective" or an indication
that harassment by "management" is not taken seriously.
Mumble.
john
Note 1: For the source of my "many month" and "5-6 month
(minimum) assertions, consider the following steps to form a
plausible estimate of how long the recall process takes:
* 20 signatures must be collected (see my earlier note
about that one)
* Secretariat confirms the signatures and makes a public
announcement
* ISOC President appoints Chair (I assume no one is on
standby and that, while it is not prohibited by RFC 7347
or elsewhere, extensive consultation with IESG and/or
IAH members about who should be chosen when there has
already been a public announcement that a petition has
been filed against one of their members would be
unseemly, so getting this done, and done well, in a
couple of weeks would be really fast).
* A recall committee is created using the same rules as
the Nomcom (See Section 7.3 of RFC 7437). That is,
among other things, up to three months to select and
organize that committee (Section 4.1 of 7437).
* Then the committee needs to investigate and reach a
decision, which presumably involves some effort,
interviews, calls, etc. From a scheduling standpoint,
one hopes that does not involve waiting until f2f
interviews can be help at an IETF meeting, but nothing
in 7437 seems to prohibit that.
* If the person is removed, the normal vacancy-filling
process applies.
My crude guess is that, if the normal recall procedure is used,
it takes a absolute minimum of five months from the point that
someone decides a petition is appropriate to actually remove
someone... and that is after complaint/ reporting, Ombudsteam
investigation and discussion, attempts to get the behavior
corrected, time to see if those attempts were effective, etc. I
think that adds up to a very large fraction of a year, even
without counting time to pick a replacement. It has got to be a
major portion of the reason why the recall process has never
been used.