Hi. I had decided to not comment further on this, but an issue arose over the weekend that caused me to decide to go back and review -08 and, when -09 appeared this morning, to look at it as well. Apologies for lateness, but most of these comments would have been impossible earlier. First, I am still deeply troubled by the idea that the best way to address harassment and similar problems is to create an elaborate structure and rules that takes an 18 page document to describe. That doesn't make the problem any less important -- I very much believe it is important -- but it says something about the IETF at the present state of its evolution that we (and particularly the IESG) find it necessary to develop this type of formalized arrangement. That said, quibbles aside, I think that this document has converged on at least a local optimum in ways to do it. There may be other approaches that would be as good, but I have doubts, again quibbles and the comments below aside, that it we could do a lot better. I hope the IESG will openly and carefully consider the comments below, even if they result in no changes to this document, rather than just pushing through something written by one sitting AD and one former one, that can be seen as a supporting document for policies the IESG has already announced and published, and on which the IESG has already spent sufficient time to be considered invested. (1) Given that the IETF is still supposed to be an organization focused on Internet Engineering and that many of our procedures are, IMO, very much dependent on the assumption that the huge majority of participants have a network engineering (or equivalent) background and primary interests (at least within the IETF context), anyone who actively wants to serve as an Ombudsperson is appropriately viewed with a certain amount of skepticism by the rest of the community. I am known as having a suspicious nature, but I would even wonder about someone who wanted an Ombudsperson appointment as a means of getting training that could lead to qualification for some position unrelated to the IETF. I don't know of a better way to deal with that then relying on the IETF Chair's discretion, but, if only because the community has occasionally attracted characters with strong opinions about how others should run their lives and interests forcing them to do so, we all, including the IETF Chair, need to be sensitive to that risk. (2) While I would not expect to see actual problems, having the IETF Chair able to remove an Ombudsperson "without explanation to the community" is troubling and a potential source of abuse (we have, of course, never had a situation in which an incoming IETF Chair has or develops personality problems with someone who got along perfectly well with a predecessor IETF Chair. Never. :-( ). Obviously, the solution to that potential problem is not disclosure to the community (the document seems right about that), but there should be an obligation to disclose reasons to at least the person being removed (with no obligation on that person to keep those reasons confidential) and/or to the Ombudsteam. As usual, sunshine, or even the potential for sunshine, it the IETF's ultimate best protection against the perception of abuse. (3) I continue to object in principle to mechanisms that may concern or involve people who are active in the IETF but do not regularly attend face to face meetings bein8g exercised by a group that is chosen on condition of regular meeting attendance. Nothing in this document or the Anti-Harassment Policy appears to prevent a remote attendee/ participant from being a Subject, Reporter, or Respondent. For this particular set of Ombudsteam roles in which people are called upon to make evaluations of the behavior of others, the principle described in some areas as "jury of his or her peers" interacts with remote participant and participants. If the IESG and the community have concluded that f2f presence of the Ombudsteam is important, it would be useful, especially to the perception that the IETF is welcoming to people who do not attend meetings regularly, to include a section or appendix explaining the reasons for that choice. (4) While I strongly support the ability of the Ombudsteam to initiate a recall procedure without collecting signatures (and potentially disclosing otherwise-confidential material in that process), I would encourage the IESG to encourage community discussion of whether the need for that provision in this document might be symptomatic of the recall procedure having become to onerous to be useful. I can only express the hope that the IESG is sufficiently sensitive to community needs and sufficiently confident of their own skills and roles to encourage, rather than block, discussion of possible changes that could make it easier to remove members of the IESG. (5) draft-crocker-diversity-conduct is now in the Independent Submission queue. Some of its material, most obviously Section 2.2 of the -06 version, overlap with the present document and the Anti-harassment policy and both supply additional information and appear to recommend a somewhat different approach. Neither document references the other. In reviewing the record, I discovered that the IESG concluded that there was "no conflict between this document and IETF work" (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/conflict-review-crocker-diversity-conduct/), a conclusion I find astonishing especially since the draft-crocker piece is now in the RFC Editor queue and hence appears to be on-track for being published first. I believe that, if both documents are to be published, the community would be better served by having these documents published together and having at least one reference and explanation of the different perspectives in one (or both) of them. More generally, it is not an accident that "Non-satirical commentary on IETF processes, procedures, and culture" was left out of the discussion in Section 2 of RFC 4846. I would support an ISE decision to publish a document that was a critical evaluation of an IETF policy if the IETF Stream were unwilling to do so, but draft-crocker-diversity is not such a critique: if the authors have points of disagreement with either this document or the posted policy, they don't say so, nor do they call out points of agreement and identify the supplemental or complementary material. IMO, we make progress by exposing disagreements and having healthy discussions of them. If we cannot reach consensus, we facilitate progress and understanding by documenting those differences of opinion. I believe that the IESG should retrieve the draft-crocker document from the Independent Stream, encourage appropriate cross-referencing and comments, and then publish both documents in the IETF Stream. That would not only keep IETF policy discussions and documents where they belong (in the IETF) but would illustrate to various skeptics that, even when the IESG is heavily invested in a document, they and the IETF remain open to other ideas. (For the record, I am taking absolutely no position here on the editorial or substantive quality of the draft-crocker- document.) Quibble: Some parts of Section 5.1 "understand that they are not qualified in handling issues of harassment". That is fine as a presumption and will usually be true. But it is not going to be universally true, especially if some former Ombudsteam members end up in WG Chair, AD, etc. roles. "Presumed" would help a lot. An explanation that, even if they have the relevant qualifications, using them to second-guess the Ombudsteam (except possibly in an appeal process) is not desirable would be even better. best, john