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On 10/11/19 11:40 AM, IETF Sergeant-at-Arms wrote: RFC 3005 establishes the charter for the IETF discussion list, ietf@xxxxxxxx. It provides for the IETF Chair to appoint Sergeants-at-Arms (SAA) to help manage postings to this list. Matthew Miller and Dhruv Dhody are the current sergeants-at-arms. Thanks for posting this. IMO, it's dangerous for the SAAs to be defining their own rules
for IETF list speech without the backing of community consensus.
And yet, reading the "rules", I also see and appreciate that
there's an attempt to anchor them in consensus documents where
such documents speak to the issues of concern. In the absence of
sufficient direction from consensus documents, documenting the
SAA's assumptions and interpretations of consensus rules could be
constructive. I do expect, however, that these rules be
discussed and reviewed publicly (not on a private list, and
certainly not on a proprietary service like GitHub), and that
formal IETF community review and consensus needs to be obtained
going forward. I don't believe that the "rules" should be
enforced or considered binding until such consensus has been
obtained. It is disturbing, and I believe inappropriate, that the email
message announcing these "rules" requests feedback through private
and extra-IETF channels. GitHub requires people to sign up with
GitHub before filing issues, which facilitates tracking by GitHub
and perhaps other parties, and is detrimental to the privacy of
participants in the discussion. Perhaps more importantly, the effort to divert discussion of this
issue of tremendous importance to the IETF list, away from the
IETF list and from the IETF itself, seems likely to have the
effect of "burying" a discussion of tremendous importance. One of my larger concerns about both RFC 3005 and the notes on
GitHub is that there's no effective oversight or accountability of
the SAA for their actions. While the nature of SAA actions is
that they should be kept confidential, it has become apparent that
the SAA seems to want to act on its own, stretching the bounds of
IETF consensus ruling, and also that it can have a chilling effect
on IETF discussion. Therefore I believe that record-keeping of
SAA deliberations and actions has become essential. Such records
should be confidential by default, but made available to IAB at
any time for review (whether or not in response to specific
complaints). A retention policy for such records should also be
part of the record-keeping. RFC 3005 says that complaints about SAA actions should be
referred to IAB, but doesn't explain what power IAB should have to
correct actions of the SAAs. This situation should be addressed. I appreciate that the notes on GitHub acknowledge that "professional" is a very ambiguous term. I support efforts by the IETF community (NOT merely the SAAs) to define "professional" in IETF context. Similarly, "disruptive" is also ambiguous and needs clarification. The words "They also include
criticizing an idea in an insulting or excessively hostile
manner" are troubling. I realize that one may criticize an
idea in such a way as to effectively be critical of the person
proposing the idea. And yet, it is essential that people be
able to discuss ideas candidly, and sometimes to criticize ideas
emphatically. I believe it's inappropriate to impugn a
participant's motive without supporting evidence of that
motive. But I don't believe it's wrong to point out any problem
with an idea itself, nor with potential ill effects of an idea,
nor even with the appearance of an idea. Sometimes this is a
fine line, but it's essential that the SAAs not interfere with
vigorous discussion of relevant ideas. Keith
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