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Re: [88attendees] Anti-harassment policy and ombudsperson

Ted Lemon <mellon@fugue.com> Mon, 04 November 2013 18:46 UTC

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From: Ted Lemon <mellon@fugue.com>
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To: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
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Cc: 88attendees@ietf.org, Balazs Lengyel <balazs.lengyel@ericsson.com>
Subject: Re: [88attendees] Anti-harassment policy and ombudsperson
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On Nov 4, 2013, at 9:10 AM, Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote:
> It seems fairly obvious that this is in response to concerns in the the tech-conferencing community as a whole, not the IETF specifically.  There’ve been issues at gatherings of other communities that have spiraled into the danger zone very quickly and seriously damaged careers and lives. Trying to get in front of this proactively seems smart to me.  

Exactly.   Google pycon harassment for an example.   It is a very safe assumption that in any organization the size of the IETF, some incidents have occurred, and some will occur in the future.   I would like to think the IETF is special, and that such things never happen, but I do not think it is responsible to make such an assumption, no matter how tempting it is.

If you look at the pycon incident, it's clear that both the "accused" and the "accuser" suffered way out of proportion to what was called for by the actual incident.   The whole fiasco would have come out hugely better for all involved if a clear policy had been in effect at that conference.

I would not like to see something like that happen at IETF.

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