Re: Sam's text and way forward on the last call of draft-farrresnickel-harassment-05.txt

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Thursday, March 19, 2015 14:29 +0000 Stewart Bryant
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> Something nagging in the back of my mind is that in
> the opacity of this process there is scope for abuse
> by the Ombudsteam. This is particularly problematic
> where the Ombudsteam can opaquely remove people
> from IETF office. I suspect that it would probably be less of a
> problem if the Ombudsteam were Nomcom appointees
> rather than IETF chair appointees.

Of course, that presumes that the Nomcom is qualified to
evaluate the skills of an Ombude volunteer and can do so without
getting tied up with company biases, different levels of
conviction about the importance of the issues within the Nomcom,
etc.  Finding an appropriate team may actually require a fair
amount of searching and recruiting (something that the draft, at
least as I read it, now contemplates) rather than making
announcements and waiting for volunteer applicants.  The Nomcom
fairly clearly has the ability to do that sort of recruiting,
but I think it has been a long time since one has used it.  

I'm even worried a little about the IETF Chair wrt the expertise
and sensitivities required -- "experienced in HR management" has
never been an important job requirement that the Nomcom is
expected to including high on its list of considerations, at
least AFAIK -- but I think the odds are better than asking the
Nomcom to do the job.

To generalize a bit from this, I think it is really important to
look at these various solutions by working through scenarios
about how they would work in practice.  For example, independent
of any of its other issues, the recall procedure just takes too
long (see below).  Although allowing the Ombudsteam to initiate
a recall without gathering signatures would help, it wouldn't
help very much and the community's instinct (unless the recall
action was intended as punishment), would, IMO, closely parallel
what has happened in the past: if taking the first steps does
not result in a resignation, then it has typically been just
less painful to wait for the next Nomcom cycle and try to supply
enough information there to prevent reappointment.

Even more generally, I think failure to think clearly about the
steps an Ombudsteam would likely take in dealing with a
Respondent once it was clear that there had been a problem
(nothing we should try to specify or risk overspecifying) is
causing us to lose sight of important aspects of the situation
in favor of concentrating, perhaps in the IETF tradition, on
what had better be an edge case.  In this particular situation,
I think that edge case is important and needs to be sorted out,
but only in context with that more basic expected sequence of
events.  See separate note in the original thread, forthcoming.



--On Thursday, March 19, 2015 10:37 -0500 Spencer Dawkins at
IETF <[e-mail]> wrote:

> I saw a note, and I'd have to look at some email threads to
> see who else was cc-ed, doing the math on how long it takes to
> run a recall through to "Spencer is no longer an AD", and
> coming up with an estimate of 3-5 months. My quick take was
> that the estimate was likely close.

I think it was my math.  Feel free to either forward the
analysis to the list or ask me to do so if you think that would
be helpful.

> But if that's the case, I'm not sure why fixing the recall
> process wouldn't make about as much sense as special-casing
> anything here.

Yes, although whether fixing the recall process would also
address some of the issues that have been raised here is very
important.  For example, one of the main protections (as well as
one of the risks) in the recall process is that the identity of
the person for whom recall is being contemplated and the reasons
why and the petition signatories/endorsers are exposed to the
community even before the recall committee is selected and, as I
read it, probably before volunteers for that committee are
sought.  That may be good or bad, but it is completely at
variance with any notion of confidentiality.  

best,
    john