Re: Harassment, abuse, accountability. and IETF mailing lists

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

--On Monday, June 6, 2022 09:20 +0100 tom petch
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>...
>>>>> On 04-Jun-22 04:27, tom petch wrote:
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A new non-WG list was announced yesterday including the
>>>>>> text 'For additional information, contact the list
>>>>>> administrators' with no indication who they might be or
>>>>>> anywhere where they might be identified.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes, administrators are elusive.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The Welcome message after you subscribe is no more helpful
>>>>> (and even lies: "Normally, Mailman will remind you of your
>>>>> ietf.org mailing list passwords once every month").
>>>>> ...

Tom,

Murray has explained what happened in that particular case, one
that both of us used as examples, and apologized.  I hope we can
move on from that example to the more general case because there
are many other lists who pages provide no more information --
either about what the list is about, who to contact for more
information, and who to contact with issues.  The latter two may
not be the same, but both should have names and email address
that are available without complicated navigation.

>...
>> That gets us back to nearly where I started the thread.  If
>> one is as thoroughly familiar with the IETF as you are and
>> willing to make some deductions, it would certainly be
>> possible to look carefully at the list owner URL and infer
>> that "owner" = "administrator".  However, I have seen many
>> cases in which that relationship does not hold and you
>> probably have too. Moreover, if the question is about abuse,
>> harassment, or something else sensitive, rather than a mere
>> inquiry about the list one should be able to identify the
>> name (and email address) of the owner/ administrator/
>> complaint-handler and that page does not make that
>> information available.
>...

> I agree with your points.  One slight addition, the reference
> to ART is explicit in the first post to the e-mail archive but
> as you say, it takes familiarity with the IETF to get that far
> and as you say, a newcomer will likely not know what ART is.

> I would wonder though about our target audience in this.  Is
> it the newcomer who gets put off because this is not like the
> Internet they are used to e.g. Facebook?  Or is it the person
> who has been around for a while but has begun to find the tone
> of a WG hostile, perhaps to their ideas, and intolerant? 

First, my standard for newcomers is perhaps a bit higher than
that.  While I hope we would be welcoming to everyone, it is
likely that someone who is not used to participating in
discussion of substantive, at least partially technical, issues
online and whose experience of the Internet is limited to the
likes of Facebook will not be able to usefully contribute to the
IETF no matter how well designed our pages, tutorials, tools,
and procedures are.  Of course, as we move in the direction of
trying to do work in, e.g., social, behavioral, or policy areas,
that explanation will need further refinement, but let's leave
that discussion for another time and another thread. 

Beyond that, I don't think the distinction you are making is
actually very important operationally.  We encourage newcomers
to watch a few WGs and ask questions; they better be able to
figure out who to ask without navigating a maze (I think we do
ok at that, YMMD).  We also encourage them to speak up when they
have something to say and sometimes that gets a hostile
reaction.  If it does, they need to be able to easily determine
what our policies are on the matter and how to pursue them, but
there is only one way in which that makes them different from
very experienced participants: Again using myself as an example,
while I generally don't know, by name and address, who the
administrator of the ietf-FOOBAR mailing list is, I do know (and
you probably do to, but a newcomer might not), the IESG's
address and where to find names and addresses for each AD, the
ombudsteam's address and that of its individual members, Jay's
address, etc., and, for that matter, the address of this
particular list.

I started down the path of worrying about these issues because I
ran across a newcomer who had concluded that the IETF would be a
good place to pursue a particular piece of work, found a point
of entry with one or more particular RFCs rather than via our
assorted "get started" pages, and proceeded to try to write an
I-D (something we usually encourage in preference to trying to
explain new or complex ideas on a mailing list without a
document to point to).  Then they started hitting an assortment
of walls and other barriers (including some hostility and
abuse).  I did a bit of investigating and discovered that those
barriers were real and not just their ignorance and,
consequently, decided it was time to say something.  And, yes,
after a few decades of experience, I could figure out ways
around the problems by knowing who to bug (or of whom to ask
personal favors), but I shouldn't need to do that. They don't
have those options unless someone accidentally runs across them
in a state that approximates an online equivalent of standing on
a street corner, looking very confused, and staring at an
incomprehensive map (or phone screen) and step in as I did in
that case.   Such newcomers should not need to depend on dumb
luck to get help.

I believe that, if we solve the problems well for one of the
groups you identify, it will solve it for the other as well.  I
also believe that, if we do not solve them well, we will not
only push away many potential newcomers but will gradually cause
more experiences people to walk away in frustration over the
number of hoops they need to jump through, or mazes they need to
thread, to get information or resolve a problem.
 
best,
   john