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

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 02-Jun-22 08:45, Keith Moore wrote:
> On 6/1/22 16:04, John C Klensin wrote:
> 
>> Or is it the IETF's position that no one is actually responsible
>> for monitoring the appropriateness of content on non-WG lists or
>> accountable for doing, or not doing, that?

I suspect that the position is that there is, formally, no position.
When I've been the mailman admin for such lists, fortunately I've
never had to deal with untoward messages, but I'd say that it would
clearly have been my job to do so. Also, there's always an AD who
authorised each list (or their predecessor did so), so there's
a chain of responsibility.

All our policies do apply to non-WG mailing lists, according to
https://www.ietf.org/how/lists/nonwglist-guidelines/ which cites
the Note Well. In particular the code of conduct and anti-harassment
BCPs apply.

So the missing link seems to be an IESG Statement that absent any other
provision, the administrators of a non-WG list should fulfill the role
described in RFC3934 (part of BCP24).

> "Monitoring the appropriateness" seems like overkill, and it would seem
> to mean that not only would there need to be a designated person or
> people for every single IETF list, but also that said person or people
> should be promptly reading every message in every such conversation.

Yes. Shouldn't anybody tagged as a list admin be doing that anyway?

> I'd like to think that it's sufficient if there be a person or people
> for each list to whom complaints can be directed, and who has some
> limited power to take corrective action.

Why would it be limited compared to the power a WG chair has over a
WG list? The same rules of conduct apply.
  
> More broadly, I still believe that IETF works better if the community
> can mostly police itself, and mostly set its own standards for behavior,
> rather than expecting that there should always be some parental figure
> to adjudicate every possible conflict. 

Yes, but I assume we are concerned here with cases where self-regulation
has failed.

> I realize that there are
> limitations with community self-policing, including (quite importantly)
> that communities can harbor and enforce prejudices against certain kinds
> of individuals even without realizing that they're doing so.   
So
> self-policing can never be entirely sufficient, but I believe it's a
> necessary component.   Because appointed individuals can also 
harbor and
> enforce prejudices, with even less potential to correct them when they
> run amok.

Which, I believe, is exactly why the backstop mechanisms we have in place 
for
WG list abuse should apply here too. I think John has identified that at
the moment, we have no backstop.

Regards
    Brian