Re: What is a "management position? [Last Call: <draft-farrresnickel-harassment-05.txt> (IETF Anti-Harassment Procedures) to Best Current Practice]

[Scott Kitterman <[e-mail]>]

On Monday, March 16, 2015 04:46:16 PM Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 01:37:54PM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
> > However I'm not clear about the pragmatics, given the the Ombud, or
> > whoever makes the request, has confidentiality requirements that limit
> > what they can say to the person with the authority to remove the
> > miscreant...
> 
> Someone who has no formal authority but is influential has two ways to
> make that influence effective:
> 
> 1.  Lobby in private, saying nasty things about someone or whatever to
> someone who _does_ have authority.  In that case, the abuse-redress
> procedure actually needs to go after the person with the actual power,
> because that's what's being exercised.
> 
> 2.  Be abusive in public.  In this case, the official office-holder
> either needs to do something or else, again, be implicated in the
> abuse.

I had avoided reading this draft until now, because things like this mostly 
end up making me angry when I read them, but this thread finally put me over 
the edge to read the draft.

Having read the draft for the first time, I'm completely lost about what it 
covers.  I have a hard time envisioning non-disruptive harassment.  If someone 
is being harassed, I have a hard time believing it won't be detrimental to 
their IETF participation.

I think the draft is very vague about what it covers and provides no guidance 
on how to know how one "determines that harassment has taken place".

There's no way to know what abusive is, so how can one know how to avoid this.  
I've said negative perhaps even nasty things about people involved in the IETF 
in private, but as far as I know, they were all true.  Am I a harasser now?

Scott K