Re: Last Call: <draft-farrresnickel-harassment-05.txt> (IETF Anti-Harassment Procedures) to Best Current Practice

[Spencer Dawkins <[e-mail]>]

On 03/13/2015 04:04 PM, Pete Resnick wrote:
> Speaking only for myself: 

Oh, yes. Spencer is also speaking only for myself.

> On 3/13/15 12:34 PM, Sam Hartman wrote:
>> old:
>> (The Ombudsteam can not impose that a Respondent
>>        who is in a IETF management position be removed from that
>>        position.  There are existing mechanisms within IETF process for
>>        the removal of people from IETF management positions that may be
>>        used as necessary.)
>>
>> new:
>> The Ombudsteam MAY ask a respondent to consider resigning from an IETF
>> management position.  The Ombudsteam May remove a respondent from a
>> working group  or document editor position.  While this document does
>> not create additional procedures permitting a nomcom appointee be
>> removed, the Ombudsteam can exclude a respondent from meetings and
>> mailing lists and other activities, making it impossible for them to
>> carry out their appointed tasks.
>
> - With regard to NomCom appointed positions, this is just fine, and in 
> fact what the current text intended, while making it perfectly clear 
> what was intended.

I don't strongly object to the "MAY ask a respondent to consider 
resigning", although I'm somewhat on the fence between

- If that's the right thing to do, I'd hope the Ombudsteam would do the 
right thing, whether the procedures included this MAY or not, and

- I'm not getting how involved the community expects the Ombudsteam to 
be in repairing the situation.

I agree with Pete that the rest of the text is more clearly saying what 
I thought the text said.

> - I am ambivalent about the Ombudsteam being able to remove someone 
> from a WG (editor/secretary/chair) position. While it certainly 
> doesn't get into the morass that we do with NomCom-appointed 
> positions, it seems to me that it's still a bit of 
> "crossing-the-streams", and as far as I can tell the same kinds of 
> things that can be done for NomCom-appointed positions (ask them to 
> consider resigning their position, exclusion from meetings / mailing 
> lists, etc.) would have equal effectiveness. So, I'm not sure it's 
> necessary. But as I said, I'm ambivalent. 

I don't actually know much about what ferresnickel talked about that 
didn't make it into the draft and subsequent discussion within the IESG, 
but the discussion I was involved in was focused more on excluding from 
meetings than from mailing lists, and we noted that the IETF actually 
has running code experience with ADs who aren't able to attend multiple 
IETF meetings in a row, and Nomcoms returned at least one AD in that 
situation for another term.

If the community thinks that if you're excluded from meetings, you're 
also excluded from mailing lists, that's pretty much fatal for any IETF 
management position I've ever served in (WG draft editor, WG chair, IAB 
member, and AD). So, that's definitely worth discussing.

And yeah, we spent more time trying to figure out what to do with Nomcom 
appointed positions than with anything else, so definitely worth discussing.

> As for the thought experiment on how a recall might go after such an 
> incident: I am certainly more sanguine than Sam. Presuming an incident 
> where the Ombudsteam decides that an AD can no longer participate in 
> meetings and mailing lists (already I would hope a *highly* unusual 
> circumstance) *and* the AD goes haywire and refuses to relinquish 
> their title (even more unlikely) *and* the "two sides" try to get 
> their friends on the recall committee, *and* these supposed friends 
> agree to participate in such a thing (I have a hard time imagining any 
> of the people I know in the IETF being willing to do so), we still 
> have the case that the (hopefully sane) ISOC-President-appointed 
> recall committee chair is going to tell the committee, "Look, we are 
> not deciding whether this person can start participating in meetings 
> or on mailing lists again. They can't and that's not going to change. 
> The only question is whether they get to keep their office in light of 
> that fact." If at that (almost unimaginable) point a sufficient number 
> of people on the recall committee are willing to be so destructive to 
> the IETF that they are willing to participate in leaving the person in 
> the position, I think I'm willing to live with the IETF going *boom*.

So, confidentiality ...

If an AD who has been excluded from meetings says "I won't be in Dallas 
for personal reasons", unless the AD lives 2.6 miles from the IETF 
meeting hotel (this time, I do), maintaining confidentiality is fairly 
realistic.

If we're talking about excluding ADs from mailing lists, we've lost 
that. ADs who can't send e-mail to the IESG mailing list would be 
fabulously visible to the rest of the IESG. ADs cc: a lot of mailing 
lists on almost everything we engage in, and if every WG chair has to 
forward my comments and discuss ballots on every draft because I'm 
excluded from their mailing lists ... done.

At least, that's the way it looks to me, speaking only for myself.

Spencer