Re: On harassment at IETF

[Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>]

> On Mar 30, 2019, at 7:58 AM, John C Klensin <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Sam,
> 
> Many thanks.  I had been trying to figure out how best to
> respond to Jordi's note but you have covered everything I would
> have wanted to say and far better than I could have done so.

+1

Thanks to Sam, Brian, and others for your responses. 

Alissa

> 
> --On Friday, March 29, 2019 22:43 -0400 Sam Hartman
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>>>>>>> "JORDI" == JORDI PALET MARTINEZ
>>>>>>> <jordi.palet=[e-mail]> writes:
>> 
>>    JORDI>    I don't think this is something to be handled
>> in private 
>>   JORDI> messages.  Those cases should be 
>> publicly exposed and point 
>>   JORDI> to specific names, so
>> the rest of us take our own personal
>>    JORDI> decisions on
>> those folks in addition to IETF actions.
> 
>> Please follow your own antiharassment procedure.  As Dave
>> Crocker pointed out during the development of the BCP in
>> question, there are some (non-addressed) problems with it.
>> Still, it's far better than what you propose above.
>> 
>> Victims of harassment often don't want their experience
>> dragged through the consensus judgment process of the IETF.
>> Theey don't want the details of a difficult and painful
>> experience exposed and debated on a public list.  Theyalmost
>> certainly don't want to face the inevitable victim blaiming
>> and debating of whether they or the harasser are more
>> reasonable.  They don't want to watch the debate about whether
>> the harasser is so valuable to the organization that their
>> behavior *has to be* accepted.
>> 
>> And speaking from personal experience as a victim, some of the
>> time you don't even want to see people dragged through the
>> mud.  Some of the time people do improve and understand why
>> what they are doing is problematic.  Or some of the time they
>> are your friends and you just don't want to be the one who
>> causes that mess to land on them.  And yes, you have to
>> evaluate your silence against the potential that someone else
>> will get hurt, and yes that tradeoff sucks.  But people make it
>> every day.
>> And denying them that option is both inconsistent with your
>> policies and with approaching the realities of
>> harassment/bullying with compassion.
>> 
>> I'd say that the last time I was tracking the IETF closely, it
>> was behind the curve in approaching some of these issues.
>> Doubtless things are better now, but it seems inevitable that
>> to some degree or another the sorts of problems I raise will
>> absolutely come up if details become public.
>> Absolutely if victims want to come forward and tell their
>> story, they should be able to do so.
>> Demanding or expecting that lacks compassion.
>> 
>> I may sound a bit worked up here.  Debian has been facing
>> similar issues where some names did come forward (at least in
>> private) earlier this year.  Everything you can imagine
>> happened.
>> 
>> Or for another data point take a look at
>> https://crystalhuff.com/2018/10/25/why-im-not-at-arisia-anymor
>> e-my-rapist-is-president-again/ a frank and well written
>> discussion of what happened to one victim who came forward and
>> discussed her rape at the hands of one of the officers of a
>> local science fiction convention.
>> 
>> Thanks for your consideration,-
>> 
>> --Sam
> 
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