[mpowr] Mailing List Management

Margaret's draft proposes letting WG chairs manage mailing list membership,
rather than requiring the IESG to do it as is currently the case. From my
experience as a WG chair, I can say that there is nothing as effective in
derailing a WG as a disruptive mailing list participant, and once such a
disruption occurs, it is often difficult to get any good technical work out
of the WG because the really good technical people simply leave. I've also
been told by other WG chairs who have tried that the IESG is extremely
reluctant to remove someone from a mailing list, even if the evidence of
disruption is quite apparent. I suspect that is why this proposal was a
crowd pleaser when brought up at the plenary in Minneapolis.

However, there have been some concerns expressed. Scott Bradner mentioned
the potential of a liability problem, and Alex Contra mentioned the problem
of chair abuse. The latter would presumably be when a chair designates as
"disruptive" someone who is honestly but persistently expressing an opinion
on technical matters that is contrary to what the chair believes should be
part of the WG's documents. Clearly, there's a boundary here between
disruption and honest disagreement, but the boundary is not always clear.

Suppose that in order to join an IETF WG mailing list, a person would have
to agree to a mailing list "Code of Conduct" by clicking through a page that
describes it. The "Code of Conduct" could be checked by lawyers to make sure
it can be defensible legally, as would the signup procedure. And it would
mean that the mailing list would need to be hosted somewhere that could
support a more elaborate signup procedure than today. Then, when a WG chair
believes that a participant is being disruptive, (s)he would send three
email messages privately to the particpant, cc'ing the AD, with specific
evidence, in the form of emails, posting statistics (for people who are
spamming the list), etc., requesting the participant to cease. If the three
email messages don't work, the WG chair would then discuss the matter with
the AD and, with the AD's approval (sent as an email message to the WG
chair), the chair would send email to the participant that his/her posting
privileges were being revoked for a three month period. The participant
could appeal to the IESG if (s)he felt that (s)he was being treated
unfairly.

Comments?

            jak

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