Re: Managing the chat room

[Kathleen Moriarty <[e-mail]>]

Sent from my mobile device

> On Jul 22, 2026, at 2:55 PM, Pete Resnick <resnick=[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> 
> I missed wgchairs lunch today. I noticed in the chat room that Adrian wrote:
> 
> What dyall think about snark in the chats during WG meetings? The odd joke, maybe. Persistent pissy negativity, not so good. I have just witnessed newcomers going, "What? Really?" and the tone overflowing onto the mailing list.
> 
> I don't think chairs can moitor the chat in real time while chairing. Do we need "jabber scribes" tto monitor and dampen? Do we need alternate venues for snark?
> 
> Remember during the modpod discussion, there was reference to section 6.4 of 2418:
> 
> 6.4. WG Facilitator
> 
>    When meetings tend to become distracted or divisive, it often is
>    helpful to assign the task of "process management" to one
>    participant.  Their job is to oversee the nature, rather than the
>    content, of participant interactions.  That is, they attend to the
>    style of the discussion and to the schedule of the agenda, rather
>    than making direct technical contributions themselves.
> In 9945 section 3, it says:
> 
>       For a working group, chairs are by default the administrators.
>       They may delegate this responsibility in the same vein as
>       Section 6.4 of [RFC2418], but they must always accept,
>       acknowledge, and keep track of complaints of disruptive behavior.
>       Forum administrators should perform moderation in a way that
>       obviates the need for moderator team involvement.
> (And note that "forum" is defined broadly in 9945.)
> 
> I think it's well within spec for chairs to assign (and announce to the WG) a "facilitator" for the Zulip/Meetecho chat during the meeting if they are unable to monitor and moderate it themselves. That person would be empowered to say, "Enough of the snark; tone it down." Hopefully that would be sufficient and we wouldn't need to figure out how to get Zulip/Meetecho to mute users in the chat.
> 
> (FWIW: I think the snark is obnoxious, and it strikes me as self-absorbed behavior by people who need to show off in front of their friends how above-it-all they are. And yes, I have certainly been guilty of doing so myself in the past and I'm sorry I did. People will give presentations, particularly in BoFs, where they do not have the background or experience to understand the implications of their proposals. Being frank and straightforward with criticisms is reasonable. The snark is just childish bullshit that really needs to stop.)
> 

Is there a control to prevent use of alternate pseudonyms? The use of them seems to lead to worse behavior.

Thank you!
Kathleen 
> pr
> 
> --
> Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
> All connections to the world are tenuous at best