Subject: RE: [mpowr] Mailing List Management

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 14:20:28 -0500

The problem with the "filter e-mail" approach is simple:  it 
doesn't work for new people.

How will a new person know who to filter?  Will the new person
give up on a WG before he discovers that everyone in the group
is filtering a certain set of (sometimes) disruptive posters?  
Will new peoples' good ideas get filtered out if they share 
them in response to the wrong person?  

It is important that we have constructive and orderly mailing
lists, especially in an environment where we often say that 
the "real work" is done via e-mail.  We wouldn't tolerate 
clearly disruptive behaviour (threats, personal invective, 
repeated off-topic or out-of-scope comments, etc.) in a 
face-to-face meeting, so why would we be willing to tolerate 
this behaviour on our mailing lists?

Freedom of speech does not give people the right to use our
resources (mail servers, disk space, etc.) to send their
messages.  Our mailing lists exist for the purpose of 
conducting constructive work within the IETF, and we
should be able to revoke the posting privileges (and
_yes_, I do mean "privileges") of people who disrupt our
work.

Margaret

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On 
> Behalf Of ext
> Alex Rousskov
> Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 11:52 AM
> To: Alex Conta
> Cc: MPowr
> Subject: Re: [mpowr] Mailing List Management
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Alex Conta wrote:
> 
> > For instance, nobody forces you to read my message.
> > If my message is disruptive to you, you could have:
> > - ignore it, and further
> > - configure a filter to send my messages on this thread, on this
> >   list, in this WG, etc.... directly to the TRASH folder.
> 
> I had the same thought when reading this thread, but realized that
> installing a filter or otherwise ignoring a message is not a complete
> solution because it violates WG Chair responsibility to gauge
> consensus. If one could ignore or filter only "consensus-unrelated"
> messages, then we would have a perfect solution. Unfortunately,
> ignoring/filtering based on sender or subject line does not guarantee
> that all consensus-related messages will be read.
> 
> However, it looks like filtering is a solution for everybody else (but
> the Chair). Participants do not have to gauge consensus so they can
> ignore whatever they want (and they often do!).
> 
> 
> Let's assume that everybody but the Chair are ignoring what they
> consider disruptive postings. In most cases, this is likely to solve
> the reported problem of disruptive postings blocking technical work.
> The poor Chair will have to listen to the lonely/loony voice(s) of the
> participant(s) being ignored and gauge consensus. In fact, the Chair
> becomes a de facto moderator in this context!
> 
> This approach does not violate free speech. As you know, none of the
> countries guaranteeing free speech was able to guarantee that the
> speech will be heard or have any effect. With the Chair's implied
> obligation to listen, we are actually doing slightly better than most
> countries advertising their free speech laws!
> 
> Can somebody with a real-life disruptive experience comment on this
> solution? Would it help in their specific cases?
> 
> Alex.
> 
> P.S. My understanding is that the Chair is not obligated to
>      respond, only listen (to gauge consensus).
> 
> _______________________________________________
> mpowr mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpowr
> 

_______________________________________________
mpowr mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpowr

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 13:39:15 -0700 (MST)

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 [email-masked] wrote:

> The problem with the "filter e-mail" approach is simple:  it doesn't
> work for new people.

If our task were to eliminate 100% of what the Chair considers
"disruptive" postings to 100% of participants, then you would be
right. Since our task, I think, is to prevent serious disruptions, the
problem you are implying is not a big deal (it does not create serious
disruptions).

> How will a new person know who to filter?

Newbies should read the archives for the last month or so (at least).
They can be advised by old timers as well.

> Will the new person give up on a WG before he discovers that
> everyone in the group is filtering a certain set of (sometimes)
> disruptive posters?

Possibly. Such a person is probably not very interested in a working
group to start with (did not read the archives and got discouraged by
10 e-mails from the same participant).

> Will new peoples' good ideas get filtered out if they share them in
> response to the wrong person?

The Chair will not filter out any ideas and can advise accordingly.
The above can only happen if somebody filters based on subject alone,
(which is their right to do and they get the effect they wanted).

> It is important that we have constructive and orderly mailing lists,
> especially in an environment where we often say that the "real work"
> is done via e-mail.

Agreed.

> We wouldn't tolerate clearly disruptive behaviour (threats, personal
> invective, repeated off-topic or out-of-scope comments, etc.) in a
> face-to-face meeting, so why would we be willing to tolerate this
> behaviour on our mailing lists?

Hm... We wouldn't? I wonder how you would deal with such behavior in a
face-to-face meeting. Call the police?

Since we cannot define what disruptive is, we should be very careful
with making any formal rules with this undefined term. Immediate
suspension does not sound like a "very careful" approach to me.

Furthermore, the filtering suggestion does not tolerate disruptive
behaviour. It makes it invisible to all but the Chair.

> resources (mail servers, disk space, etc.) to send their messages.
> Our mailing lists exist for the purpose of conducting constructive
> work within the IETF, and we should be able to revoke the posting
> privileges (and _yes_, I do mean "privileges") of people who disrupt
> our work.

Yes, but the argument seems to be revolving around _how_ such
"privileges" can be revoked, not whether they can be revoked.

Alex.

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 18:12:38 -0600

OK, this has been fun.

First, Margaret is right, and we don't need more obstacles for new
participants.

Second, the post-everything-and-advise-people-to-filter gives you
archives that look like puke. See your favorite WG mailing list
archives for examples. e2e is about 50% spam, and that's just from not
requiring membership to post.

Third, saying that WG chairs don't have the right to moderate on the
input side, but do have the right to advise filtering on the output
side, is insane. Yes, people can ignore the WG chair advice, but does
anyone really think that advise-to-filter wouldn't be appealed in
exactly the same way as suspension of posting rights? I know that's
what *I* would do, if I felt I'd been filtered unfairly.

Fourth, what is the poor sap AD supposed to do when the filtered
participant appeals a consensus call made while the participant was
filtered? Is the AD supposed to look at the filtered mailing list
(probably the wrong answer), the unfiltered mailing list (which no one
else was looking at), or (best of all) the mailing list through the
ADs *own* filters? They do have them, you know.

Fifth, is this thread really the model discussion for mpowr? We're
talking about list moderation, and for better or worse, we have
decades of experience with list/newsgroup moderation. What if we try
to work on a HARD problem?

Spencer

---

From: Alex Conta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 20:24:20 -0500

[email-masked] wrote:

> [...] 
> clearly disruptive behaviour (threats personal invective, 

I have not experienced a mailing list disturbed by "personal invective" 
postings. Do you have a pointer to one?

Certainly, this type of messages addressed to a certain person
fall into "violating a code of conduct".

I didn't have in mind this type of messages.

However, this type is easy to categorize, and it
is much easier to ignore, or filter.

On the other hand, "off-topic", and "out of scope" is relative.

There is a difference between advertising pills on a TCP list and
messages about "flow control", on a thread discussing
"congestion control" (off-topic).

It would be very useful, if "disruptive" would be very clearly qualified.

Alex

> messages.  
> Our mailing lists exist for the purpose of