Subject: RE: [mpowr] Mailing List Management

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 12:56:07 -0500

Hi James,

Some comments in-line:

> However, there have been some concerns expressed. Scott 
> Bradner mentioned the potential of a liability problem, 

I do not understand why allowing WG chairs to remove disruptive
people from IETF mailing lists (which would be appealable,
of course) would present a liability problem.  Do we have
a legal basis for thinking that it would?  I have not heard
of any liability suits related to mailing list moderation.

> and Alex Contra mentioned the problem of chair abuse. 

I would expect the chair to get a second-opinion from the
AD before revoking an individual's posting privileges.  In
fact, my draft requires AD approval.  If both the chair 
and AD are being unreasonable, the person can appeal 
to the full IESG.

The rest of your proposal would seem to add considerably
more overhead to this process, and I'm not sure what
the benefits would be.

I wouldn't mind if the IETF had a mailing list "code of
conduct".  We could send it to lists periodically, like
the "note well" notices.  If sending to the lists 
periodically is sufficient for that, it should
work for this, without a more sophisticated sign-up
mechanism.

In general, I would not like our BCPs to contain the level
of detail that you've included in your note (3 private
warnings, etc.).  Although I think that this would be a
reasonable approach for most situations, I'd prefer to leave 
the details to the chair and AD.  There are possible situations 
(obvious and/or offensive spam, posting non-English mail,
threats, serious verbal abuse) where I think it would be 
appropriate for a WG chair to revoke someone's posting 
privileges for 30 days without three prior warnings.

Margaret

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https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpowr

---

From: Alex Rousskov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:28:12 -0700 (MST)

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 [email-masked] wrote:

> The rest of your proposal would seem to add considerably more
> overhead to this process, and I'm not sure what the benefits would
> be.

Here are a few benefits:

	- all participants are more aware of the rules

	- a formal warning to those who do not know the law or
	  misinterpret the law/context is given before
	  the punishment is administered

	- a clearly documented procedure makes suspension easier

	- a clearly documented procedure makes suspension easier
	  to appeal when the safeguards were ignored

> In general, I would not like our BCPs to contain the level of detail
> that you've included in your note (3 private warnings, etc.).
> Although I think that this would be a reasonable approach for most
> situations, I'd prefer to leave the details to the chair and AD.

Reminds me of a typical site usage or privacy policy that says "we can
change the rules of the game at any time, and without notice, and you
are supposed to know the new rules immediately after the change".

Punishment levels should not be hard-coded, but the procedure to avoid
the punishment (warnings and such) should be hard-coded so that
chair's, AD's, victim's, and WG's expectations match as close as
possible.

> There are possible situations (obvious and/or offensive spam,
> posting non-English mail, threats, serious verbal abuse) where I
> think it would be appropriate for a WG chair to revoke someone's
> posting privileges for 30 days without three prior warnings.

A newbie subscribes to the mailing list, posts something like "I
believe there is a serious problem with your latest protocol draft,
but I cannot explain it well enough in English, so here is a French
description, FWIW". The guy gets his ``privileges'' revoked for 30
days without warnings and never bothers the WG or the IETF again.
Accidently, the Chair was the only WG participant who knew French, but
did not share the guy's technical opinion.

Three warnings may be an overkill, but a clearly marked _last_ warning
must always be present if you want to formalize the procedure.

Alex.