Subject: [mpowr] Attagirl on draft-wasserman-rfc2418-ml-update-00.txt, and a couple of corner cases...

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 10:09:26 +0900

I thought this draft captured the mailing list thoughts well, and the
capability does matter.

To move it forward, I thought about a few corner cases. I'll try to
separate my questions from my suggested answers, so please make sure
that each question matters before thinking about my answers, OK?

- we had mentioned the possibility that a WG chair suspends someone
for 30 days, and on the 31st day, they return just the way they left
before suspension. If someone was disruptive six months ago, is
suspended for a month, behaves for five months, and then returns to
bad habits (I could easily see this happening during a document last
call), can the working group chair take action as before?

spencer: the draft doesn't include the notion of "memory". My
suggestion is that the second incident is also suspendable, but that a
second suspension from a single working group mailing list is
automatically appealed to IESG (the way US capital punishment cases
are automatically appealed), so that the broader community can rule on
the WG chair's judgement without waiting for a telechat or two to roll
around.

- I thought there was community support for the idea that ADs don't
chair working groups in their own areas, but a number of area
directors are still WG chairs today, and most of the process mailing
lists (MPOWR, ICAR, others?) were initiated by ADs. We also have WGs
like TSVWG where both WG chairs are also TSV ADs. All of these WGs
should be able to protect their own mailing lists, but the "in
consultation with the responsible Area Director" doesn't seem to parse
well, if the goal was to guard against individual capriciousness.

spencer: my suggestion is to allow the AD/WG chairs the same ability
that non-AD WG chairs would have. If we're concerned about abuse, the
potential for abuse, or the perception of abuse, suspensions in these
cases could also be automatically appealed.

- IETF also hosts non-WG mailing lists, for example,
[email-masked]. Can a BoF chair, for instance, do the same thing as
a WG chair?

spencer: my suggestion is to allow BoF chairs the same tools with the
same restrictions. Since the whole point of a BoF is to form a
community, mailing list disruption seems especially DoSish for BoF
mailing lists.

- I'm really confused about what applies to [email-masked], since
there's only one General Area Director.

spencer: I'll ignore this for now.

- it seems implicit that all of the disruptive postings remain in the
mailing list archives unless they are illegal (posting child porn,
etc.). Should this be explicit?

spencer: I would think so.

Again, thank you, Margaret, for moving this forward.

Spencer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Margaret Wasserman" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:26 AM
Subject: [mpowr] Fwd: I-D
ACTION:draft-wasserman-rfc2418-ml-update-00.txt

>
> FYI --
>
> I attempted to capture our mailing list discussions in a (very
> short) draft.  Feedback will be appreciated.
>
> Margaret

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

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 15:00:20 -0800

> there's only one General Area Director.

[email-masked] has its own set of rules - RFC 3005. I think the answer here 
should be approximately the same as for IETF non-WG mailing lists (whatever 
that answer is), but until the draft says that it wants to update RFC 3005, 
I'm happy to leave [email-masked] alone!

                  Harald

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 08:59:11 +0900

Dear Harald,

Ah, thank you for the pointer.

I think I still have a similar question about anything like
http://eikenes.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/solutions, which started
out as "not an official IETF activity" but now seems to be at least a
little bit more official - if it's "intended for general discussion of
IETF process changes to deal with the issues documented by the IETF
"problem" WG", I would think that the General AD would be the likely
person to suspend posting privileges.

And I think someone should be able to suspend posting privileges if
necessary for mailing lists like Solutions.

Does it seem so to you?

Thanks,

Spencer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
To: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 8:00 AM
Subject: Re: [mpowr] Attagirl on
draft-wasserman-rfc2418-ml-update-00.txt, and a couple of corner
cases...

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 20:09:14 -0800

> necessary for mailing lists like Solutions.

Yes - on two counts:

- I'm working on setting up an official list of "IETF-activity mailing 
lists that are not WGs". I believe all of the lists on this list should be 
under "IETF rules".

- On a list that isn't listed there, the list owner is pretty much 
almighty; if he or she chooses to follow IETF procedures, he or she can.

(The last point actually came up during the IEA BOF, which resulted in a 
desire to do experimental work, but NOT in an IETF WG format).

                    Harald