Subject: Last call and status of draft-farrresnickel-harassment

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 12:55:56 +0200

Folks,

The IESG has noted the recent discussions on this document. It is my intent as the sponsoring AD to let the discussion continue so that we can reach a reasonable conclusion, ask the authors to submit a new revision, and then perform a brief new last call around those changes to ensure that we didn’t miss anything. 

Jari

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 12:48:04 -0400

>The IESG has noted the recent discussions on this document. It is my intent as the sponsoring AD to let the discussion continue so that we can reach a reasonable conclusion, ask the authors to submi…

Hi Jari - 

Thanks to Ray's note, I'm a bit more sanguine about the legal aspects of this process.  Which finally led me to consider why I was still feeling unease.   Basically, I'm still thinking there are issues with allowing one member of the IETF (the ombudsman) to dictate to another with respect to their behavior within the IETF up to and including exclusion.  There are probably issues as well with situations where the "offender" is a member of the same organization as the ombudsman or a member of a direct competitor for that matter.

Then there's the issue that the ombudsmen winnowed from the IETF would be amateurs.

So instead - let's not do it that way.  Instead, let's out source it and hire professionals.

The Ombudsmen shall be human resources management qualified employees of the IETF Secretariat or the ISOC board of trustees or collectively a third party human resource management or arbitration organization contracted for by the IETF Secretariat or ISOC board of trustees to fulfill the role of Ombudsmen.  The IETF chair, IESG and IAB shall have no input into the selection or retention of the specific Ombudsmen but may be involved in the selection of the contract organization.

If there really is a problem then we should be funding the solution, not playing at HR.  The IETF members skills are in (or should be in) technology, not human resource problem resolution and the thought of appointing any of them (including - specifically - myself) as ombudsmen with real power fills me with dread.   

I would probably go with contracting for human resource services over direct employees as I don't expect our needs to be that great.

Later, Mike

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 14:05:39 -0400

--On Friday, March 13, 2015 12:55 +0200 Jari Arkko
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> The IESG has noted the recent discussions on this document. It
> is my intent as the sponsoring AD to let the discussion
> continue so that we can reach a reasonable conclusion, ask the
> authors to submit a new revision, and then perform a brief new
> last call around those changes to ensure that we didn't miss
> anything. 

Jari,

I agree with others that the intentions behind this draft are
worthwhile and probably overdue.  I also share many of the
concerns that have been expressed about details and remedies,
but am comfortable enough with the way those concerns have been
expressed by others to not feel a need to repeat them.

However, the responses by a few IESG members to comments about
the IESG's exempting itself (and other parts of the leadership
[1]) from the provisions seems to call for additional comment
and probably a few more issues for the list of topics needing
addressing.

(1) Having the IESG act as judge / approval body for proposed
procedural changes that would have impact on the IESG is not the
best possible idea.  In addition to bad optics, it is inevitable
that people who are comfortable sitting on the IESG are less
sensitive to issues involving requirements for organizational
support, time commitments, meeting attendance, etc., than people
who have been prevented from volunteering and serving by those
same conditions.  Similarly, IESG members who know how the
system works and how to keep it working more or less smoothly
are likely to be more resistant to changes that would affect
those things than members of the community who are affected
negatively by existing arrangements.  Several proposals (ones
that got to the I-D stage and a few with WG development and
backing, not merely comments on mailing lists) to make changes
along those lines have gotten nowhere, apparently because the
IESG has been unwilling to consider them even to the point of
allowing a Last Call.   When the IESG says "we (and others we
designate as 'in a management position') are the one set of
people in the IETF who are exempt from a major portion of the
anti-harassment procedures", there is a very unfortunate
perception of the same type of abuse of power to protect the
incumbents and those like them.

The observation that the IETF (and IESG) Chair appoints the
Ombudsteam membership at his or her personal discretion and can
remove members without explanation (unless an action against the
Chair is already pending) just aggravates the problem by
creating a significant risk that only those people will be
appointed who are IESG-friendly.   I trust your discretion and
intelligence in such matters, but it is hard to predict the
behavior of your successors and, again, the optics are bad.
I'm not persuaded that it is a good solution for this case, but
this is the sort of issue that led the community to put key
parts of the Nomcom and Recall team appointment processes in the
hands of the ISOC President.

Even if exempting the IESG (or others in "IETF management
position(s)") were a good idea (I am not convinced, in part for
the reasons below, that it is) it may be that this proposal
demonstrates that the IESG should not be the review and approval
body for process change proposals and that the question of
approval mechanisms needs to be addressed first.

(2) To the extent to which the reasoning is that the recall
procedure (i.e., "existing mechanisms within IETF process for
the removal of people..." [2]) should be used instead, we need
to recognize that, unless we believe that there has never been
someone in a recall-able position whose behavior justified the
intense community review that only a recall can provide, we
don't have an effective recall procedure.  This is particularly
problematic for harassment issues involving newcomers or remote
attendees -- neither is likely to be eligible to initiate a
recall process under current rules and they are less likely than
long-term regular participants to be able to round up 20
Nomcom-eligible people to sign petitions.   The recall process
model is also extremely long in terms of calendar time, a
condition that is inappropriate if harassment is a serious
problem.   In addition, the recall signature process does not
contain any anti-retaliation provisions equivalent to those in
this document.  Since we have never seen a recall progress
beyond preliminary efforts to gather signatures, there may be
other issues that practice would expose.  If the intent is to
rely on recall procedures rather than allowing the Ombudsteam to
take direct action against a member of the leadership, then, _at
least_, this document should modify the recall procedure to
allow the Ombudsteam to initiate the recall review directly,
bypassing the petition process and its restrictions.

(3) The definition of "IETF Participant" in the document clearly
includes individuals whose participation does not involve
regular attendance at f2f meetings.  Prior discussions on the
IETF List suggest that group is demographically different from
the norm for regular attendees, more likely to actually be
individuals rather than organizationally supported, and so on.
That does not make them exempt from harassment.  Those
differences strongly suggest that there should at least be an
opportunity for someone with the experience of that population
to be on the Ombudsteam and perhaps even a requirement for such
a member.  That would obviously be inconsistent with the current
requirement that "Each member... is expected to be present at
the majority of IETF meetings and to be available for
face-to-face discussions" so, if the community agrees that kind
of representation is appropriate, some tuning is needed.

best,
     john

[1] This is a nit relative to the more general issues above (and
it may have been spotted in a message I missed), but I am
unclear what "a IETF management position" actually is.   IESG
members clearly qualify.  IAOC members may or may not be -- they
are generally recall-eligible (although some are not), but what
they manage is not the IETF.   IAB members are not generally
thought of as having IETF management responsibility, even the
IAB Chair in his or her IESG capacity.  One can argue either way
about the Secretariat, the IAD, and the RFC Series Editor, none
of whom are subject to recall.   Whatever the document intends,
it needs to be significantly more clear than "IETF management
position".  It also appears to me that, even if one completely
accepts the current model, no one for whom there are no
"existing mechanisms within IETF process" should be exempt from
any action the Ombudsteam might otherwise choose to take.

[2] Of course, the other "existing mechanism" is to wait for the
next Nomcom or other process that appoints the relevant position
and then complain.  If we believe harassment to be an important
issue that needs to be dealt with in a timely fashion, that is
not an appropriate mechanism.

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 20:33:58 +0000

John,

> and probably a few more issues for the list of topics needing

I don't believe the above matches what the document says at all.

The IESG didn't "exempt" itself from anything - the ombudsteam
can very clearly exclude an AD from one or more meetings, just
as with any IETF participant. (If that is not clear, it needs
to be, but I think it is.)

S.

---

From: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 21:16:45 -0500

> to be, but I think it is.)

I agree with Stephen that this is what we _meant_.

If it's not what the document says, please tell us, because (as Stephen 
says) this needs to be clear.

Spencer

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 04:10:31 -0400

--On Friday, March 13, 2015 21:16 -0500 Spencer Dawkins
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>>> However, the responses by a few IESG members to comments
>>> about the IESG's exempting itself (and other parts of the
>>> leadership [1]) from the provisions seems to call for
>>> additional comment and probably a few more issues for the
>>> list of topics needing addressing.
> If it's not what the document says, please tell us, because
> (as Stephen says) this needs to be clear.

It is not what the document says.  The document says 

	"(The Ombudsteam can not impose that a Respondent who is
	in a IETF management position be removed from that
	position.  There are existing mechanisms within IETF
	process for the removal of people from IETF management
	positions that may be used as necessary.)"

That seems fairly clear to me although I should have been more
clear about "the provisions" from which the IESG exempted
itself.  Given a document written written by two IESG members
and extensively massaged by the IESG, it is hard to read it in
any other way than "the IESG has exempted itself...".   If the
IESG sees itself as a team, which I hope it always will, the
ability of the IESG Chair (sic) to remove an Ombudsperson
without cause or explanation just adds to that perception.

That statement also raises the "management position" issue on
which Brian and I have commented.  And the only "existing
mechanisms" I know of amount to either recall (difficult,
inappropriate, or useless for reasons I explained in that note
plus the confidentiality problem Brian raised in his.

Moving away from hair-splitting and to the bottom line... 

Because of the power and explicit and discretionary authority
the community gives them, I think it is appropriate and probably
necessary to hold ADs --and expect them to hold themselves-- to
a higher standards than random IETF participants.  Consequently,
if the Ombudsteam has a discussion about a harassment claim with
an AD and the issue cannot be explained by the AD to the
Ombudsteam's satisfaction, I'd expect the AD to either correct
the behavior forthwith or resign.   If neither option is taken,
if the community is really serious about eliminating harassment,
I think the community wants the AD out of there and, for
effective operation of the IESG, replaced quickly.  Put
differently, having such an AD linger on for many months (see
Note 1), doing whatever he or she was doing with (as Brian has
pointed out) full community knowledge of what is going on, is
not in the best interest of the IETF.

I'm also completely unpersuaded by "well, the AD can be excluded
from meetings and/or a mailing list".  Sorry, but the community
simply doesn't need ADs who are forced to function without the
full range of tools available to them.  Any AD who is unable or
unwilling to cease or correct harassing behavior after the
various interventions called for by the document _and_ unwilling
to resign should probably be removed for bad judgment and
insensitivity to the needs of WGs and document processing in the
community... and that should not require a 5 - 0 month (minimum)
recall process.

I don't know whether to describe reliance on conventional recall
for these sorts of situations is "ineffective" or an indication
that harassment by "management" is not taken seriously.

Mumble.
     john

Note 1:  For the source of my "many month" and "5-6 month
(minimum) assertions, consider the following steps to form a
plausible estimate of how long the recall process takes:

 * 20 signatures must be collected (see my earlier note
	about that one)
 * Secretariat confirms the signatures and makes a public
	announcement
 * ISOC President appoints Chair (I assume no one is on
	standby and that, while it is not prohibited by RFC 7347
	or elsewhere, extensive consultation with IESG and/or
	IAH members about who should be chosen when there has
	already been a public announcement that a petition has
	been filed against one of their members would be
	unseemly, so getting this done, and done well, in a
	couple of weeks would be really fast).
 * A recall committee is created using the same rules as
	the Nomcom (See Section 7.3 of RFC 7437).  That is,
	among other things, up to three months to select and
	organize that committee (Section 4.1 of 7437).
 * Then the committee needs to investigate and reach a
	decision, which presumably involves some effort,
	interviews, calls, etc.  From a scheduling standpoint,
	one hopes that does not involve waiting until f2f
	interviews can be help at an IETF meeting, but nothing
	in 7437 seems to prohibit that.
 * If the person is removed, the normal vacancy-filling
	process applies.

My crude guess is that, if the normal recall procedure is used,
it takes a absolute minimum of five months from the point that
someone decides a petition is appropriate to actually remove
someone... and that is after complaint/ reporting, Ombudsteam
investigation and discussion, attempts to get the behavior
corrected, time to see if those attempts were effective, etc.  I
think that adds up to a very large fraction of a year, even
without counting time to pick a replacement.  It has got to be a
major portion of the reason why the recall process has never
been used.

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 19:20:42 -0400

>>>>> "John" == John C Klensin <[email-masked]> writes:

    John> That statement also raises the "management position" issue on
    John> which Brian and I have commented.  And the only "existing
    John> mechanisms" I know of amount to either recall (difficult,
    John> inappropriate, or useless for reasons I explained in that note
    John> plus the confidentiality problem Brian raised in his.

    John> Moving away from hair-splitting and to the bottom line...

    John> Because of the power and explicit and discretionary authority
    John> the community gives them, I think it is appropriate and
    John> probably necessary to hold ADs --and expect them to hold
    John> themselves-- to a higher standards than random IETF
    John> participants.  Consequently, if the Ombudsteam has a
    John> discussion about a harassment claim with an AD and the issue
    John> cannot be explained by the AD to the Ombudsteam's
    John> satisfaction, I'd expect the AD to either correct the behavior
    John> forthwith or resign.  If neither option is taken, if the
    John> community is really serious about eliminating harassment, I
    John> think the community wants the AD out of there and, for
    John> effective operation of the IESG, replaced quickly.  Put
    John> differently, having such an AD linger on for many months (see
    John> Note 1), doing whatever he or she was doing with (as Brian has
    John> pointed out) full community knowledge of what is going on, is
    John> not in the best interest of the IETF.

    John> I'm also completely unpersuaded by "well, the AD can be
    John> excluded from meetings and/or a mailing list".  Sorry, but the
    John> community simply doesn't need ADs who are forced to function
    John> without the full range of tools available to them.  Any AD who
    John> is unable or unwilling to cease or correct harassing behavior
    John> after the various interventions called for by the document
    John> _and_ unwilling to resign should probably be removed for bad
    John> judgment and insensitivity to the needs of WGs and document
    John> processing in the community... and that should not require a 5
    John> - 0 month (minimum) recall process.

I am in complete agreement with John's statement above.

In the interest of expedience I'm willing to settle for excluding nomcom
appointees  from meetings and mailing lists in this document and working
on figuring out the details behind removals in the near future.

However I do not believe the recall process is appropriate at all for
harassment and do not believe excluding people from meetings and mailing
lists is the right approach for removal long-term.  Excluding people
from meetings or mailing lists may well be the right approach for
harassing behavior in meetings or mailing lists.

---

From: Spencer Dawkins at IETF <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2015 07:48:06 -0500

Speaking only for me ...
> without cause or explanation just adds to that perception.

Ok, that's fair. Thanks for the insight.

What I was worried about, was the alternative that it takes an entire
Nomcom plus community input plus a confirming body to put someone in a
Nomcom-reviewed position, but only an Ombudsteam to take someone out of
that position.

For extra credit, for better or worse, it's pretty difficult to "pack" a
Nomcom's voting membership.

For extra, extra credit, we have years of experience with Nomcoms, and we
don't have that experience with an Ombudsteam.

So, speaking only for me, what I thought the final version of that text was
doing, was protecting the community, not protecting the IESG.

I get that others might see that differently.

Spencer