Subject: perspective of discussion about I-D.farresnickel-harassment

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:58:41 -0400

Would it be possible for everyone posting about this draft to
consider - for even just a day - that he or she might in fact
be the SUBJECT of the harassment - instead of trying to
figure out how to game the system assuming that he is
an unrepentant respondent.

While the joke goes that "true friends help you bury the body",
I earnestly hope that we aren't trying to figure out how people
can successfully accomplish manslaughter and not have it
raise to the level of murder - nor pretending that the SUBJECT
of the harassment isn't the one wrongfully impacted.

For once, consider that if you don't know anyone who has been
harassed (not necessarily at the IETF) and have not been
harassed - then (a) you PROBABLY aren't listening or asking
the right questions and (b) you aren't the focus of why this needs
to be handled.

If your concern is that you might obliviously misstep and be called
out on it - then yes - you may - and you may actually need to think
about it beforehand or learn from it afterwards.  Welcome to life.

To quote another stereotyped saying:  "Women are afraid of being
physically hurt.  Men are afraid of being embarrassed."  Enough
already!  I'm already embarrassed for you and your lack of perspective.

Regards,
Alia

---

From: Mary Barnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:07:14 -0500

+1

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:11:33 -0500

> about it beforehand or learn from it afterwards.  Welcome to life.

Thanks for saying this, Alia.   I've been feeling a bit frustrated by this conversation too, and not sure how to articulate that.   I think you've hit the nail on the head.   When I think about this topic, I definitely consider myself more likely to unwittingly (I hope!) engage in some kind of bad behavior that would result in censure than being the subject of such bad behavior.   However, I would _much_ rather be taken aside and have that pointed out to me than continue it or "get away" with it.

That is the point of this effort: not to make anybody miserable, but to notice when things are going off the rails and put a stop to it before it really gets bad.   We are quite capable of improving this through successive approximation, whereas I don't think we can get it perfect on the first try.  We can't afford to just keep talking about it forever.

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:24:37 -0400

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Ted Lemon <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Thanks for saying this, Alia.   I've been feeling a bit frustrated by this
> conversation too, and not sure how to articulate that.   I think you've hit
> the nail on the head.   When I think about this topic, I definitely
> consider myself more likely to unwittingly (I hope!) engage in some kind of
> bad behavior that would result in censure than being the subject of such
> bad behavior.   However, I would _much_ rather be taken aside and have that
> pointed out to me than continue it or "get away" with it.
>
> That is the point of this effort: not to make anybody miserable, but to
> notice when things are going off the rails and put a stop to it before it
> really gets bad.   We are quite capable of improving this through
> successive approximation, whereas I don't think we can get it perfect on
> the first try.  We can't afford to just keep talking about it forever.
>
> I agree with Alia as well and will just add exposing the respondent could
expose the subject, an important consideration.

-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 06:25:21 +1300

On 23/03/2015 06:11, Ted Lemon wrote:
> That is the point of this effort: not to make anybody miserable, but to notice when things are going off the rails and put a stop to it before it really gets bad.   

> We are quite capable of improving this through successive approximation, whereas I don't think we can get it perfect on the
first try.  We can't afford to just keep talking about it forever.

Indeed not. A BCP is an RFC, which means we can comment on it and amend it
if the running code has failure modes. I'd suggest one more spin following
the recent comments, which will probably just tune up a few words, one quick
check of those changes by counsel, and ship it.

We do need this done. I was quite shocked to discover that, but there it is,
so let's do it now.

   Brian

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:31:53 -0500

On 3/22/2015 12:24 PM, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:
> and will just add exposing the respondent could expose the subject, an
> important consideration.

I see this point as forcing a single, simplifying model of the Ombud's
authorization:

     If the Ombudteam determines that harassment has taken place, and

     If the Ombudteam further determines that strictures are required and

     If the Ombudteam further determines that such strictures need to
include removal from a Nomcom-selected office and/or removal from
participation in some or all IETF activities,

     Then the Ombudteam shall have the authority to effect such
strictures directly.

     An appeal to a stricture is permitted with the ISOC Board of
Trustees, who shall be bound to the same confidentiality requirements as
the Ombudteam.

In case the above isn't clear enough:  No other appeal path.  No other
approval path.  No other review.

However I think the Ombudteam should be developed out of appointments
from multiple sources, such as IETF Chair, IAB, and ISOC Board, rather
than only from the IETF Chair.

(I'm assuming the ISOC Board will agree to this role, on those terms.)

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:56:16 -0500

Thank you for saying this, Alia.

Jari

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From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 11:32:37 -0800

YES.  Thank you.

---

From: Allison Mankin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 16:14:00 -0400

Another +1 to Alia's excellent message

---

From: "Dan Harkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:53:01 -0700 (PDT)

> the right questions and (b) you aren't the focus of why this needs

  If you haven't realized that non-governmental committees to
deal with harassment in their organizations have been greeted
with quite a few false accusations of late then you PROBABLY
aren't paying attention.

  Furthermore, if you haven't realized that when these committees
dispense justice it sometimes violates due process and opens up
those organizations to great risk then you are the focus of why this
discussion is happening.

> about it beforehand or learn from it afterwards.  Welcome to life.

  It's quite revealing that you would even think that could even be a
legitimate concern.

> already!  I'm already embarrassed for you and your lack of perspective.

  Talk about perspective! You are effectively slandering people who are
expressing legitimate concerns about this process as people who want
to "game the system" to enable harassment. If I was a sensitive soul I
would treat your Shut Up, She Reasoned approach ("I'm already
embarrassed for you") to this thread as an example of bullying. But
I'm not so I'll just tell you that you're gonna have to deal with people.
Welcome to Life.

  Dan.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 15:58:05 -0500

> with quite a few false accusations of late then you PROBABLY

Dan,

I thought I was paying attention, but apparently I wasn't. Thanks for
alerting us to this insidious problem.

Unfortunately a concern for claims that might not prove true has to
include the one you've just made.

So it would help for you to provide some outside substantiation for it.
 A professional study on the problem would help quite a bit.  Anecdotal
media reporting probably won't.

d/

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 16:23:02 -0500

i have not been reading the thread out of mental health protection.
but i read some folk no matter what.

that you needed to say this makes me very sad.

randy

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 17:31:30 -0400

Dan,

> with quite a few false accusations of late then you PROBABLY

I would be interested in seeing that evidence and how those organizations
compare.  However, there is nothing in the Ombudsteam approach that
is assuming the truthfulness of the report; this is a place where
confidentiality is important to protect both the subject and respondent.

Since there are several circumstances where claims of false accusations
or untruthful behavior (say - voter fraud in the US) and no evidence that
I have heard or seen, I do take such concerns with a certain cynicism.

> those organizations to great risk then you are the focus of why this

The current draft has been passed via legal counsel as well as had advice
from those at ISOC who are familiar with HR issues.  One of the obvious
concerns is that we don't create an inappropriate backdoor to short-circuit
the mechanisms that the IETF has to handle things like recalls.  Of course,
there does seem to be quite strong sentiment that allowing the Ombudsteam
to make strong recommendations or even trigger a recall committee if
necessary would be good.  There's a balance here and I'm certainly listening
to the opinions of the community.

Have you been trained in the considerations around this?  I haven't - yet.
Have you assisted in handling harassment cases and hearing what's actually
going on?    I am interested to understand what your expertise and
background
in this space is.

>   It's quite revealing that you would even think that could even be a

I can only speculate on what is driving the concern to protect the
respondent
without ever considering the subject.

There are four possibilities that I see.
a) what if one accidentally messes up and gets in trouble?
b) what if one deliberately harasses, is not able to see or understand that,
    and must be stopped from being in situations where more offenses are
likely?
c) what if one is harassed against, complains, and it destroys ones
reputation?
d) what if one is falsely accused and it destroys ones reputation?

> I'm not so I'll just tell you that you're gonna have to deal with people.

First - I did not pull my gender out and wave it around.  I find it,
frankly,
utterly appalling that you decide that my words have different legitimacy
because
of my gender.  I would, in fact, appreciate an apology on that point.

Second, I did not say you should shut up.  I asked you to consider - for
even
a day - the perspective where you might have been the Subject.

Third, I have school-age children and have educated myself on what bullying
is.
I did not address or respond to one particular person or thread
deliberately.
I am not attacking specific individuals for their characteristics or
continually
telling them to shut up.  I am asking you to think outside of your initial
perspective.
Obviously, you felt that you were one whom I might be embarrassed for.

Dealing with people involves communicating.  Just as I may find a technical
flaw to discuss or a perspective not considered in a protocol (great - but
how
do they turn off this critical security feature on a link if they need to
downgrade
to a release that doesn't support it - for instance) and just as I may need
to help
guide and encourage fruitful technical conversations, here I found the tone
of this discussion sufficient to encourage those participating to try
additional
perspectives.

Regards,
Alia

Welcome to Life.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 16:47:24 -0500

your message is rude and deeply appalling.  but thanks for an excellent
example of the problem.

randy

---

From: "Dan Harkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 14:56:57 -0700 (PDT)

> alerting us to this insidious problem.

  Sarcasm would be a more effective tool for silencing others (i.e. bullying)
if it wasn't so cheap these days.

> media reporting probably won't.

  This is certainly going to derail this thread, and maybe that's what you
hoped for. But you asked so here you go. These have more to do with
rape ("pseudologia phantastica") than harassment so feel free to put
your head back in the sand if you like.

http://www.icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegations.pdf

http://sf-criminaldefense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/KaninFalseRapeAllegations.pdf

There are others. Google works, try it.

  Dan.

---

From: "Dan Harkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 17:20:05 -0700 (PDT)

> your message is rude and deeply appalling.  but thanks for an excellent

  "the problem"? So Randy, are you accusing me of harassment now?
That's just great.

  Dan.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 14:55:55 +1300

I'll probably regret this but...

> http://www.icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegations.pdf

So, cutting to the chase, this single (therefore probably not statistically
reliable) study concludes that
"These results, taken in the context of an examination of
previous research, indicate that the prevalence of false allegations
is between 2% and 10%."

Well, let's assume pessimistically that among 100 allegations that
Area Directors have told an IETF participant that they are stupid and
annoying, 90 allegations are true and 10 are false.

What, exactly, would you change in the draft to deal with this?
What in the draft prevents the Ombudsteam from reaching the conclusion
that an allegation was false?

>From a statistical point of view, that paper is meaningless. As the authors
say "The extraordinary range of these estimates makes a researcher suspect
that inordinate biases are at work."

In any case, a false accusation might itself be considered to be harassment.
What in the draft prevents a false accuser being the Respondent and the accused
being the Subject?

That being so, I don't see your point as relevant to the draft. We should
move on, as Alia said.

   Brian

---

From: Alia Atlas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 00:12:50 -0400

Thank you.  I just had no words to respond.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 07:11:04 -0500

>From the Lisak study:

     "A recently published comprehensive review of studies and reports
on false  rape allegations listed 20 sources whose estimates ranged from
1.5% to 90% (Rumney,  2006). However, when the sources of these
estimates are examined carefully it is clear that only a fraction of the
reports represent credible studies and that these credible studies
indicate far less variability in false reporting rates."

The 'of late' in your text was an interesting stylistic touch, adding a
sense of immediacy and a sense of growth in mis-reporting, neither of
which was supported by the citations you provided.

Adding to Brian's counter to the interpretation you chose for the citations:

   The citations refer to rape, not harassment. They are dramatically
different behaviors and occur in dramatically different contexts.

Attempting to apply statistics about one to the other is grossly
inappropriate methodology.

   The first citation's own study has a number of unfortunate
assumptions, such as:

        "its police agency is not inundated  with serious felony cases
and, therefore,  has the  freedom and the motivation to record and
thoroughly pursue all rape complaints."

The presumption that the agency has motivation, given that it has
freedom, is without basis.

     "investigation  of all rape  complaints always involves a serious
offer  to polygraph the complainants and the suspects."

I wonder how intimidating this 'offer' is likely to be, for a victim,
serving to alter their choice of making an accusation?

The list of biasing factors in that study goes on.  Yet it still
produces a result that 95% of rape claims in that small mid-western town
were valid.  95 fucking percent.

Then, of course there are quite a few counter-citations available from a
simple web search on false felony charges, such as:

     http://web.stanford.edu/group/maan/cgi-bin/?page_id=297

(It is almost interesting that searching for items on false accusations
seems to produce google results only concerning rape and no other pages
or articles on statistics for other kinds of false felony accusations. I
was looking for a baseline, so that a statistic on false rape
accusations could be compared against reports on other kinds of false
felony accusations.  The rate of 1, 5 or 10% might be higher than for
other crimes, or lower.)

Besides the problems with the meager citations you offered -- while
ignoring material against your claim -- all of this, as others have
noted, is secondary to the irrelevance of your original posting, to the
discussion at hand.  The proposed procedure includes assessment of
validity.  (It's handling of that phase of processing could be written
more clearly, but that's a different discussion.)

Equally unfortunate is your responding to criticism by making a direct
and vigorous ad hominem attack.  That's against IETF rules, Dan.

d/

---

From: "Dan Harkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 06:57:12 -0700 (PDT)

Congratulations Dave. Just as I predicted you have successfully
derailed this unfortunate thread. And just as I imagined it was
through denial. But it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

  Dan.

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 10:15:19 -0500

Folks,

I¹m responding in my role of sergeant-at-arms.

I¹ve received complains about the tone of a few messages of this thread.
I¹ve re-read the last few days, and I agree that some messages could be
understood as ³ad hominem².

So please, calm-down and re-read your emails before hitting send, ir order
to avoid me taking further actions and restrict posting rights to anyone.

Thanks !

Regards,
Jordi

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 14:17:22 -0500

Folks,

This is a difficult discussion.

But maybe we should try to get back from the most
recent part of the thread to the document, and see
how we can move forward.

I saw that Sam posted some discussion on the
alternate ways to address the issue that he had
brought up. Thank you.

But other than that, I wanted to up-level a bit and make
some observations.

First, we have an existing anti-harassment policy. We
believe we needed one, and I am happy about having it,
even if I am not happy that we live in a world that needs
one. We have also had an ombudsperson in our meetings.
That person, Linda Klieforth <[email-masked]>, is also
present at this IETF meeting and would be happy to talk to
anyone who has any concerns. I would like to do what we
can to ensure that the IETF is a safe, comfortable, and
easy place to discuss Internet technology. For everybody.

We are working on the current document because we
wanted to upgrade the policy from an IESG statement
to a community BCP and provide more detailed procedures.
This is an improvement. It is not the first IETF document
on the topic, and it probably won’t be the last. I do
believe in incremental improvement, however.

While we work on that improvement, please
remember that when we talk about human 
protocols, how we talk about them may create
perceptions by other people (as you can tell from
this thread), we may not be able to completely
avoid all bad cases, we may need lawyer/professional
input, the team that will eventually be put into place
will have community and professional parts*, etc. Please
be sensitive to these aspects that may be different
from your usual protocol specification experience.

Jari

*) My choice, not dictated by the document.