Subject: Fwd: [apps-discuss] Last Call conduct redux (Was: Last Call: <draft-ietf-appsawg-nullmx-05.txt> (A NULL MX Resource Record for Domains that Accept No Mail) to Proposed Standard)

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 13:16:19 -0400

FYI - the “main” IETF list has had some… interesting back and forth recently. Pete’s points might also be useful to note here.

Cheers,

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
> Subject: [apps-discuss] Last Call conduct redux (Was: Last Call: <draft-ietf-appsawg-nullmx-05.txt> (A NULL MX Resource Record for Domains that Accept No Mail) to Proposed Standard)
> Date: 22 July 2014 9:27:43 am EDT
> To: IETF-Discussion list <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked], Apps Discuss <[email-masked]>
> Archived-At: http://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/AwX_szzPHHMfWnitpjEy1G5pmvM
> 
> This message is admittedly 4 days too late. In my opinion, we area directors got caught out not paying attention and did not act to address problematic behavior on this list in a reasonable amount of time, and haven't been doing so for some time. The IESG is taking this ongoing behavior seriously, and you'll see some discussion in the next few days about how we intend to address it. But this particular thread had some serious misbehavior, that behavior came from senior members of the community, and it needs to be called out in particular.[1]
> 
> Of course we need to learn to focus our review comments and discussions at Last Call, we need to make concrete and constructive suggestions for changes (preferably supplying text), and when we respond to reviews we should filter superfluous commentary and solicit specific recommendations where they were missing. But this is general advice and not an issue of the kind of misconduct I'm referring to. The problem in this thread came when, instead of constructively responding to the initial posting and simply filtering out non-constructive comments, the responses and continuing conversation served to *raise* the temperature instead of lowering it. Engaging in sarcasm, belittling of comments, baiting rhetorical questions, and aggressive (whether directly or passive-aggressive) commentary drives some folks away from the discussion (or participation in general), causes other folks to think that it's acceptable behavior, and causes further discussion to degrade.
> 
> Luckily this thread seems to have converged, and I think it would be terribly unproductive to argue about the merits and demerits of this particular thread on this list, but this kind of behavior needs to stop. That requires everyone to commit to trying harder to engage civilly, and to not tolerate misbehavior. That doesn't mean that you should take it upon yourself to police and control other people's behavior; that only serves to compound the problem. But if discussions are not being appropriately moderated, you should bring that to the attention of the ADs; we are committing to making sure that things improve.
> 
> pr
> 
> [1] You may react to this by saying, "There has been far worse behavior on this list in recent years. Why pick on this particular thread?" The answer is, we have to start somewhere, and it happens that several people, including some of the participants in this thread, made specific complaints about his particular case.
> 
> -- 
> Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
> Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478
> 
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--
Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/