Subject: IETF Last Call under RFC 3683 concerning JFC (Jefsey) Morfin

From: "Scott Hollenbeck" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 07:34:41 -0500

The IESG has received a request from Harald Alvestrand to approve an RFC
3683 PR-action  ("posting rights" action) for JFC (Jefsey) Morfin as a
result of a pattern of prior warning and posting rights suspensions for
off-topic postings to the LTRU working group and ietf-languages mailing
lists that have not produced a change in behavior.  This behavior has been
characterized as a "denial-of-service" attack to disrupt the
consensus-driven process as described in Section 1 of RFC 3683.  A timeline
of warnings and posting rights suspensions related to this request is
included below.

The IESG will consider this request.  If approved, the PR-action described
in Section 2 of RFC 3683 includes provisions to allow list administrators to
suspend Mr. Morfin's posting rights to the LTRU working group and
ietf-languages mailing list for at least one year.  Maintainers of other
IETF mailing lists may also remove posting rights to their mailing lists at
their discretion.

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits final
comments on this action.  Please send any comments to the [email-masked] or
[email-masked] mailing lists by 17 February 2006.

For the IESG,
Scott Hollenbeck
Applications Area Director
--------------------------

Private warnings sent for LTRU working group mailing list postings:
7 July 2005
16 July 2005
23 September 2005
26 October 2005

Public warnings and suspensions for LTRU working group and ietf-languages
mailing list postings:

17 March 2005 (ietf-languages warning)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-March/003236.html

5 April 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg00564.html

12 May 2005 (LTRU suspension)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg01737.html

26 May 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg01897.html
(Used as basis for 4 July suspension.)

15 June 2005 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-June/003474.html

4 July 2005 (LTRU suspension)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg02532.html
(Appealed to AD, appeal upheld, new warning given.)

5 July 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg02548.html

15 September 2005 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-September/003585.html

26 September 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03755.html

7 October 2005
PR-Action request sent to IESG
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg38183.html

15 October 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03941.html

8 November 2005 (LTRU suspension)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg04032.html
(Appealed to AD, appeal denied by AD.)

20 November 2005 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-November/003811.html
(Appealed to AD/IESG, appeal denied by IESG, appealed to the IAB.)

13 January 2006 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2006-January/003854.html

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

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:03:56 -0500

Hi.

I agree that Jefsey's participation in LTRU and the ietf-languages
lists has been problematic.

Even by his own admission Jefsey has been engaging in filibustering--a
practice that I think we would agree is disruptive.  Take a look at
his most recent appeal to the IESG
(http://www.ietf.org/IESG/APPEALS/jefsey-morfin-appeal.txt ); quoting
from that appeal:

This is why I chose to give the necessary time to common
sense to prevail, in exposing their mistakes in a way they could
forced to correct some of them. The democratic method for that is
work and filibustering. Filibustering is not pleasant. But it
permitted to obtain what users' protection demanded:

As such, I agree that we need to adopt a strategy that prevents Jefsey
from disrupting our processes excessively.

However a PR action is an incredibly huge hammer.  If passed, it
removes any process barrier to shutting Jefsey out of any IETF
process.  While this PR action is specifically targeted at the
ietf-languages list it would give the person running any IETF list the
ability to unilaterally remove Jefsey from that list.

Perhaps this is an appropriate measure to take when all of a person's
participation are destructive and they have nothing to offer.

That's not true for Jefsey.  Jefsy has made significant positive
contributions to the IETF list.  He has worked to describe the
perceptions that the IETF, IANA, ICAN, and related entities are
creating a US-centric Internet.  He has described concerns of global
users and how our protocols, including IDN, may not meet user
requirements.  These concerns are real and parts of them have been
worked on by long-standing members of the community.  Take a look at
RFC 4185 for an example of a concern that Jefsey shares that members
of this organization have spent time working on.  I personally have
found Jefsey's formulations of these concerns enlightening; I think he
has significantly helped me understand how the IETF might be perceived
and what some user concerns with our protocol might be.

I've also found some of his security comments and some of his comments
on IETF process issues useful.

So, I think it would be inappropriate to apply this hammer in this
case.  Instead, I propose that we find a tool appropriate for the
problem: a way of limiting Jefsey's ability to block progress in areas
where he is clearly blocking our work but not preventing him from
participating in the IETF.

I'd first ask why repeated 30-day suspensions are ineffective.  Harald
seems to be getting fairly efficient at suspending Jefsey on
ietf-languages.  I believe he's been suspended on LTRU before.  Is
Jefsey actually doing much damage there with all these suspensions?

If so, why not give Harald and the LTRU chairs the ability to suspend
Jefsey for longer?  That might involve a new BCP (or a process
experiment), but if we determine the existing tools are inadequate
then that seems like a reasonable option.  How would a six month
suspension be insufficient?  Do we really need an unlimited suspension
to get work done?

Finally, if we somehow all convince ourselves that asking chairs to
revisit suspending Jefsey every six months is unacceptable then what
about creating way to suspend Jefsey from langtags related issues but
not other IETF lists?  

Sure, Jefsey is annoying on the ietf list, but is he really so much
worse than me ranting about fairness and openness, Keith ranting about
architecture or Dave Crocker ranting about timely standards
development that we cannot have a place for him?  Speaking as an
individual, if I had to pick conversations to have un-had on the IETF
list, there are ones higher on my list than Jefsey.

Thanks for your consideration,

--Sam

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 22:25:43 -0500

--On Thursday, 19 January, 2006 20:03 -0500 Sam Hartman
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>... 
> Even by his own admission Jefsey has been engaging in
> filibustering--a practice that I think we would agree is
> disruptive.  Take a look at his most recent appeal to the IESG
> (http://www.ietf.org/IESG/APPEALS/jefsey-morfin-appeal.txt );
> quoting from that appeal:
>... 
> As such, I agree that we need to adopt a strategy that
> prevents Jefsey from disrupting our processes excessively.
> 
> However a PR action is an incredibly huge hammer.  If passed,
> it removes any process barrier to shutting Jefsey out of any
> IETF process.  While this PR action is specifically targeted
> at the ietf-languages list it would give the person running
> any IETF list the ability to unilaterally remove Jefsey from
> that list. 
> 
> Perhaps this is an appropriate measure to take when all of a
> person's participation are destructive and they have nothing
> to offer.
> 
> That's not true for Jefsey.  Jefsy has made significant
> positive contributions to the IETF list.  He has worked to
> describe the perceptions that the IETF, IANA, ICAN, and
> related entities are creating a US-centric Internet.  He has
> described concerns of global users and how our protocols,
> including IDN, may not meet user requirements.  These concerns
> are real and parts of them have been worked on by
> long-standing members of the community.  Take a look at RFC
> 4185 for an example of a concern that Jefsey shares that
> members of this organization have spent time working on.  I
> personally have found Jefsey's formulations of these concerns
> enlightening; I think he has significantly helped me
> understand how the IETF might be perceived and what some user
> concerns with our protocol might be.
>...

I have to reluctantly agree with Sam.  I'm reluctant because
there are far too many days when I wish Jefsey would just
quietly go away Of course, he is not the only person I'd put on
that list, and I imagine I'm on some similar lists kept by
others, but that is exactly the point and the problem.

I have many wishes about Jefsey and his behavior.  I often wish
he would change his tone.  I wish he would spend a little more
time trying to understand some of the protocols and operational
and procedural realities (such as the present decision-making
role of the IAB relative to IETF activities, the procedural
relationship of the DNS to other directory services, and so on)
before making loud and repeated assertions about them.  And,
when he is told to take particular topics elsewhere, I wish he
would heed that advice.

That said, when he appears to be deliberately filibustering, or
otherwise repeating the same comments over and over again, I see
that as more than adequate justification for enforced time-outs
from the relevant lists.  But I'm not convinced that any of this
is evidence of the type of deliberately offensive or abusive
behavior, name-calling, or attempts to create disruption for its
own sake that, in my view, would justify a blanket 3683 action.  

For whatever it is worth, I want to remind the IESG that, before
there was RFC 3683, there was a notion, not only of 30 day
suspensions, but of exponential (or other rapidly increasing
series) back-off.  If someone is being severely disruptive on a
particular list, it would seem reasonable to me for the relevant
AD to authorize a 60 day suspension if a 30 day one is
ineffective, a 120 day suspension if that is ineffective, and so
on.  The nature of that arithmetic is such that someone could,
with  sufficient repeated disruptive behavior, find themselves
rather effectively banned for the effective duration of a WG.
If the IESG believes that a formal RFC3933 experiment is needed
to do that, then let's write down and run that experiment.
But, until we have tried the above --and any other plausible
actions we can think of-- let's save the 3683 actions for those
whose behavior is more clearly inappropriate and
non-constructive than Jefsey's.

    john

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:17:08 +0100

> Jefsey actually doing much damage there with all these suspensions?

At the moment, the pattern on ietf-languages is that:

- Jefsey posts one of his offtopic political harangues
- About five different people complain privately to me
- I suspend Jefsey's posting privilleges for a month
- About five people send thank-you notes, and wonder whether the IESG will 
get off its butt and allow him to be suspended permanently, usually 
accompanied with ruminations about whether it makes any sense to 
participate in an organization that is so completely ineffective in 
handling disruptive persons
- A month passes in which the list is relatively calm
- I remove Jefsey's suspension
- The pattern repeats

This is a waste of time, resources and the goodwill of the people who 
contribute constructively.

> creating a US-centric Internet.

Permit me to disagree. And to rant for a little while (those who are tired 
of the subject can hit "delete" now)....

The "contributions" that Jefsey has been making in this regard have, to me, 
had a few common properties:

- The kernels of truth in his ramblings have been so blindingly obvious 
that they are not news to anyone who's spent any significant time in the 
political spaces tht he's talking about
- The biases, perceptions and sheer follies that he proclaims have been 
sufficiently far off-mark that I as an European non-native English speaker 
find it incredibly painful to even consider engaging in debates about 
whether he has a point or not.

The result is not that more points get made, and wider perspectives are 
had. The result is that *fewer* people contribute constructively to the 
debate, and the IETF gets *less* information about the perceptions that the 
rest of the world has on the matters about which Jefsey speaks.

For a recent example, see his "agreement" with me on the geopriv location 
registry:

> We fully agree on this. But I see you are fighting here the same
> difficulty I fight against you for languages. They propose words in their
> language context as you propose languages tags in your internationalised
> context. They do the same layer violation as you do. The only solution to
> this is to conceptualise and to universalise the concept. ISO 11179. You
> define a concept, give it a unique ID (building a referent) and as many
> names as you need which name the concept, not its version in a given
> context. However I agree JTC1/SG32/W2 has not yet addressed the
> multilingual and the networked aspects. But IETF have clumsily approached
> it with IDNA and very well with the DNS.

There's a point here - that you need conceptual separation between "the 
identity of the thing you name" and "the name that you give to the thing".
But many people who work with identifiers know that - Mike O'Dell pointed 
me at Tom McArthur's "Worlds of reference" many years ago; recommended 
reading!

But in order to consider that little gem of truth reasonably, I have to 
wade through the swamp of parsing a message that claims:

- There isn't a common concept of "kitchen" between America and France (as 
far as I know completely stupid)
- There are languages that use the same word for blue and green (as far as 
I know false)
- That ISO 11179, a six-part, 200-page standard for "how to run a registry" 
available in English only, is somehow going to make the IETF 
internationalization efforts be much more conceptually correct

Rather than suffering through the aggravation of dealing with these 
inanities, misrepresentations and out-and-out fantasies, I prefer to file 
Jefsey's messages under my "don't look here" folder, and wait for someone 
else to make the point.

The only argument I, personally, have in favour of replying to a Jefsey 
message is that someone with less knowledge of the facts might be deluded 
into thinking that he's speaking truth, that a sentence like

> I do hope you will permit it to be in cooperation with the IGF,. That we
> can proceed fast on a stable, reasonable and acceptable equal opportunity
> but competitive fair basis. As we all agreed in Tunis.

actually means that the Tunis meetings (where ISOC did its usual yeoman's 
job of trying to convey concerns between the "Internet people" and the 
"Government people") actually came to a reasonable conclusion that 
resembles something Jefsey's been arguing in favour of (I think that's TWO 
unwarranted assumptions, btw).

I've come to the conclusion that my time is better spent on other things, 
so I let his blatherings pass uncommented, and largely unread.

But I fail to see the benefit to the IETF, and I find it very easy to see 
the harm.

                         Harald

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:03:13 +0100

One rather different thread:

> non-constructive than Jefsey's.

Actually I'd like to hark back to a simpler time (approximately 2000)....

At that time, there were no central rules for IETF mailing lists. 
Administrators did what they felt they had to do - including making 
individual decisions to suspend disruptive individuals for a time period of 
their choosing, including "permanently", with or without telling anyone 
they had done so (There were some rules in 2418 section 3.2, but they were 
largely ignored).

And things worked fairly well.

Then, based on some incidents, the IESG started making and enforcing rules:

- Lists are open by default (even spam filters need to be careful)
- Suspensions are to be announced publicly, including "why"
- Suspensions are for a limited time
- Suspensions are to be decided by the IESG, not the listadmin
- Suspensions will take note of the rules in 2418, which actually say the 
two last things above.

and so on and so forth. (Blame the then-chair, one Alvestrand...)

The community decided to share in the codification; RFC 3005, RFC 3683 and 
RFC 3934 are some of the results.

Scott Hollenbeck pointed out to me that RFC 3683 is actually more subtle 
than I had remembered; the words in it are:

   o  those identified on the PR-action have their posting rights to
      that IETF mailing list removed; and,

   o  maintainers of any IETF mailing list may, at their discretion,
      also remove posting rights to that IETF mailing list.

There's nothing in there about the IETF list specifically; until Brian or 
the sergeants-at-arms decide otherwise, a PR-action doesn't affect it.

Apart from the list where the complaint originated, this can be seen as a 
*return* to the pre-2000 state: Power in the hand of the listadmin, and no 
involvement of the IESG in the individual decisions.

I think this is not a blunt instrument at all. It's a subtle one.

                    Harald

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:59:00 +0100

As far I am concerned, the PR-action engaged against me by Harald 
Alvestrand is per se of no interest. I just have some general 
comments and one question about it, I will address separately.

What is more interesting is how the IETF and the Internet community 
may benefit from the three issues I raise: multilingualism, ethic and 
user QA. The three of them have an architectural impact (the IAB 
should be able to address through the now silent IAB-discuss) and are 
part of a wide "governance" change which question the RFC 3935 IETF 
mission. These three questions (ethic and user QA being related in 
part) are now under final escalation to the IAB.

At the present time, published contributions (Sam Hartman, John 
Klensin, Harald Alvstrand) agree with me: filibustering, however a 
democratic US invention, is a pest. IETF should do everything not to 
need it (much more efficient than to fight it). I think my 
contributions are of interest to consider in this area. I suppose all 
the PESCI member are already on the two copied lists.

1. due to the importance of the "war on culture" 
"internationalization" represents, I was proposed support and funding 
to oppose it. The problem are an architectural layer violation, a 
narrow vision and a lack of information. Not a lack of competence. To 
kill the IETF for that was inadequate (or premature). I am already a 
problem, would we have been two or three of us ... Had we been 200 as 
I was proposed ... I have computed that $ 20.000 are enough to block 
the IETF. This can be discussed, but this is something we should 
urgently consider, when political, commercial and civil rights 
interests make the IETF, and most of all the IANA, a key target (the 
USG says for sale- may be to protect it?).

I refused it.

2. I proposed Brian Carpenter to get "would be filibusters" a special 
status in the consensus process as "user QA rep". With rights and duties.

This was denied.

3. I proposed an evolution in the WG working method. In using 
position links: every contributor expresses his positions on a page 
he can update as the debate goes. I proposed this to the GNSO 
WG-Review which supported it and I use it in some work. This filters 
out "standard" participants' blabla. It permits everyone to stay, 
every concept to be documented and progressively trimmed, and 
external experts to call in. Consensus is when all the positions are 
equivalent or have identified they cannot agree. Consensus review is 
easy and informative.

This was not considered.

4. I have engaged an IESG, and now an IAB appeal, to know if this 
kind of debate is, or not, part of  the IETF. IESG said "no". I want 
a confirmation by the IAB (so no one can claim there is a conflict) 
before engaging into the organisation of a solution. My solution is a 
dedicated TF sharing into the Internet standard process and reviewing 
the Charters and the Drafts during the LC, or upon request. That TF 
would permanently interact with the users. I think it can be engaged 
in ethic (COI and societal impact) and "governance" issues. The 
interest is that there can be several TF until one emerges as a 
stable and productive solution. I would favor it to be eventually 
part of ISOC and to interface (and protect the IETF from) the IGF.

This is under final consideration. Interested people can share in a Draft.

This IETF has to understand that the Internet has become mature. 
Mature for a product - and specially for a communication technology - 
is when the technology is no more the leader but when usage decides. 
This is what they call "governance". This means that the IGF is going 
to deliver scores of Jefseys. Engineers who can code user response as 
per the user' requests (far more complex than what IETF does today). 
The NSF GENI project will not be alone.

I still consider there is a difference between specifying (Charter) 
and documenting (WG work). But most, because they will be from 
Lobbies or Govs, will not bother. This will lead to balkanization and 
to IETF bottle necks. Already, I saw that with the lobby driven 
WG-LTRU: the Charter was not considered. WG Consensus by exhaustion, 
IETF consensus by disinterest and IESG consensus by impossible 
knowledge of everything lead to dispute like the one I have with 
Harald. There will be scores of them soon if we do not find a 
structural solution.

jfc

---

From: "Margaret Wasserman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 07:03:52 -0500

Hi Harald,

> - About five people send thank-you notes, and wonder whether
> the IESG will get off its butt and allow him to be suspended
> permanently, usually accompanied with ruminations about
> whether it makes any sense to participate in an organization
> that is so completely ineffective in handling disruptive persons

How do you respond to those five people?  Do you tell them that e-mail
filters were created for a reason?  Do you ask them how hard it is to hit
'd' (or equivalent) once a month?  Do you point out the inherent tension
between running an "open" organization and choosing who can participate
based on the quality of their contributions?  Or do you encourage those
people to be upset about the IESG's supposed ineffectiveness in resolving
this issue, which you seem to consider a black-and-white issue while I,
personally, do not?

Personally, I consider this to be a very complex and difficult issue.  We
have an RFC that does allow the IESG to indefinitely suspend the IETF
posting rights of an individual, and it provides some guidance for making
that decision.  However, it is not a very precise document, and it is
clearly open to interpretation regarding both the definition of disruptive
behaviour and whether an individual needs to be _intentionally_ engaging in
disruptive behaviour in order to have has his/her posting privileges
suspended.

Personally, I am just as tired at this point of reading your poorly-founded
and repeated accusations against Jefsey as I am of reading Jefsey's posts on
this subject.

However, I'd like to address a few of the issues that you raised about one
of Jefsey's posts, in your recent message, in the hope of helping you to
understand that you might not be entirely objective about Jefsey's
contributions at this point.

> - There isn't a common concept of "kitchen" between America
> and France (as far as I know completely stupid)

I would be willing to yield to Jefsey on this one, as he has spent much more
time in France than I have.  In fact, I am pretty sure that I have never
been in a kitchen in France...  However, I did take U.S. high school French,
and I was taught that the word for "kitchen" in U.S. English translates to
"cuisine" in French, but that the word "cuisine" in French can translate to
"kitchen", "cook", or "a style of food" in English.  So, I am not quite sure
that there is a direct translation between the English and French words for
"kitchen"...  I'd have to ask a French person to be sure, though.

On the other hand, I am pretty sure that we all have some common Idea (in
the Platonic sense) of a room in which one cooks dinner (although some of us
might call it "supper").

If you are concerned that Jefsey's statement about kitchens  is somehow
damaging misinformation, perhaps you could ask Jefsey to clarify what he
means or provide a reference?  Or you could ask other French natives to
comment?  On the other hand, if you just think that Jefsey may be slightly
mistaken (confusing a lack of clean translation between two words as an
indication that we do not have a shared concept), why not just ignore it,
like you would if anyone else made a similar mistake?

> - There are languages that use the same word for blue and
> green (as far as I know false)

I googled for "language blue green" and the first hit (Wikipedia) says:

"The English language makes a distinction between blue and green, but some
languages, such as Vietnamese or Tarahumara usually do not use separate
words for green and refer to that colour using a word that can also refer to
yellow or to blue. In Vietnamese, blue and green are denoted by xanh; blue
is specifically described as "xanh like the sky" and green as "xanh like the
leaves".

It is sometimes said that Japanese does not distinguish between blue and
green either. Modern Japanese does have words for both green (緑 midori) and
blue (青い aoi adj.; 青 ao n.). However, ancient Japanese did not have this
distinction: the word midori only came into use in the Heian period, and at
that time (and for a long time thereafter) midori was still considered a
shade of ao. Educational materials distinguishing green and blue only came
into use after World War II, during the Occupation: thus, even though most
Japanese consider them to be green, the word ao is still used to describe
certain vegetables, apples and vegetation. However, most other objects - a
green car, a green sweater, and so forth - will generally be called midori.

Welsh has different boundaries than English regarding blue and green. The
word glas is usually translated as 'blue'. It can also refer, variously, to
the colour of the sea, of grass, or of silver. The word gwyrdd is the
standard translation for 'green'. Glas (same spelling) is, comparably, the
translation for "green" in Irish, with specific reference to plant hues of
green; other shades would be referred to as uaine. In Irish, gorm is the
word for "blue" - the first part (gor(m)) pronounced as in the Welsh
gwyr(dd)."

Now, I don't personally care, but it seems that you may have been poorly
informed in this particular case.

> internationalization efforts be much more conceptually correct

I have looked at this document briefly, and it does seem to introduce some
interesting formal concepts and terms related to registry operation.  While
I don't always have a lot of patience for formalism myself, there are
certainly people who believe that the IETF would benefit from more formalism
in many areas.  In particular, people have rather often introduced ISO
terminology and formal concepts in the network management space for concepts
such as operational and administrative state.  While we might argue about
whether this is a good approach, these suggestions are not usually
considered to be out-of-scope or intentionally disruptive.

I do think that Jefsey operates from a misconception about the IETF's role
in DNS and registry management, and that some of his comments and advice
would be better directed at ICANN.  But, being confused about the division
between the IETF and ICANN in this area is not uncommon.  In fact, I'm not
100% sure that I understand that division completely.

I have to admit that, at times, I find Jefsey's posts long and
hard-to-understand.  There are many times when I don't read to the end of
them, but the same can be said for some of John Klensin's posts, and I
certainly don't want to see John removed from any of the lists I am on -- in
fact, I'd be glad to see him participate more!  I have found that people
from some cultures (France, my own Irish heritage, MIT :-)) tend to be more
long-winded than others, and I think that we should try to be patient with
that.

I also have found that Jefsey's posts have a higher signal-to-noise ratio
than many peoples' posts, but I am willing to chalk some of that up to the
fact that he is a non-native English speaker who is trying to make himself
understood, and so I try to be patient with that, too.

What I have not found in Jefsey's posts to the IETF list is any _intent_ to
disrupt the IETF process.  Nor have I found relentless ad hominem attacks
against individuals or enough off-topic information to warrant serious
action against him.

The biggest well-founded offense that Jefsey seems to be perpetrating is his
continued attempt to raise out-of-scope topics (such as IDN) on the
ietf-languages list.  I can understand why you are tired of dealing with
that.  However, I have not decided (as in, I have not yet made up my mind
and would like further input from others on this topic, particularly those
who have been affected by Jefsey's actions) whether that behaviour is
sufficiently disruptive to the IETF to warrant an indefinite suspension of
all of Jefsey's IETF posting rights.

Margaret

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:41:06 +0100

On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 07:03:52AM -0500,
 Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 155 lines which said:

> I also have found that Jefsey's posts have a higher signal-to-noise
> ratio than many peoples' posts, but I am willing to chalk some of
> that up to the fact that he is a non-native English speaker who is
> trying to make himself understood, and so I try to be patient with
> that, too.

I can testify that Jefsey Morfin's posts in french are as long, as
off-topic and as undecipherable than in english.

---

From: Peter Dambier <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:41:44 +0100

> off-topic and as undecipherable than in english. 

Maybe it is a question of time. It is not always obvious on first
sight what Jefsey means. But it is not obvious on first sight why
protocols break from time to time but break they do.

Internet Engineering is done on NANOG. IETF is far too slow and too
esoteric. The real problems do happen in operations and they must be
dealt with immediately.

What did happen does get into IETF slowly. People like Jefsey do
remember "I have seen that before. It is not noise. It will happen
again".

People like Harald dont have the time to think about it. They stick
in operations down to their elbows. Of course those people have
different views of course they have problems communicating. But
that is exactly what Jefsey says.

The internet has changed slowly. It is no longer research. It has
become operations. But at the same time the internet has drifted
away from IETF to NANOG, RIPE and others.

How about the ROOT? You cannot discuss DNS here or at NANOG.

Nameresolution is done adhoc mostly from peer to peer systems.
The most popular operating systems of two companies do what they
feel is correct. The have the power/number of users to do it.

Outside IETF and NANOG we have ORSN, ORSC, unnamed chinese root,
OpenNic, New.Net, Cesidian root, Public-Root, Unified-Root,
United-Root and others. Dont forget the people who take their
laptop out of their box switch it on and run their own network
without even knowing it. Those people dont speak english.
But those people are our costumers.

I dont want to miss either Jefsey or Harald. We need them both.

-- 
Peter and Karin Dambier
The Public-Root Consortium
Graeffstrasse 14
D-64646 Heppenheim
+49(6252)671-788 (Telekom)
+49(179)108-3978 (O2 Genion)
+49(6252)750-308 (VoIP: sipgate.de)
mail: [email-masked]
mail: [email-masked]
http://iason.site.voila.fr/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/iason/

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:32:29 -0800

>> However a PR action is an incredibly huge hammer.  
...
> others, but that is exactly the point and the problem.

1. The hammer is, indeed, huge.  That is why it must be reserved for use on folk 
who cause significant problems, rather than folk who merely demonstrate a bit of 
social gracelessness.  In particular, it is to be used when someone establishes 
a track record of real and significant disruption.

2. Almost everyone can have a moment of utility, just as almost everyone can 
have a moment of disruption.  The question is whether that utility 
counter-balances the damage caused by being disruptive.  I believe the purpose 
of the current procedure is, really, to make exactly that assessment.

3. None of us is essential to the IETF.  No matter how wonderful anyone's 
occasional contributions, the IETF can do just fine without any one of us. First 
and foremost, the IETF is about the social process of developing agreement on 
technical matters.  Anyone who demonstrates a pattern of disruption to that 
process is hurting the core of the IETF. Such folk need to be excluded from 
public IETF discussions.

d/
-- 

Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:34:35 -0500

>>>>> "Harald" == Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

    Harald> --On torsdag, januar 19, 2006 20:03:56 -0500 Sam Hartman
    Harald> <[email-masked]> wrote:

    >> I'd first ask why repeated 30-day suspensions are ineffective.
    >> Harald seems to be getting fairly efficient at suspending
    >> Jefsey on ietf-languages.  I believe he's been suspended on
    >> LTRU before.  Is Jefsey actually doing much damage there with
    >> all these suspensions?

    Harald> At the moment, the pattern on ietf-languages is that:

    Harald> - Jefsey posts one of his offtopic political harangues -
    Harald> About five different people complain privately to me - I
    Harald> suspend Jefsey's posting privilleges for a month - About
    Harald> five people send thank-you notes, and wonder whether the
    Harald> IESG will get off its butt and allow him to be suspended
    Harald> permanently, usually accompanied with ruminations about
    Harald> whether it makes any sense to participate in an
    Harald> organization that is so completely ineffective in handling
    Harald> disruptive persons - A month passes in which the list is
    Harald> relatively calm - I remove Jefsey's suspension - The
    Harald> pattern repeats

    Harald> This is a waste of time, resources and the goodwill of the
    Harald> people who contribute constructively.

OK.

Now I'm sure we all agree that it is worth some frustration for
openness.

I'd appreciate it if you'd help me try and find the appropriate level
of frustration.

Would six month suspensions instead of 30 day suspensions give you
enough time during a suspension to avoid driving people away and to
make it likely that you would not be too frustrated to run the lists?

What about suspending Jefsey from just the ietf-langugages list and
possibly the ltru list?
Would that be a reasonable compromise?  

If not, why not?

I do realize that some have questioned whether the IESG has the
authority to make such a narrowly scoped suspension.

It is very clear that the community could choose to grant the IESG
this authority in the form of a BCP.  I can make some arguments about
why the IESG has the authority today, although I would describe them
as stretches.

--Sam

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:27:38 +0100

Sam,

let me put it this way:

Changing the rules in the middle of the process is Just Plain Stupid. We've 
done that too many times to count.

We can return to our experience with the process once this round is over, 
and may choose to revisit the set of options we have and see if we can add 
some - but I think it's totally inappropriate to invent new options in the 
middle of a discussion about a specific action.

Nevertheless, I'll respond to some of your specific points....

> I'd appreciate it if you'd help me try and find the appropriate level

For me personally, that level was passed after reading approximately 300 
Jefsey Morfin postings and finding no way to have a dialogue with him.

My Jefsey collection is now up to 900 posts since the start of 2005.

> make it likely that you would not be too frustrated to run the lists?

Maybe. But what benefit comes to the IETF from that change?

> Would that be a reasonable compromise?

My answer: No.

> If not, why not?

Jefsey has shown no tendency to change his ways. He's posted on 
ietf-languages, ltru, the IETF list, the IDN list, the pesci-discuss list 
and the architecture-discuss list. He claims to have been a low-layer 
network engineer; there's no telling where he'll choose to turn up next.

When he turns up, and behaves as he's always done, we've got two 
possibilities:

- The process has to be followed. Private warning, public warning, short 
suspension, 30-day suspension, appeal for PR-action to the IESG, IESG 
decision-making, suspension. We're talking about 6 months between the time 
*everyone* realizes that he's disruptive and the time he's actually 
suspended for any long period.

- The PR-action is present, global, and can be referred to. The listadmin 
realizes that Jefsey is being disruptive, and suspends him.

Now which of these two processes results in the volunteers who run mailing 
lists and working groups being less frustrated and having more energy to 
give to the IETF's real work?

I realized this a bit after replying to your previous message: The idea 
that a PR-action will result in Jefsey being banned from input to the IETF 
process, and the IETF process missing useful input as a result, had a 
hidden assumption: That listadmins would suspend Jefsey in a situation 
where he had useful input to give.

If Jefsey were to change his ways, and contribute in ways that were useful 
and non-disruptive, I'm pretty sure listadmins would let him go on posting, 
even though the PR-action is in effect. Why turn away useful input?

But I don't see why we should have to go through this painful process for 
every single list that is being affected by the same individual.

> why the IESG has the authority today, although I would describe them

I would, too.

---

From: Tony Finch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:38:11 +0000

> What about suspending Jefsey from just the ietf-langugages list and

Isn't that what the last call says? It allows other list mangers
to ban him too, but doesn't require it.

Tony.
-- 
f.a.n.finch  <[email-masked]>  http://dotat.at/
BISCAY: WEST 5 OR 6 BECOMING VARIABLE 3 OR 4. SHOWERS AT FIRST. MODERATE OR
GOOD.

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:50:39 +0100

Are people on this list still arguing about this?  I thought members
of this list were supposed to be grown-ups (?).

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:25:35 -0500

>>>>> "Tony" == Tony Finch <[email-masked]> writes:

    Tony> On Fri, 20 Jan 2006, Sam Hartman wrote:
    >>  What about suspending Jefsey from just the ietf-langugages
    >> list and possibly the ltru list?

    Tony> Isn't that what the last call says? It allows other list
    Tony> mangers to ban him too, but doesn't require it.

It does not have any additional checks on the actions of these list
maintainers.  In effect, it places Jefsey in a category where he can
be silenced by the sole discretion of any IETF list manager without
the sort of process review we've had here.

It's my claim that his actions on ietf-languages are unacceptable, but
that his actions on ietf, pesci-discuss and some other lists seem more
desirable than removing him from these lists.

So, I believe that giving managers of those lists the discretion to
ban Jefsey is an inappropriate restriction on the openness of our
process.

As such I believe it is appropriate and necessary to either use
existing processes or to create a new process that would allow us to
make reasonable restrictions.  I believe it is inappropriate for us to
use the tools we have if doing so would create an unfair or closed
process--even if they are the only tools we have.  I will expand more
on this last point in a response to Harald.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:26:11 +0100

Margaret,

RFC 3683 gives you broad discretion on the basis to make a decision, and
gives WG chairs broad discretion on what actions they should take. As
you had a hand in it, perhaps you can refresh my memory, but as I recall
that's all by design. This is not a really freedom of speech exercise,
but a discussion about utility to the standards development process
itself. I hope you would make your decision based on that. I have no
beef with JFC, but that's the equation I would recommend. I'd be less
cavalier were the consequences for JFC greater. It's not like if he
really wanted to try again he couldn't reach the decision makers and try
to make nice. I think the going rate for a Google or Y! account is still 0.

Regards,

Eliot

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:34:47 -0500

>>>>> "Anthony" == Anthony G Atkielski <[email-masked]> writes:

    Anthony> Are people on this list still arguing about this?  I
    Anthony> thought members of this list were supposed to be
    Anthony> grown-ups (?).

actually, we've just started arguing about it.

All the previous arguments were This is the last call.  There was a
lot of previous discussion about this issue, but I would not assume
that the IESG members will go wade through all of that.  I doubt I
will and I'm probably one of the more willing to spend a lot of time
digging through long mailing list discussions.

So, if you commented on this issue before the last call started, I'd
recommend sending a summary of your position possibly with pointers to
the last call thread.  I suspect only comments entered during the last
call will be considered.

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:49:49 -0500

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

    John> For whatever it is worth, I want to remind the IESG that,
    John> before there was RFC 3683, there was a notion, not only of
    John> 30 day suspensions, but of exponential (or other rapidly
    John> increasing series) back-off.  If someone is being severely
    John> disruptive on a particular list, it would seem reasonable to
    John> me for the relevant AD to authorize a 60 day suspension if a
    John> 30 day one is ineffective, a 120 day suspension if that is
    John> ineffective, and so on.  The nature of that arithmetic is
    John> such that someone could, with sufficient repeated disruptive
    John> behavior, find themselves rather effectively banned for the
    John> effective duration of a WG.  If the IESG believes that a
    John> formal RFC3933 experiment is needed to do that, then let's
    John> write down and run that experiment.  But, until we have
    John> tried the above --and any other plausible actions we can
    John> think of-- let's save the 3683 actions for those whose
    John> behavior is more clearly inappropriate and non-constructive
    John> than Jefsey's.

Hi, John.  The prevailing view on the IESG seems to be that the
combination of RFC 3683 and 3934 actually took away our ability to
approve suspensions greater than 30 days but short of a PR action.
Others seem to believe that while we might want to fix that, we should
deal with this matter first.

can you see a reading of 2418 as amended, 3934 and 3683 together that
give the IESG the power to approve a longer suspension?

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:39:42 +0100

Sam Hartman wrote:

> I'd recommend sending a summary of your position possibly
> with pointers to the last call thread.  I suspect only
> comments entered during the last call will be considered.

One older pointer wrt RfC 3683 is
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.general/16874>

This proposal was to update 3934, maybe obsolete 3683.  The
hypothetical 3934bis should be for all "official" IETF lists
incl. the review lists, maybe also for IRTF lists or anybody
else who wants to adopt this procedure.
 
                             Bye, Frank

---

From: "Margaret Wasserman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:04:03 -0500

Hi Eliot,

> RFC 3683 gives you broad discretion on the basis to make a 
> decision, and gives WG chairs broad discretion on what 
> actions they should take. As you had a hand in it, perhaps 
> you can refresh my memory,

Just for the record...  I was not involved in the publication of RFC 3683.  

I wrote RFC 3934/BCP 94.  That's the one that allows WG chairs to suspend
posting priveleges on WG mailing lists for up to 30 days.  Prior to that
RFC, only the full IESG could suspend anyone's posting priveleges, even
temporarily.

Margaret

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:10:51 -0500

>>>>> "JFC" == JFC (Jefsey) Morfin <[email-masked]> writes:

    JFC> 3. I proposed an evolution in the WG working method. In using
    JFC> position links: every contributor expresses his positions on
    JFC> a page he can update as the debate goes. I proposed this to
    JFC> the GNSO WG-Review which supported it and I use it in some
    JFC> work. This filters out "standard" participants' blabla. It
    JFC> permits everyone to stay, every concept to be documented and
    JFC> progressively trimmed, and external experts to call
    JFC> in. Consensus is when all the positions are equivalent or
    JFC> have identified they cannot agree. Consensus review is easy
    JFC> and informative.

    JFC> This was not considered.

Actually I think this is one of the better ideas you've come up with.

I think it needs a lot of work, but I do hope that as we look at WG
tools we have ways to track issues raised by individuals etc.

I'm not sure that the details of where the web pages matter.
I think the important abilities are to be able to answer questions like:

* Is Sam still upset?

* How many people just don't care about this?

* How many people want some solution but don't care about what it is.

    JFC> 4. I have engaged an IESG, and now an IAB appeal, to know if
    JFC> this kind of debate is, or not, part of the IETF. IESG said
    JFC> "no". 

Actually, that isn't really what we said although I do agree that you
probably read our response that way.

We said that the type of debate you're looking for should not take
place on the ietf-languages list.

We did not answer your question of where the debate should take place.

I had intended to write you an individual message giving some
suggestions for where the debate should take place.

Personally I think that your questions about the scope of the IETF,
the scope of ietf language tags and the general approach to
internationalization and multi-lingual issues currently belong on the
[email-masked] list, not on the ietf-languages lists.

However, while I think it is reasonable for you to try and build a
consensus to support your decision you need to stop sending messages
if it becomes clear that you are not convincing people that you are
right.  Our process needs to give you an opportunity to try and
convince people that you are right.  However if you fail to do so, we
cannot allow you to bring things to a grinding halt.

So, bring up any new issue you like on the [email-masked] list; please
be as constructive as you can be.  Let the discussion die out if it is
clear you aren't convincing people.  Respect any warning you see from
the sargents at arms or Brian.  If you fail to respect susch warnings
don't be surprised if your [email-masked] posting rights are suspended.
Again, you may engage us in debate, but you should not be allowed to
stop our work.

--Sam

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:47:21 -0500

>>>>> "Frank" == Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]> writes:

    Frank> One older pointer wrt RfC 3683 is
    Frank> <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.general/16874>

    Frank> This proposal was to update 3934, maybe obsolete 3683.  The
    Frank> hypothetical 3934bis should be for all "official" IETF
    Frank> lists incl. the review lists, maybe also for IRTF lists or
    Frank> anybody else who wants to adopt this procedure.

I'm not sure that we can get consensus on this specific direction to
changes in our mailing list procedures.  I hope that we can get
consensus on an experiment for mailing list management.  I've prepared
a draft under RFC 3933 that hopes to accomplish this.  The draft can
be found at
http://www.meepzorp.org/~hartmans/draft-hartmans-mailinglist-experiment.txt
.  I include the meat of the draft below.

If a number of people support this draft I'll submit it and ask Brian
to consider it as an RFC 3933 experiment.

   As discussed in RFC 3683, the IETF  needs to have rules of conduct to
   limit disruptive or abusive behavior while permitting fair and open
   forum for the discussion of Internet standardization.  The IETF has a
   long and complicated history of rules for managing conduct on its
   mailing lists.

   RFC 2418 [RFC2418] permitted individuals to be blocked from posting
   to a mailing list: "As a last resort and after explicit warnings, the
   Area Director, with the approval of the IESG, may request that the
   mailing list maintainer block the ability of the offending individual
   to post to the mailing list."  RFC 2418 also allowed other forms of
   mailing list control to be applied with the approval of the area
   director and IESG.  However RFC 2418 only applies to working group
   mailing lists.

   The IETF discussion list charter [RFC3005] provides guidelines for
   [email-masked].  These guidelines provide more flexibility than RFC
   2418. "   The IETF Chair, the IETF Executive Director, or a sergeant-
   at-arms appointed by the Chair is empowered to restrict posting by a
   person, or of a thread, when the content is inappropriate and
   represents a pattern of abuse.  They are encouraged to take into
   account the overall nature of the postings by an individual and
   whether particular postings are an aberration or typical.  Complaints
   regarding their decisions should be referred to the IAB. "  In
   particular it appears that these decisions do not follow the normal
   appeals path outlined in RFC 2026 [RFC2026].

   RFC 3683[RFC3683] provides  a procedure for banning named individuals
   from posting to an IETF mailing list for an indefinite period of
   time.  However once such a ban is put in place for one mailing list,
   the individuals responsible for other IETF mailing lists can
   unilaterally remove the posting rights of that individual.

   RFC 3934 [RFC3934] amends RFC 2418 and grants the working group chair
   the ability to suspend a member's posting rights for 30 days.
   However it appears to remove the ability of the AD and IESG to
   approve longer suspensions or alternative procedures: "Other methods
   of mailing list control, including longer suspensions, must be
   carried out in accordance with other IETF-approved procedures."  An
   argument could be made that the amendment was not intended to remove
   the already-approved procedures in RFC 2418 although a perhaps
   stronger argument can be made that the actual textual changes  have
   the effect of removing these procedures.

   While not strictly within the scope of RFC 3934, the IESG and mailing
   list managers have assumed that RFC 3934-like procedures can be

   applied to non-working-group mailing lists.

   The result of these guidelines is that there is a large gap between
   the levels of sanction that can be applied.  An individual can be
   suspended  from a list easily for 30 days.  However the only option
   available to the IESG that permits   a longer suspension for any list
   besides [email-masked] is the ability to suspend an individual for an
   indefinite time period from one list.  This suspension can expand to
   any IETF list without community or IESG involvement.  This memo is an
   RFC 3933[RFC3933] experiment to provide the community with additional
   mechanisms to manage its mailing lists while the community decides
   what mailing list guidelines are appropriate.  IN particular this
   experiment creates a level of sanction between RFC 3934 and RFC 3683.
   The goal of this experiment is to improve the functioning of IETF
   mailing lists while keeping the process open and fair.

3.  The Experiment

   This experiment runs for a period of 18 months.  During the
   experiment period, the IESG MAY approve  other methods of mailing
   list control besides those outlined in RFC 3683 and RFC 3934 to be
   used on a specified set of IETF mailing lists.  Such methods include
   but are not limited to suspending the posting rights of an individual
   beyond  30 days on those lists.  The IESG may also delegate the
   authority to perform longer-term suspensions of specific individuals
   on specific mailing lists.  The procedures of this memo MUST NOT be
   used to suspend the posting rights of an individual beyond the period
   of the experiment.  The procedures of this memo MUST NOT be used to
   limit an individual's ability to read the contents of a mailing list.

   The IESG is encouraged to perform a community-wide last call when it
   is appropriate to do so both when evaluating a specific procedure to
   be applied and when considering the effects of applying that
   procedure to a specific instance of behavior.  The last call is not
   required however.  The reason that the last call is not required is
   that under RFC 2418, no last call is required; there seems to be no
   reason to have a procedure more strict than that proposed in RFC
   2418.

   If the IESG conducts an RFC 3683 last call and finds that sanction is
   too harsh, it is unlikely that an additional last call will be needed
   for applying a lesser sanction.

   Sanctions made under this memo may be appealed using the procedures
   outlined in  [RFC2026].

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:55:50 +0100

Dear Sam,
I go through your comment.

>tools we have ways to track issues raised by individuals etc.

Not much actually as everyone knows to use a page. It can be a 
private WIKI, it can be a form (like the WGIG), etc. The only real 
thing is that people accept to be polite to speed up the process. 
This means that when they quote their page of a Draft they include 
the link, and that there is a WG menu page with the links of the 
people who want a link (only a few want one: everyone see if they are 
competent or a fool).

Then quickly there are positions on the matter at hand. The game is 
to cooperate to reach the same wording. Hence a consensus. You then 
understand that a consensus is not something you discuss, but you 
uncover in common. It had to be here before. You just discuss of the 
"if" to achieve before one can all agree. Nothing common with a 
compromise. Nor with a dominance.

>place on the ietf-languages list.

This is why I asked the IAB.

>[email-masked] list, not on the ietf-languages lists.

This is why I asked the IESG. The IESG having not answered I asked the IAB.

>cannot allow you to bring things to a grinding halt.

Here is where we misunderstand. I want to convince no one. I raise a 
question. I only want to know where these issues should be addressed 
in the opinion of the IETF consensus.

>don't be surprised if your [email-masked] posting rights are suspended.

I am not interested in bringing new issues to the IETF. I have 
shopping list for consensual recipes on the way to communicate 
through the digital ecosystem. And I make my own user QA.

There are existing entities. If some proposes a good recipe (in toto 
or in parte) and it is good quality, I am glad with it. There are two 
problems: when one is de facto exclusive and no good, or when there 
is none. Before building my own solution I want to check there is no 
other way.

>Again, you may engage us in debate, but you should not be allowed to 

dear! I think you really missed what happened!!! You (IETF) stopped 
my work in wanting to get a technically absurd and messy exclusive in 
my area (multilingual registry systems R&D).

I never stopped your work! I carried it!  Against an affinity group 
only interested in pushing me and all the ohers out of the market 
through technical constraint. Do you _really_ think the Draft IESG 
refused in January (partly because of me) is the same as the one you 
approved in November?

When the WG started, I proposed we would wrapp the Draft quickly in 
working on the Draft together (I was the main opponent). We would 
have had a serious open IETF Draft in days. But the affinity group 
thought the WG-LTRU was only an administrative obligation to get 
their text approved! Harald has documented the number of posts I had 
to send to obtain the current ABNF and some wording, they are now so 
proud of. Read the debates and look at the changes I painstakingly 
obtained to prevent ABNF leaks and confusion. This is not perfect, 
hence the appeal. The need was not so much the Draft to go one way or 
another, but not to be confuse. I made them to clarify it against me.

This was dangerous for me and non-US industries. But Tunis has 
limited most of that danger, because the world consensus should 
consider RFC 3066 Bis as local to the Internationalised US Internet 
application. The need now is to keep its users compatible with us. We 
need interoperability and security. The ABNF does not include but now 
permits "language code interoperability" (by adding an RFC 4151 users 
space for example). The security considerations make the Draft 
dangerous. Hence the appeal. Hence the appeal agree or we will 
document it in real life.

The problem is that the IETF works by consensus but thinks by 
hummings. Working by consensus means that I MAY be right against 
_everyone_  (here an external affinity group in a new area). But the 
community has no mechanism to address that case. What to do if I am 
really right? To come with my supporters: this will start a war and 
will convince no one. I have the hummings but no consensus. Totally 
disruptive.

The only way I found is filibustering. Because this means only one 
expandable person, which will have to demonstrate his results. May be 
there is another one? Tell me.

IMHO In this case, the faulty party is the IESG. The IETF may need 
and create the [email-masked] mailing list. But it has no 
capacity to run it, all the more as a private trick. Michael Everson 
cannot be an IETF person because we have no one else of similar level 
to check if he is right (look at his comment today). The "kitchen 
syndrome" with Harald, Mark Crispin etc. (this is all the year long) 
shows we have no reliable experts. The IETF is an engineering 
community, not a linguistic society.

[email-masked] is to be made operational, controlled by the 
IANA, documented on the IANA site, experts from every languages would 
share in it, sponsored by their country, their academy, their 
community, the UNESCO, etc. They will probably elect Michael Everson 
as Chair. At the IANA. Not at the IETF nor Unicode. Please remember 
that they have now to document all the networked languages of the 
world and registered 72 exceptions in 10 years.

jfc

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 01:05:47 +0100

Sam Hartman wrote:

> I've prepared a draft under RFC 3933 that hopes to accomplish
> this.  The draft can be found at

> http://www.meepzorp.org/~hartmans/draft-hartmans-mailinglist-experiment.txt

Sounds okay, maybe two nits:

 [quoting 3005]
> Complaints regarding their decisions should be referred to
> the IAB. "
 {unquote]
> In particular it appears that these decisions do not follow
> the normal appeals path outlined in RFC 2026 [RFC2026].

That might be a feature, can't have the Chair juggle with his
or her hats, getting in fights and conflicts of interest.  The
general area with its general list is a special case.

> This experiment runs for a period of 18 months.

Is that long enough ?  Maybe it won't be used in that time...
...checking, oh, 3933 says 12 months, so that's already longer.
Maybe it would be okay to repeat the experiment if the number
of observed usage cases is zero.
                                 Bye, Frank

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:12:34 -0500

>>>>> "JFC" == JFC (Jefsey) Morfin <[email-masked]> writes:

    JFC> Dear Sam, I go through     JFC> The problem is that the IETF works by consensus but thinks by
    JFC> hummings. Working by consensus means that I MAY be right
    JFC> against _everyone_ (here an external affinity group in a new
    JFC> area). But the community has no mechanism to address that
    JFC> case. What to do if I am really right? 

The IETF actually works by rough consensus not consensus.  If you are
the only one who holds an opinion then by the decision making process
we as a community have chosen we will decide against you.

You have an opportunity to try and convince us you are right and we
are wrong.  But if you fail to do that we will move on without you.

If you attempt to stop us from moving on once we have listened to you
and determined the rough consensus is against you, then you will be
excluded.  I think we have decided as a community that filibustering
is not something we will tolerate.
So you should expect to be excluded from any forum where you filibuster.

--Sam

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 01:50:58 +0100

Dear Sam,
I reviewed the meaning of "filibustering" in different dictionaries 
and wikipedia. I have to apologize to everyone. I took the word [from 
its origin - filibustero, flibustier, freebooter] in a totally 
confusing way. Actually, I see now that a "filibuster" is what Harald 
has now engaged the IETF/IESG into, to confuse the RFC 3066 bis 
appeal and the IAB appeal.

Stupid of mine. Now, I have a problem because I have no simple word 
to name my kind of action and describe my relentless diversified and 
pertinent ways to get delivered what I need, user's QA included, in 
the multilingualisation area, as described by the Tunis documents.

>we as a community have chosen we will decide against you.

Confusion is the problem. It makes difficult:
- sometime to understand the position of the community
- if a rough consensus has been really found.

WG consensus by exhaustion, IETF consensus by disinterest, IESG 
consensus by impossibility to know everything are not rough 
consensus. This is why appeals may be necessary for important issues.

BTW, you say "if you are the only one". How many should we be?

>are wrong.  But if you fail to do that we will move on without you.

Only God, true geeks and fools should try and convince.
I am interested in being convinced, possibly in informing.
And in obtaining the corresponding deliverables.
See below.

>excluded.

I am a user: there cannot be a rough consensus against me. But there 
may be a rough consensus not to deliver what I need. Then I am just 
no more interested. We will only oppose if the IETF disloyaly 
interferes with others' deliverables (or mine's). What I thought impossible.

>I think we have decided as a community that filibustering

Agreed. Now, I understand. A PR-action is a good filibuster ... .

>So you should expect to be excluded from any forum where you filibuster.

Correct. But I never did. Except unwillingly when misunderstanding 
the filibustering concept. This may have confused some and made them 
and you waste time. I hate that. I apologize again.

But I would be pleased if someone could help with a proper better 
word. Since this community seems so much interested in reviving an 
issue I though closed.
jfc

---

From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:31:11 -0800

> [email-masked] mailing lists by 17 February 2006.

Ban him.  Openness and inclusiveness are virtues, but not absolutes.  
This ban seems to me an expression of respect for the time and energy  
of many dedicated and talented participants here, which are currently  
being wasted by JFC; such respect is also a virtue and on balance in  
this case, a substantially greater one. -Tim

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 10:51:15 +0100

> Ban him.  Openness and inclusiveness are virtues, but not absolutes.

They are only virtues when they are absolute.

> this case, a substantially greater one. -Tim

This entire fiasco tells me that the people nominally participating
in it have a lot of time on their hands and very little to do, and
they choose to waste it bickering like preschoolers on a playground
rather than spend it trying to do the actual work of the IETF.  And of
course they will argue with this, because they don't want to recognize
their own failings.

Instead of seeing a stream of posts from this target of opportunity, I
see multiple streams of posts from people complaining about him.
Sorry, but the "cure" is a lot worse than the "disease."

---

From: Peter Dambier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 12:33:23 +0100

> Sorry, but the "cure" is a lot worse than the "disease."

I never complained. I respect Jefsey. Without him it does not make
sense to stay on this list. Without Jefsey you can read everything
in books. No need to reiterate it by bureaucrats.

On the other hand, if I had written this book I could understand
everybody trying to suppress new ideas to prevent anybody from writing
a new book that might replayece the old one :)

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 12:25:07 +0100

Yesterday I proposed to take advantage from my experience for the 
good of the IETF. I used "filibustering" as what I had been engaged 
into. This was a big Franglish confusion. I explained it and 
apologised for the inconvenience in a mail to Sam Hartmann. I asked 
help to find a correct term. I received a few supportive comments 
(and one BS but funny). I thank the formers, all the more than they 
were unexpected!

- thank you for confirming I am not "filibustering", but that Harald 
is (thanks for the examples). As someone put it "Mr. Smith was in the IETF".

- May be "smart activism" as someone else suggested is a good 
description? I do not like "e-guerillero", but sometimes .. "active 
influence" is also interesting?

- I am NOT engaged in any feud against Harald and will support NONE. 
I like this "Mr. Smith was in the IETF" quote, because Jefferson 
Smith was a dedicated person who tried, as I am sure Harald does. I 
do not oppose his analysis, but his lack of _deeper_ analysis and 
generalisation leading to layer violation and scaling inability. I 
also oppose a strategy of influence to force everyone into it. But, 
(a) his doctrine seems to root in RFC 2130 - recently confirmed by 
another IAB workshop on IDNs; (b) he was clear on his intents and got 
supported by the IESG (RFC 3935). There is NO ad hominem (at least on 
my side) but a fundamental architectural difference between 
unilaterally centralised and multilaterally distributed visions of 
the network interintelligibility. I note that in a comment Harald 
shown IMHO that we could totally agree. I accept I tease him: is that 
not the best answer to defamation and name-calling? Better than suing 
him! (The IESG/ISOC would be the one to sue for its drum justice).

- as an IETF _user_ my interest is in the quality and in the 
adequation of the IETF deliverables in my areas of interest and 
competence. I am ready to do and to accept much for good deliverables 
and for their source. I was removing myself from the IETF, now I am 
reasonably protected in my work from the RFC 3066 Bis initial 
confusion and the world is not bound to the IDNA error anymore. 
Unless an unexpected IAB positive response to my appeal, Harald's 
action is the only reason why I am still here. Those who dislike me 
can thank him!

As a general comment: from the mails I receive I am surprised that 
some IETF (often high level) participants do not dare to speak-up and 
_fear_ the IETF immanent "ruling powers" and the "community correct". 
Two want me as their "lighting rod" (first request of that kind was 
at the beginning of the RFC 3066 Bis saga), several others as a 
"fuse", even one as his "Robin Hood"! I do not think this is good. A 
PESCI priority? What is puzzling is when someone aggressively posts 
against me and then sends me a "targeted" long mail of support for 
everything and more .... or when another one mails me a broadside 
against what he wrote on the public list! The most concerning are the 
mails from low-grade-English foreign lurkers, who wishes I represent 
them ... and the quality of their online resumes. I am honored, but 
perplex at the correct solution to bring them. The ethic/user TF I 
plan will certainly be multilingual.

jfc

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 07:02:13 -0500

I do not support approval of this PR-action.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks

On Jan 18, 2006, at 7:34 AM, Scott Hollenbeck wrote:

> IETF-Announce mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 11:30:39 +0100

fwiw, my feeling is that if we did bend the rules that way,
we'd be at strong risk of an appeal. I think the rules are
in a bit of a mess.

     Brian

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 13:25:07 +0100

Marshall,
> I do not support approval of this PR-action.

Because.....??

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 07:48:17 -0500

Because I do not feel that the punishment is merited.

>> I do not support approval of this PR-action.

I posted my thoughts earlier, my understanding is that in the last  
call process it is appropriate to restate one's
opinion.

If you conclude that I think that there has been too much verbiage on  
this matter, you are correct. I am trying to add to it as little as  
possible.

Regards
Marshall

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 13:21:23 -0000

I do not support the action against Jefsey Morfin, because the outcome
would facilitate a ban on all IETF lists without specific cause and
without recourse. I am not in a position to judge the correctness of a ban
on the lists explicitly cited but I do not believe that we have witnessed
behavior that is targeted against the IETF per se, and so a blanket ban is
inappropriate.

In my view a full 3683 action would be too harsh.

I am not sympathetic to the argument that says we only have a large hammer
so we MUST use it because we can't do nothing.

If those who would exclude Jefsey from certain lists feel that repeated 30
day bans are too much work, I suggest they draft a new process that would
allow them to create longer bans on specific lists.

Adrian
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Sam Hartman" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "John C Klensin" <[email-masked]>; "Scott Hollenbeck"
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: Does the IESG have the authority to do less than 3683?

---

From: Peter Dambier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 15:13:48 +0100

I am against this action.

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>

is notorious for swinging for Thors Hammer Mjoelnir just see his postings

Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:34:48 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: Spencer Dawkins <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Message-ID: <03901A727082675EC7C670D5@B50854F0A9192E8EC6CDA126>
In-Reply-To: <000901c57595$20b33700$0500a8c0@DFNJGL21>

Let me offer a simplistic metric.....

if a WG chair has posted nothing to the WG mailing list for a week, and
that WG chair has not told the WG he's on holiday, that WG chair is
probably not doing his/her job.

If NOBODY's posted to the WG mailing list for a week, it's time to close
the WG.

Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 21:02:19 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Message-ID: <6B7F58BA899750A5281E0259@B50854F0A9192E8EC6CDA126>

Since I'm no longer responsible for anything that Dean Anderson has a
legitimate role in, and Dean Anderson has proved that he irritates me, I
can stop listening to Dean Anderson.

Goodbye, mr. Anderson.

Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:08:46 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: Francois Menard <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.62.0507220718250.2773@localhost>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.62.0507220718250.2773@localhost>

You have of course read RFC 2826, "IAB Technical Comment on the Unique DNS
Root"?

Of course, this is specifically about the DNS, and doesn't answer your
question as it pertains to non-DNS systems....

Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2005 20:43:13 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: shogunx <[email-masked]>
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
In-Reply-To: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>

Thanks for confirming that you have totally missed what the IASA process
was all about.

This community has a number of people who wish to say how things need to be
done - whether it is meeting location, IPv6 or cookies during the breaks -
while absolutely refusing to spend any thought cycles whatsoever trying to
find out how this organization is actually put together, who will have to
make the decisions to implement their wishes, and who those people are
accountable to.

You have thoroughly confirmed that you are among that group.

Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2005 19:25:50 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>,	IETF General Discussion Mailing List <[email-masked]>
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
In-Reply-To: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>

I think IPv6 can wait until we have the formalities straight.

Date: Sun, 07 Aug 2005 00:13:22 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: shogunx <[email-masked]>
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
In-Reply-To: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>

It seems that you missed the publication of BCP 101, RFC 4071, which
explains exactly what the IASA is.

Once you say something that indicates that you have done anything at all to
understand the organization you claim to be working in, I might find a
reason to engage in debate with you again.

...

There are a lot more.

But please understand I dont want to open a case against Harald here.

The quotes are taken out of context. I enjoy Haralds direct language.
I am shure he did not mean it insultive.

But please understand people who speak a different language might
feel insulted and bite back.

Speaking in an international and multicultural society need respecting
eachother - not shooting on first sight.

Regards,
Peter and Karin Dambier

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 15:30:06 +0100

> allow them to create longer bans on specific lists.

An alternative would be for them to find new jobs that don't include
this tremendous burden.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 10:23:27 -0500

> we'd be at strong risk of an appeal. I think the rules are

Brian,

I'm disturbed by several aspects of this, most of which have
little or nothing to do with Jefsey, his behavior, and what
should be done about it...

() While it is not an excuse or precedent for this case, the
IESG has a long history, some of it fairly recent, for far more
creative interpretations of assorted rules and statements in
written documents than this would call for.  I assume it is not
what you meant by the above, but, if our real criteria for what
the IESG (or IAOC, or IAB, or particular individuals) can or
cannot do are levels of "risk of appeal" or "risk of recall",
then we are in a much bigger mess than our rules.

(2) We seem to be having a pattern of problems with all of our
procedures.   It appears to me that we are patching things
without regard to the systems in which those things are embedded
or the side-effects of the patches.  We have seen it, IMO, with
our apparent inability to get IPR policies right without a new
iteration starting as soon as the latest version is published,
with  the exclusion of IAB and IESG members from those who can
initiate recalls, and with, apparently, replacing a series of
graduated moves with the huge gap between 30 day suspensions and
the rather sweeping and nominally permanent 3683 action.  

In at least the latter two cases, I believe the outcome is
accidental.  Certainly there was no evidence during Last Call on
the relevant documents that the community was aware enough of
the consequences and tradeoffs involved to discuss them.
Speaking personally, I know I read the drafts that became 3683
on the assumption that it added one more tool to the collection
(and hence was harmless at worst) rather than that it excluded
any pre-existing options.  I assume others did too.

Perhaps this demonstrates where, as a community, we are skilled
and where we are not.  Perhaps we need to do as good a job of
looking at potential consequences and side effects of procedural
changes as 
we try to do for protocols.  Whatever is needed, it is becoming
fairly clear that the focus on the next narrowly-defined problem
or the next patch in {ipr, newtrk, pesci, techspec} is a good
recipe for making more mistakes of this type.

(3) One of the consequences of several of the situations in
which we have found ourselves is that we seem to be replacing
assumptions of good sense and the exercise of discretion with an
increasing array of rules.  I consider that undesirable in its
own right.  Worse, the rule-making process seems to always have
us fighting the previous war.  However, operating on the basis
of giving flexibility and discretionary authority to, e.g., the
IESG, IAOC, or other "leadership", requires that those people be
exceptionally sensitive to the views and temper of the
community.  If that sensitivity does not appear to be present;
if, instead, the community sees signs of "we can ignore some
rules but interpret others narrowly as it suits our convenience"
or the arrogance of decision-making based on "if we don't like
that idea or find it threatening, it doesn't have a chance" or
"if they don't like it, they can recall us",  or "let's divide
this up into enough separate discussions to prevent anyone from
getting a complete picture so we can claim support for whatever
we feel like doing", then more rules, many of them probably
proposed or applied as hasty patches, are almost inevitable.
And thus we spiral downhill.   

(Disclaimer: I do not have any particular person's behavior or
any particular event in mind in the paragraph above, only what
appear to me to be patterns over the last several years.)

(4) As for the present issue, I observe, as have others, that we
have now spent more energy, and created more disruption,
debating the appropriateness and severity of Jefsey's behavior,
and whether a particular response is appropriate, than the
behavior itself has spent or caused.  In a way, the comments and
postings have been helpful: we have had much of the conversation
about the appropriate application of 3683, and the lack of
in-between measures, that, in retrospect, should have occurred
when we started to make changes.

So, let me make a few suggestions for getting us unstuck and
back to useful work.

(i) If Jefsey's recent behavior justifies it, generate more 30
day suspensions.

(ii) Let's establish a convention (not a rule -- we would just
screw it up or get tangled in it) that, if a suspension action
is taken against someone whose native language is not English,
we attempt to deliver the suspension notice/ complaint in that
person's language as well as English if reasonably feasible.  We
should not, if possible, have people suspended for reasons they
don't understand or can later claim they don't understand.  On
the other hand, we have accepted (even if Jefsey has not) that
the ability to communicate in English is a practical necessity
for participation in IETF and should not paralyze ourselves by
trying to apply this particular courtesy.

(iii) Again, as a convention, let's agree that, if someone is
suspended more than once for the same basic pattern of behavior,
that the suspensions should explicitly note the history of one
or more prior ones and warn that the community will not tolerate
behavior that results in serial suspensions indefinitely.
Multiple suspensions and such a warning should not become
requirements for taking a 3683 action (or any intermediate
action), but represent a reasonable courtesy and attempt to get
the behavior adjusted, which we should certainly prefer to
ever-more-drastic sanctions.  We should not get ourselves into
the position of spelling out what penalties will be imposed of
the behavior recurs: as others have pointed out, the purpose of
all of these procedures is not to punish offenders, or to permit
offenders to measure the advantages of the behavior against the
potential punishment, but to permit and facilitate the
community's getting work done.

While I am sympathetic to Bert's position that more types of
sanctions would actually hurt us, I'd prefer to have some
intermediate levels of options for another reason.  3683 is not,
as I read it, intended to become a legal proceeding, with the
entire IETF acting as jury and discussing, not only the action
but the character of the presumed offender.  My personal
perspective is that I'd like to see 3683 actions under only two
circumstances.  (i) some sequence of actions have been taken
which are so egregious and so obviously motivated by malice
toward individuals or the community that the community recoils
in collective outrage (or should do so) or (ii) there has been a
repeated pattern of suspensions for similar behavior from
different mailing lists and by different people, that the claim
can be made and supportive that the individual involved is
consistently disruptive and an IETF-wide response is in order.
Frankly, in the latter case, I'm not convinced that the
individual involved has any "right" to disrupt the IETF list
with his or her defense.  This business of letting someone who
has been disruptive try to turn the issue into a personality
matter started by the person who finally develops the energy to
come forward and request a strong action is not healthy for any
of us.

(iv) Let us, quickly, follow up on some of the suggestions that
have been made recently to create intermediate steps by
generating a draft, under the RFC 3933 model, to permit some
intermediate measures.  I'm particularly fond of reinstating the
authority of a WG Chair, with AD approval and subject to appeals
that do not suspend the action while they are being
investigated, to apply exponential back-off, if only because 
   suspend for 30 days
   have new incidents on days 31 and 32.
   spend two weeks going through the warn-review-and-suspend
proces again
   suspend for 30 days
   loop
model is intolerably inefficient if work is really being
disrupted. 

If we care, we should be able to have such procedures in place
under the 3933 model within 30 days.  If people are worried that
we also need a mechanism for pushing back on repetitive appeals,
someone should start working on an experimental draft there too.

Note that, if we get such a procedure in place 25 days from now,
and then find a need to apply them 32 days from now based on
prior suspensions, nothing is being done retroactively.

And then, sometime, we need to figure out why we keep doing
these things to ourselves procedurally and try to cure it.

     john

---

From: "Margaret Wasserman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 11:07:43 -0500

Hi Jefsey,

In this post and in at least one other recent post you talk about
filibustering on various mailing lists.  I would like to make sure that I
understand what you are talking about, because this is very important to my
assessment of the proposed PR-Action. Prior to these posts, I did not
understand why you were making so many clearly off-topic posts on these
lists, but I did not assume that you were intentionally attempting to
disrupt the work of the IETF.

In the U.S. filibustering is a tactic used in the U.S. Senate that abuses a
loophole in the Senate rules to _intentionally_ block the work of the senate
for some period of time.  Filibustering is not a democratic right, and it is
not a tactic that, IMO, should be used, encouraged or allowed on IETF
mailing lists. 

I have read this post and other recent posts of yours as admissions that you
are _intentionally_ disrupting the work of the [email-masked] list
and the LTRU WG mailing list via a tactic similar to filibustering.  Is that
a correct interpretation of your messages?  

Margaret

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of JFC (Jefsey) Morfin
> Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 5:59 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Mr. Smith goes to the IETF
> 
> As far I am concerned, the PR-action engaged against me by 
> Harald Alvestrand is per se of no interest. I just have some 
> general comments and one question about it, I will address separately.
> 
> What is more interesting is how the IETF and the Internet 
> community may benefit from the three issues I raise: 
> multilingualism, ethic and user QA. The three of them have an 
> architectural impact (the IAB should be able to address 
> through the now silent IAB-discuss) and are part of a wide 
> "governance" change which question the RFC 3935 IETF mission. 
> These three questions (ethic and user QA being related in
> At the present time, published contributions (Sam Hartman, 
> John Klensin, Harald Alvstrand) agree with me: filibustering, 
> however a democratic US invention, is a pest. IETF should do 
> everything not to need it (much more efficient than to fight 
> it). I think my contributions are of interest to consider in 
> this area. I suppose all the PESCI member are already on the 
> two copied lists.
> 
> 
> "internationalization" represents, I was proposed support and 
> funding to oppose it. The problem are an architectural layer 
> violation, a narrow vision and a lack of information. Not a 
> lack of competence. To kill the IETF for that was inadequate 
> (or premature). I am already a problem, would we have been 
> two or three of us ... Had we been 200 as I was proposed ... 
> I have computed that $ 20.000 are enough to block the IETF. 
> This can be discussed, but this is something we should 
> urgently consider, when political, commercial and civil 
> rights interests make the IETF, and most of all the IANA, a 
> key target (the USG says for sale- may be to protect it?).
> 
> I refused it.
> 
> 2. I proposed Brian Carpenter to get "would be filibusters" a 
> special status in the consensus process as "user QA rep". 
> With rights and duties.
> 
> This was denied.
> 
> position links: every contributor expresses his positions on 
> a page he can update as the debate goes. I proposed this to 
> the GNSO WG-Review which supported it and I use it in some 
> work. This filters out "standard" participants' blabla. It 
> permits everyone to stay, every concept to be documented and 
> progressively trimmed, and external experts to call in. 
> Consensus is when all the positions are equivalent or have 
> identified they cannot agree. Consensus review is easy and 
> informative.
> 
> This was not considered.
> 
> 4. I have engaged an IESG, and now an IAB appeal, to know if 
> this kind of debate is, or not, part of  the IETF. IESG said 
> "no". I want a confirmation by the IAB (so no one can claim 
> there is a conflict) before engaging into the organisation of 
> a solution. My solution is a dedicated TF sharing into the 
> Internet standard process and reviewing the Charters and the 
> Drafts during the LC, or upon request. That TF would 
> permanently interact with the users. I think it can be 
> engaged in ethic (COI and societal impact) and "governance" 
> issues. The interest is that there can be several TF until 
> one emerges as a stable and productive solution. I would 
> favor it to be eventually part of ISOC and to interface (and 
> protect the IETF from) the IGF.
> 
> Mature for a product - and specially for a communication 
> technology - is when the technology is no more the leader but 
> when usage decides. 
> This is what they call "governance". This means that the IGF 
> is going to deliver scores of Jefseys. Engineers who can code 
> user response as per the user' requests (far more complex 
> than what IETF does today). 
> I still consider there is a difference between specifying 
> (Charter) and documenting (WG work). But most, because they 
> will be from Lobbies or Govs, will not bother. This will lead 
> to balkanization and to IETF bottle necks. Already, I saw 
> that with the lobby driven
> WG-LTRU: the Charter was not considered. WG Consensus by 
> exhaustion, IETF consensus by disinterest and IESG consensus 
> by impossible knowledge of everything lead to dispute like 
> the one I have with Harald. There will be scores of them soon 
> if we do not find a structural solution.
> 
> jfc
> 
>

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 10:03:17 -0800

> person's language as well as English if reasonably feasible.  We

This is a well-intentioned suggestion.

However I believe it winds up implying that we have an obligation to translate 
formal IETF language into another language.  At the least, the presence of two 
versions of the notice offer an opportunity for more confusion, not less.  I 
suggest, instead, that the notice / complaint language contain well-reviewed 
boilerplate and that the boilerplate reviews include ease of understanding among 
readers for whom English is a second language.

> the behavior adjusted, which we should certainly prefer to

This sounds eminently reasonable.  It leaves us with two mechanisms.

In general, the IETF community can probably juggle two mechanisms that pertain 
to a participation problem.  I'm not so sure it can juggle more.

One mechanism is a 30-day suspension and the other is permanent ban.

The first can be applied repeatedly, unless and until there is a reasonable 
degree of frustration with the offender. Some offenses create that reasonable 
degree in one occurrence.  Others might never trigger it, even with multiple 
suspension.  Community rough consensus will nicely determine that threshold.

>   My personal

Nicely said.  I agree entirely and suggest this language be used for community 
guidance.

> model is intolerably inefficient if work is really being

Clearly the concern here is valid.  It occurs to me, however, that there is 
another way to view it:

    If someone is going to keep being a repeated problem, quickly after being 
re-instated, then the community will also quickly decide that the person 
warrants permanent removal.  For such people, it is better to get the hassle 
over with sooner, rather than to draw things out.

Exponential backoff merely makes this inevitable outcome take longer.

d/

-- 

Dave Crocker

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 15:32:39 -0500

Hello;

I received some private comments, so I will respond in greater depth.  
Please be careful what you ask for.

In doing so, I reread IETF list traffic on this from last September /  
October last year, and also the complaint.

So, here goes. First, I am aware of how disrupting posters can be. I  
remember one individual who posted incessantly on IPv8 on a WG list,  
another who hacked one of my organization's DNS servers just because  
I dared to question the validity of alternative roots in a post. And,  
I came out in favor of the 3683'ing of Dean Anderson. So, I am not an  
automatic no vote.

However, I feel in a case such as this, things are a little different  
from technical standards setting. You are entitled to your own  
opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts. While technical  
standards are largely based on facts, in a case such as this opinions  
come into play. If I say that the protocol "foo" should be rejected  
because it has a serious technical problem, you are entitled to ask  
what this problem is. My opinion, by itself, is not enough. On the  
other hand, if I say that I don't feel that poster "Ydobon" is  
disruptive, that is, in a sense, not arguable. It is like saying that  
I dislike the cookies served at the break at an IETF meeting. You may  
like them, others may like them, but giving me lists of these people  
or of reasons why I should like them is not going to change my mind.

Note the difference here, and the reason why I feel that a simple  
statement of agreement or disagreement is sufficient :

If there is a fatal technical problem with a proposal, taking a vote  
of who likes that proposal is irrelevant.

If we want to decide if people like the snacks at the break,  
providing lists of reasons why they should like them
is irrelevant.

Of course, in very close or tough cases, or particularly egregious  
ones, other things may come into play. For example, if the cookies  
are poisoned, people shouldn't eat them, even if everyone raves about  
them.

I feel that banishment is a severe punishment, severe enough that I  
think the conduct should be extremely bad
to warrant it. That is my feeling; others may differ, but there it  
is. Under the category of extremely bad behavior, RFC 3683 says

    Although not exhaustive,
    examples of abusive or otherwise inappropriate postings to IETF
    mailing lists include:

    o  unsolicited bulk e-mail;

    o  discussion of subjects unrelated to IETF policy, meetings,
       activities, or technical concerns;

    o  unprofessional commentary, regardless of the general subject;  
and,

    o  announcements of conferences, events, or activities that are not
       sponsored or endorsed by the Internet Society or IETF.

To these, I would add, threats, insults, and the like.

Note that these are (again, in my opinion) not of equal weight. If  
Mr. Ydobon
sends to the list once a message beginning

RE:TRANSFER OF USD 168,559,000.00 MILLION TO YOUR ACCOUNT.

(actually received by me yesterday), I would say he's gone. If he  
threatens death to those who disagree,
ditto. But, for "discussion of subjects unrelated to IETF policy,  
meetings, activities, or technical concerns", I have very  
occasionally posted jokes to this list, as have others, and I would  
hope not to be banned for one occasion.

Now, to the case at hand. I read this list, and I do not feel that  
Mr. Morfin has been disrupting it, nor have I seen any egregious  
attacks, insults, etc. That's just my opinion, but there it is, and  
that is the basis of my previous statements.

However, maybe he has been doing bad stuff on other lists; that,  
after all, is part of the complaint. So, not being paid to do this, I  
looked at the complaints and singled out two of the six :

[5]

Personal attack, IETF-languages list:

http://eikenes.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-June/ 
003369.html

Personal attack and threats, LTRU list:
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03788.html

I regard personal attacks as really egregious, and threats as worse;  
even one might certainly be enough to warrant banning.

So, what do I see ?

In http://eikenes.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-June/ 
003369.html
I see a first paragraph that I cannot parse at all, and a lot of  
other verbiage that I am not qualified to
judge on technical grounds, but nothing I see as an attack.

Ok, in the second, http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/ 
msg03788.html
I am going to quote all of JFC's postings, with
tme> being a comment from me.

-----
 > Cannot it be the result of a DISCUSS?
 > I may be wrong, but from the debate it seems we have a lack of
 > clarity concerning the "private use" possibilities between mentors of
 > this WGý (I agree with the "qsi" comment given by Harald).ý

IMO, the pros and cons of using private use code or metadata elements  
are reasonably understood generally but must be considered  
specifically in the context of a given application context. All we  
are doing is providing tags and a spec for certain ways to compare  
tags; we are not telling people tags must be used in some derivate  
protocol or application. Section 4.5 does give general guidance about  
the limitations of private-use tags, including the caveats that  
Harald mentioned:

<quote>
Private use subtags have no meaning outside the private agreement  
between the parties that intend to use or exchange language tags that  
employ them. The same subtags MAY be used with a different meaning  
under a separate private agreement. They SHOULD NOT be used where  
alternatives exist and SHOULD NOT be used in content or protocols  
intended for general use.
</quote>

That is the kind of thing that's appropriate to put in *that*  
document. If the MPAA or MPEG groups need to discuss specific  
implications of using "qsi" in their protocols and advice  
implementers of the potential concerns of exposing that to other  
systems, that's *their* problem, not ours.

Dear Peter,
This response is the response to the question below.

- who is the "ours" you quote? This is IETF not Unicode: it is not  
meant to deliberately ignore MPAA, MPEG, etc. like requests, nore the  
generic ISO 11179 compliant needs, all them represented by AFRAC  
whose job is to interface them all. Our (as IETF) is to support  
"*their*" problem (which incidently is mine).

- the failure of the document is that if it partly permits to support  
private agreements such as MPAA or MPEG or AFRAC, but it makes that  
capacity useless in providing no way to document which private  
agreement is being used. This leads to the conflicts described by  
Harald and denies the need of the Common Reference Centers like AFRAC  
to support them all. This is an organised DoS. And you just  
documented it. Thank you.

tme>It is not clear to me who he is saying is doing a DOS, but I do  
not regard that as an actionable insult.
tme>I don't see any others.

 > Dont you think it is better to accept a simple half additional line
 > and permit to address all these tricky cases one shot (in just
 > permitting to indicate the private space of exchange where the added
 > information applies) rather than in re-chartering, wasting months,
 > etc. to universally address a limited number of local cases. Will
 > this will never end? Or is there a major reason I do not understand
 > demanding it.

That's what we're all wondering: will this ever end?

Frankly? I do not know. Some with serious annoyance capacity for your  
employer talk of three to five years and of the justice obligation to  
support "0-". This is beyond me anyway. Your decision: they wanted to  
kill the project, but they are slow. We shown them we could manage in  
"0-" with ":" and "." and undetermined length.

There's not another half line of text needed in RFC3066bis to discuss  
this. What's really needed is already there.

This is a sales pitch for the unique solution you want to impose (to  
favor the Charter quoted Unicode CLDR proposition?)
Impeaching private solutions and competition? No well accepted. After  
all, this is your problem to pay lawyers.

tme> Hard to read, but I cannot conclude he is threatening legal action.

We've all had opportunity to review it, comment on it and suggest  
changes to it, and the time for that has passed.

Not this with me, please. People are reading!

This process must and will end; the rest of us are pushing for closure

The IETF mechanic calls for a few months more. Should some at the  
IESG do not realise how much your proposition is detrimental to their  
own corporation (as an example of the way it is detrimental to  
everyone) there will be appeals - I may or not be involved (I start  
being bored and my work is building your competition). Then there  
will be political and legal actions.

tme> Again, hard to read, but I cannot conclude HE is threatening  
legal action, he is predicting it, a
tme> very different matter.

You really misjudged my opposition. I was here only to help with QA  
for consumer protection. I proposed you to cooperate several times.  
Now I can only wish you personal good luck if the RFC is eventually  
approved by the IAB.

But you seem to want to drag it out longer for the sake of a half  
line that will supposedly address in one shot all kinds of tricky  
problems that supposed are not yet addressed -- except AFAICT they  
are addressed.

Repeating this does not make you any good, nor to your employer:  
people are reading.

When all this is finished ten years from now, I will have you for  
lunch. I will explain you what you did wrong for

tme> Is this the threat ? I don't think he is threatening  
cannibalism. It sounds like a friendly
tme> invitation to me.

your employer.
jfc

-----
So, in my sample picked for "Personal attack and threats", I see no  
threats, and really no attacks either.
It is hard to read, and may not be worth reading, but is not  
actionable IMHO.

So, after all of this waste of my time and yours, I am now STRONGLY  
against approval of this PR-action.

Regards
Marshall

P.S. IETF-announce removed from this thread.

On Jan 22, 2006, at 7:48 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> If you conclude that I think that there has been too much verbiage  
> on this matter, you are correct. I am trying to add to it as little  
> as possible.
>
> Regards
> Marshall
>

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 21:02:25 +0100

>a correct interpretation of your messages?

Dear Margaret,
I apologized for the confusion I unwillingly created. I wrongly used 
the word "filibustering". "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" and "Davy 
Crockett" pictures give a different and noble idea of 
"filibustering". I took it for what a lonesome democratic, dedicated 
and imaginative "freebooter" (flibustier in French) would do, to 
force positive results, against a powerful lobby defending private 
interests' status-quo.

I was explained by lawyers I was mistaken. They explained me what 
Harald engaged was a filibuster to interfere with my current IAB and 
IETF appeals. One said "Mr. Smith was at the IETF". They called my 
action to restlessly force quality, ethic and adequacy "smart activism", etc.

As a user, shopping for quality solutions for my digital global 
ecosystem, I want (and obtained) simple things:

(1) the RFC 3066 bis pollution to be cleaned. Because it hurt my job 
and the whole world (with no real advantage for its proponents). I 
obtained this through that "smart activism" (the most efficient and 
less disruptive way I found) at the IETF, the WSIS, etc.. My mails 
and attitude (looking a boring fool) forced the WG to clean its 
document, without starting a conflict where my supporters would have 
joined. I made a large number of contributions (read them and tell me 
if they are off-topic): the WG usually adopted/confirmed the 
opposite. This is not always in the text, but the responses are in 
the records. For further user's FAQ. I did not want to convince (I 
oppose a well established  Unicode Globalization US-centric 
doctrine). I just carried QA. Now, other generalised language naming 
(endorsed by the Tunis documents) and documentation propositions can 
now interoperate with it.

(2) however such interoperation still calls for:

   (a) an interface and a minimum level of security RFC 3066 bis does 
not provide. Hence the IESG appeal. If you and IAB deny my 
propositions in that area everyone will know (security) and we will 
patch the interface.

   (b) the IANA registry cooperation: no problem when the 
ietf-languages IANA list is operated, published and controlled by the 
IANA, and respect the Tunis global agreement for multilingualisation. 
This will be a loss of control for its current owners. Hence their 
anti-EU trap and my "5th" ban: should I really waste more time and 
bore everyone appealing against this new vaporware? I can appeal if 
you really want it...

(3) the demonstration the IETF wants to deliver the ethical, 
pertinent and multilingual innovation we need. This explains most of 
my [email-masked] mails. Look at them: I suggest, prod, etc. without 
initiating debates on issues where there no real thinking yet. I 
understand conservative minds do not like it, but it is quite 
efficient in establishing relations with open minded smart people, 
and in obtaining results. I was going away without noise. Now may be 
Harald will make a few more to get interested in the architecture TF 
some of these people plan with me?

Take care.
jfc

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 02:56:11 +0100

At 21:32 22/01/2006, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
>It is hard to read, and may not be worth reading, but is not actionable IMHO.

Dear Marshall,
Thank you for spending the time to check and for speaking the truth.
Actually I am the threat, I am the "attack".

The Internet and the computer environments are US ASCII English. This 
lead to the idea to support languages through a globalization 
architecture internationalizing the network and localizing the 
computers (RFC 2277, 3066). RFC 3066 Bis (technically and 
practically) exclusively commits the Internet to this architecture 
embodied by Unicode. Its current main achievement is IDNA.

This makes the Internet incompatible with multilingualisation needs, 
demands, and architectural R&D like mine. Hence I am the threat. 
Multilingualisation is a retro and cross-internationalisation 
considering the 20.000 language entities equal. A linguistic "peer to peer".

In addition the whole world (14,500 people in Tunis, with the sole 
absence of the IETF) decided for multilingualisation (I accept I am 
active in that area). I also forced  RFC 3066 bis to be so clean that 
one can now easily circumvent its interoperability and security 
problems if they were not addressed by my current appeal. I also 
asked an IAB guidance to know if they want to stick to 
internationalization or want to work on multilingualisation. These 
two appeals are the "attack" they try to protect the IETF from.

jfc

PS. "hard to read" comes from my Franglish (should hardly be a 
problem for language experts?) and from the lack of time. The waste 
of time against a score of opponents reluctant to clarify their Draft 
was huge. I think it was OK to waste a year to permit my work of the 
10 coming years.

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 20:19:12 -0500

>>>>> "Harald" == Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

    Harald> Sam, let me put it this way:

    Harald> Changing the rules in the middle of the process is Just
    Harald> Plain Stupid. We've done that too many times to count.

Hi.  I've been perplexed by this comment.

I'd like to understand why changing the rules in the middle of a
process is a bad idea.

I can think of cases under which changing the rules might be problematic:

1) Many legal and process systems have as a part of fairness the idea
   that actions that people should not be punished by actions that are
   prohibited/illegal unless the actions are prohibited/illegal before
   the action took place.  In my own experience, the US constitution
   has a prohibition against ex post facto laws--laws that make
   something illegal after it happened.  There are some fairly obvious
   reasons why you want this particularly when the goal of punishment
   is to discourage behavior from happening.  Our process is such a
   process so I agree we should not sanction people for actions that
   were not sanctionable when the action took place.

2) It is undesirable to make a sanction significantly harsher than
    initially expected during a process.  If I expect that what I'm
    doing is OK, but I might be wrong and get a warning I'll be very
    surprised and annoyed if I end up getting kicked off the mailing
    list.  It would be unacceptable to change the process to allow
    this to happen in the middle of the process.

3) Our standards process has an idea that we don't want to change the
    bar too much while a standard is in progress and that we want
    consistency.  We don't want to apply one process to one standard
    and a different process to a similar standard.  We phase in new
    requirements over time.  If people believe they have met the
    requirements for publication then it is frustrating to surprise
    them with new requirements they could not have anticipated.  This
    is true even if the new requirements are approved through process
    changes.  Now  clearly there is a balance here.

Note that reason 3 to avoid rules changes during a process does not
directly apply to PR actions.  I don't want to view PR actions in the
same way as a standard.  It should not be the case that if you collect
sufficient evidence you can get someone banned from a mailing list.
You have a right to expect that if you collect sufficient evidence of
an administrative problem like a problematic individual on a mailing
list, this problem will be solved in some way.  You don't have a right
or expectation to demand a particular solution.  If for example the
IESG successfully managed to convince the individual to clean up their
act, you don't have a right to be disappointed that a PR action was
not approved.  (If the IESG claims they have convinced the individual
to clean up their act, you may well be dubious about whether this
claim is valid.)

In particular I'm having a hard time finding an ethical or logical
reason why we would not want to approve a process change that allows a
lesser sanction for behavior that is already prohibited.
Can you help me understand why that specifically would be a bad idea?

Now, there is one case where I can see a concern.  If we are concerned
that the behavior may not be sanctionable today then what we are doing
might be problematic.  We could make an explicit determination that
the behavior was currently prohibited before deciding to apply the
lesser sanction.  Some people might question whether we could isolate
the two calls enough to make that decision.

So I agree that a solution open to less question is to refuse to apply
a sanction, create a process change and wait for prohibited behavior to
happen again.  I'm concerned that in the case of Pr actions that may
be unfair to those trying to get work done.  I could accept a decision
not to apply sanctions and to change the process though if the
community feels that is necessary.

I am concerned though that such a decision may lead to what I consider
to be a major problem.  If we decide that we're going to apply a large
sanction because that is the only tool available to us, I believe we
have done something that violates the spirit of our process and that
does not meet the standard of fairness we hold ourselves to.

The fourth goal of  the standards development process in RFC 2026 is
fairness:

     The goals of the Internet Standards Process are:
        o  technical excellence;
           o  prior implementation and testing;
              o  clear, concise, and easily understood documentation;
                 o  openness and fairness;  and
                    o  timeliness.

In particular, section 6.5.3 provides a path for resolving the
situation where we follow procedures that do not meet the standards of
fairness and openness to which we have obligated ourselves:

     Further recourse is available only in cases in which the procedures
        themselves (i.e., the procedures described in this document) are
           claimed to be inadequate or insufficient to the protection of
        the
           rights of all parties in a fair and open Internet Standards
        Process.
           Claims on this basis may be made to the Internet Society
        Board of
           Trustees.  

I think that if there is general agreement in the community that a
lesser sanction, were it available, would be adequate to solve a
problem, but  we apply a greater sanction because that is the only
tool our process permits, there would be a claim for relief under
section 6.5.3 of RFC 2026.  I hope that ISOC would grant relief in
such a situation.  The IAB's response today gives me confidence that
such a claim might never reach ISOC.

So, if the community decides that we need to avoid a sanction in some
specific case so we can change the process, I can agree with that
decision.  If we choose to apply a sanction we agree is too great
simply because it is the tool we have, I look forward to a successful
appeal of our foolishness.

--Sam

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 03:08:07 +0100

> I'd like to understand why changing the rules in the middle of a

They aren't rules if they can be changed even as they are being
applied.  If you want to make rules, you have to be willing to abide
by them.  Changing the rules even as they are applied is equivalent to
not having rules to begin with (although I realize this is precisely
the unstated goal for some people).

> It should not be the case that if you collect sufficient evidence
> you can get someone banned from a mailing list. You have a right to
> expect that if you collect sufficient evidence of an administrative
> problem like a problematic individual on a mailing list, this
> problem will be solved in some way. You don't have a right or
> expectation to demand a particular solution. If for example the IESG
> successfully managed to convince the individual to clean up their

An alternative is to do nothing, which in the long run is the least
disruptive and wasteful of resources.  All "problematic individuals"
are nothing more than one person irritating another, and if people
cultivate tolerance instead of wasting their time bickering like
schoolchildren, the overall result is greater productivity and
flexibility for all.

> reason why we would not want to approve a process change that allows
> a lesser sanction for behavior that is already prohibited. Can you
> help me understand why that specifically would be a bad idea?

Just because it is a change allowing a lesser sanction doesn't mean
that it justifies setting the precedent of changing the rules in
transit.

> the two calls enough to make that decision.

Or we could spend this time working on the real tasks of the group
instead of whining about who should or shouldn't be banned.

Every mailing list I've ever encountered is this way, constantly
degenerating into personal attacks and attempts to censor and ban
anyone who isn't sufficiently popular or well placed.  Don't people
ever grow up?

> happen again.

Why not just drop the whole thing and pretend nothing ever happened?
Then the group can get back to business. I know that business isn't
nearly as much fun as goofing off with bans and censorship and
arguments about bans and censorship and arguments about arguments
about bans and censorship, but it _is_ the nominal purpose of the
group, isn't it?

> section 6.5.3 of RFC 2026.

Or maybe a temporary estoppel motion for ad hoc pro tempore injunctive
relief under subparagraph (b) of section IIa of codex 4 of Section
4.1.3.15/C (as amended) of RFC 4299182.

You know, just writing ever more complicated policies and procedures
doesn't make them useful or valid.

> appeal of our foolishness.

Perhaps just stepping out of the sandbox and getting back to work
would serve to eliminate the foolishness.  I'm not holding my breath,
though.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:13:50 -0800

Sam,

trying to avoid pointing at persons, despite the fact that a specific 
person is at the heart of the current discussion...... your 3 points are 
very valid reasons for avoiding rule changes, but I think you miss the 
point I was trying to make.

The IESG was asked to choose between two alternatives:

- Execute a PR-Action against "X"
- Do not execute a PR-Action against "X"

In the ensuing discussion, you have argued that there should be other 
procedures for mailing list management, which are suited to "lesser 
offenses".

Doing this at the same time as considering the PR-action against "X" has 
some interesting consequences:

- The "problem behaviour" that the rule seeks to address is likely to get 
crafted so that it's clear whether "X"'s behaviour falls within or outside 
the description. While this makes things clearer in this case, I believe 
that history shows very low predictive value for whether or not such a rule 
will be clear once a new case comes along.

- The "reaction" that the rule seeks to implement will take the form of 
whatever the discussion concludes is a reasonable reaction to the behaviour 
exhibited by "X". Again, this is no predictor of whether or not the 
reaction will be adequate, overreaction, or underreaction for the next case 
that comes along.

- The discussion that has to come before the final crafting of the new 
rules is likely to take some time - months, if experience is a guide. This 
offers an excuse for avoiding making a decision in "X"'s specific case - 
thus prolonging the time of indecision.

I do not want the IETF to craft rules for "X", and then re-craft them for 
"Y", "Z" and "W" because hastily crafted rules did not fit the next 
situation to come along. I want the rules to be reasonable, and stable.
And I think making up rules while considering a specific unique case is 
harmful to such a process.

One point in closing:

A PR-action, or a mailing list suspension, is NOT a punishment. Rules of 
order exist to protect the IETF's ability to do its work.

I believe that's your central responsibility.

                         Harald

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:31:08 -0500

>>>>> "Harald" == Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

    Harald> Sam, trying to avoid pointing at persons, despite the fact
    Harald> that a specific person is at the heart of the current
    Harald> discussion...... your 3 points are very valid reasons for
    Harald> avoiding rule changes, but I think you miss the point I
    Harald> was trying to make.

    Harald> The IESG was asked to choose between two alternatives:

    Harald> - Execute a PR-Action against "X" - Do not execute a
    Harald> PR-Action against "X"

OK.  I actually view our responsibility more as use the tools we have
available to allow y to get its work done even given x's behavior.  I
don't believe the central question is whether the PR action should be
executed.

    Harald> In the ensuing discussion, you have argued that there
    Harald> should be other procedures for mailing list management,
    Harald> which are suited to "lesser offenses".

    Harald> Doing this at the same time as considering the PR-action
    Harald> against "X" has some interesting consequences:

    Harald> - The "problem behaviour" that the rule seeks to address
    Harald> is likely to get crafted so that it's clear whether "X"'s
    Harald> behaviour falls within or outside the description. While
    Harald> this makes things clearer in this case, I believe that
    Harald> history shows very low predictive value for whether or not
    Harald> such a rule will be clear once a new case comes along.

I am not proposing a new rule, simply a new sanction to be made
available.

    Harald> - The "reaction" that the rule seeks to implement will
    Harald> take the form of whatever the discussion concludes is a
    Harald> reasonable reaction to the behaviour exhibited by
    Harald> "X". Again, this is no predictor of whether or not the
    Harald> reaction will be adequate, overreaction, or underreaction
    Harald> for the next case that comes along.

Again, I'm not sure I see this applies to create a new possible sanction for the same behavior.

    Harald> - The discussion that has to come before the final
    Harald> crafting of the new rules is likely to take some time -
    Harald> months, if experience is a guide. This offers an excuse
    Harald> for avoiding making a decision in "X"'s specific case -
    Harald> thus prolonging the time of indecision.

I believe this would be unacceptable if it happens.

That's why I I favor an experimental rule.

    Harald> I do not want the IETF to craft rules for "X", and then
    Harald> re-craft them for "Y", "Z" and "W" because hastily crafted
    Harald> rules did not fit the next situation to come along. I want
    Harald> the rules to be reasonable, and stable.  And I think
    Harald> making up rules while considering a specific unique case
    Harald> is harmful to such a process.

Perhaps.  However precident-based case law seems to work well for a
number of process systems.

    Harald> One point in closing:

    Harald> A PR-action, or a mailing list suspension, is NOT a
    Harald> punishment. Rules of order exist to protect the IETF's
    Harald> ability to do its work.

Here we completely agree.

I think I now understand the concerns you have.  I believe perhaps
from a position of hubris that the IESG can manage these risks.

--Sam

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 04:52:50 +0100

>     Harald> Plain Stupid. We've done that too many times to count.

I am not sure I read this mail?
Anyway, this means a jurisprudence.
Under "Y" chairmanship.

At 03:13 01/02/2006, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
>Sam,
>trying to avoid pointing at persons, despite the fact that a 
>specific person is at the heart of the current discussion...... your 
>3 points are very valid reasons for avoiding rule changes, but I 
>think you miss the point I was trying to make.
>

You right. This makes the first alternative.

The second alternative I asked for but not engaged yet is:
- Execute a PR-Action against "Y"
- Do not execute a PR-Action against "Y"

It will be based upon the time wasted since Nov 15th, 2005 in order 
to delay the action decided during the Versailles meeting.

>A PR-action, or a mailing list suspension, is NOT a punishment. 
>Rules of order exist to protect the IETF's ability to do its work.

I need a clarification here. Do you mean that once you engaged a PR 
defamaction, only Y can talk, and X should shut-up or this is a DoS 
and prevents the IETF to carry its work?

jfc