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

From: Michael Everson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:57:34 +0000

>From: Sam Hartman [mailto:[email-masked]]
>
>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:

Excuse me? I am the IETF Language Tags reviewer, and the list in 
question for discussion of RFC 3066 is there, basically, for *me*. 
People propose tags, there is some discussion, and we process or 
reject the proposals.

This is NOT the United States Senate and House of Representatives. 
You may think that filibustering is normal and appreciated and 
democratic. It is not. Morfin offers us nothing but bollocks, and it 
interferes with me and my work and I have on more than one occasion 
thought about resigning because of Morfin's poisonousness.

Now stop and think. I'm an expert professional with some reputation 
who has earned a certain amount of respect for my expertise. I am 
busy, too busy for bullshit, but happy enough to try to do a good job 
on for instance RFC 3066.

So who do you want to be nice to? Hm? Whom are the rules protecting? 
What is your goal?

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

Ban him.

>I'd first ask why repeated 30-day suspensions are ineffective.

Because every time the 30 days is up this crap starts all over and I 
have to waste time writing an e-mail to Harald saying "Ban him." I 
am, you will note, wasting time now dealing with Morfin, because I 
have to write to you about it.

>How would a six month suspension be insufficient?  Do we really need 
>an unlimited suspension to get work done?

It would make me happier. You may not care about that.

>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?

Whatever it takes.
-- 
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com

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---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:03:55 +0100

>> This is why I chose to give the necessary time to common
[...]

JFTR, that was in Sam's article where he _quoted_ Jefsey...
 
> Excuse me?

...I guess you missed the quoting, the source is published
in <http://www.ietf.org/IESG/APPEALS/?C=M&O=D>  

Unrelated, I'm not sure why it was published _there_ , the
IAB has its own directory for appeals.

                          Bye, Frank

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:14:10 -0500

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

    Frank> Unrelated, I'm not sure why it was published _there_ , the
    Frank> IAB has its own directory for appeals.

It's an appeal to the IESG.

Jefsey's been a bit active in the appeal front lately:

1) He appealed a typo correction in RFC 3066bis to the area director.  

2) He appealed the rejection in 1 above to the IESG.

3) He appealed his posting suspension from ietf-languages to the area
    director, but the area director believed the IESG as a whole
    needed to rule so we did.

4) He appealed 3 above to the IAB.

5)He appealed the approval of RFC3066bis to the IESG. That appeal is ongoing.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 23:07:53 +0100

> 2) He appealed the rejection in 1 above to the IESG.

Yes, so far I was on track, but I lost it at...
 
> 5) He appealed the approval of RFC3066bis to the IESG. That
>    appeal is ongoing.

...thinking that 5 is the IAB level related to 1+2.  But it's
the "real" appeal against the approval at the IESG level.  Bye

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 09:25:15 -0800

I second what Michael said.

It may be easy for somebody not involved to hit the delete key, and  
it's reasonable to ask "How hard is it to hit the delete key".  But  
for people doing the work, who have to worry about  whether to  
respond or not, whether keeping silent will give everybody else the  
wrong impression, whether this will derail the work again, and  
whether to just give up... it's quite hard to just hit the delete  
key.  Our passion for our work is a strength in some ways but the  
flip side is the risk of serious demoralization in this kind of  
situation.

I approve of this escalation and think we should not set the bar so  
high that no WG  or DL can ever successfully send the message that a  
PR-action sends.

Lisa Dusseault

On Jan 20, 2006, at 6:57 AM, Michael Everson wrote:

> democratic. It is not. Morfin offers us nothing but bollocks, and  
> it interferes with me and my work and I have on more than one  
> occasion thought about resigning because of Morfin's poisonousness.
>
> busy, too busy for bullshit, but happy enough to try to do a good  
> job on for instance RFC 3066.
>
> So who do you want to be nice to? Hm? Whom are the rules  
> protecting? What is your goal?
>
>
> Because every time the 30 days is up this crap starts all over and  
> I have to waste time writing an e-mail to Harald saying "Ban him."  
> I am, you will note, wasting time now dealing with Morfin, because  
> I have to write to you about it.
>
>
>> How would a six month suspension be insufficient?  Do we really  
>> need an unlimited suspension to get work done?
>>
>

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 21 Jan 2006 20:14:59 -0000

>democratic. It is not.

This is the core of the issue.  The point of this forum is to get work
done.  The rules for participation are not hard to figure out, and are
not hard to abide by.  You can be quite passionate and even fairly
obnoxious and not come anywhere close to the point where anyone would
suggest banning you.  This isn't an issue of free speech.  There are a
million places on the Net open to anyone who wants to say anything.
The issue is maintaining an environment where the vast majority of
members who want to get work done can do so.

I cannot tell you how many lists I've been on that have been in
exactly our situation, paralyzed by one or two people who skate along
the edge of being kicked off, choking the list with clouds of
irrelevant smoke.  There's always the same arguments, if we were
disciplined enough to ignore the noise, it wouldn't matter, everyone
has a right to say something, it's about personalities rather than
substance, etc., etc. You all know them as well as I do.

When this happens, I've only ever seen two possible outcomes.  Either
the smoke generators are ejected, or the productive members leave.

R's,
John

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:20:15 +0100

> substance, etc., etc. You all know them as well as I do.

Maybe it's time to heed the arguments instead of just complaining
about them.  I do, and it works well for me; I'm never bothered by
"clouds of irrelevant smoke" on any list, even though most lists
constantly have such clouds drifting about.

Of course, in practice, many people refuse to heed these arguments
because they simply cannot tolerate the thought of anyone being
allowed to say or write anything that they themselves find
objectionable. Filtering the unwanted traffic isn't enough for them;
they want to prevent the whole world from seeing it. They are
irritated not only by the traffic itself, but also by the thought that
anyone else might be able to see that traffic. So they crusade for
constant censorship of every expression of which they don't personally
approve. And eventually they make as much or more noise than the
people whom they find so objectionable, ironically.

Eventually you end up with multiple groups on a list: those who
irritate others, those who want to censor the ones they find
irritating, and--sometimes--a minority of people who are grown-up
enough to stay out of both of these groups and continue their normal
work, cheerfully ignoring the children at play on the list.

> the smoke generators are ejected, or the productive members leave.

There's a third possible outcome: The productive members are smart,
they ignore the smoke, and they continue to work efficiently.  But the
productive members do have to be _smart_, and unfortunately that's
more the exception than the rule, even on lists where the members like
to believe themselves smart.