On 02/21/2014 08:19 PM, Timothy B. Terriberry wrote:
In my view, a successful harassment policy needs to do two things:
1) Clearly establish what is unacceptable behavior.
2) Clearly indicate whom to go to for help.
Section 4 satisfies (2) adequately. This statement, however, indicates
that you are punting on (1). Earlier, the draft references
<http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/ietf-anti-harassment-policy.html>,
which uses much more definitive language on what constitutes
harassment. I would hope we could get IETF consensus on language of
that nature, defining what is clearly unacceptable, even if we wish to
make allowances for culture and leave some room for gray areas and
borderline cases.
While I understand the desire to do (1), in my experience with
discussing harassment policies in other organizations it has been a
rathole, or at least a slippery slope. While it's not too hard to
identify a few obviously harassing or abusive behaviors, it can be very
hard to draw a bright line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors
in general. Simple policies seem to work much better than complicated
ones.
Keith