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Re: Last Call: <draft-farrresnickel-harassment-05.txt> (IETF Anti-Harassment Procedures) to Best Current Practice

2015-03-12 09:11:20
On 3/12/15 6:08 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:
Hi.
I wanted to follow up after some off-list discussions with Pete.  I do
not mean to imply that Pete agrees with these issues; we discussed some
ways of addressing them below, and I give Pete credit for ideas that are
his.  However, Pete did not express an opinion about whether I had
identified issues that required resolution, simply worked to find
solutions.
Thanks for a really helpful discussion.

We did have a really good discussion. Unfortunately, we didn't get to complete that discussion, so there were a couple of points that remain outstanding below that I think are some basic misses. Hopefully they can be addressed straightforwardly.

There are two basic issues: Confidentiality, and removal from offices.

On confidentiality:

the first
relates to confidentiality and both Pete and I believe this is easy to
address.

We do, which is why I find:

I think the text about confidentiality is highly problematic.

A bit of a weird thing to say. Sam's concern really comes down to softening "strict confidence" to something like "as strict confidence as practically possible" and adding a single line:

So, I propose that  the list of items that the ombudsteam needs to
document in their procedures should be expanded to include "Description
of the current thinking of when disclosures of confidential information
are made in the process and to whom."

I'm sure the wording can be improved.

I don't think that changes the intent of the document at all, and I'm comfortable (it's up to Jari) to add that during AUTH48 or as an RFC Editor Note.

So I think this one is straightforward.

As for the second issue, I think there's a basic piece that's missing in Sam's analysis, which we didn't get a chance to talk about offline:

When I heard that the IESG added text saying that the ombudsteam cannot
remove a leader, I felt a great anger.  How could they do that?

The IESG *didn't* do that. Your premise is incorrect. The text that says that the ombudsteam cannot remove a leader has been in there since -03 due to public discussions. That bit was agreed to long ago and it has not been changed. What got changed during IESG Evaluation was to eliminate the one piece of text that said that the ombudsteam can *recommend* removal. The IESG did that because it was realized that the Ombudsteam *couldn't* recommend removal without revealing confidential information.

I'm not inclined to respond to the rest of Sam's comment here, since I think the issue that he bases it on does not exist. I don't think that at this point, after Last Call and after IESG Evaluation, this issue should be re-opened unless Sam feels that the change the IESG made (i.e., the removal of the idea that the Ombudsteam can recommend removal) changes the whole intent in such a way that it must be re-visited. That's between Sam and Jari. But I think the bigger concerns that Sam brings up simply don't apply here.

As Sam said, we ran out of time when we were chatting offline. I'll try to get back with him and see if we can determine what, if any, issues remain and hopefully we can bring some shared understanding to the list.

pr

--
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478

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