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Re: Drafts that can't be serious

2015-04-20 18:49:42
+1 to David's comments.

One additional observation.  I've read, and tried working with,
the IESG statement before this.  IMO, and based on discussions
with Counsel and a DMCA contributor long enough ago that I was
concerned about personal liability, the statement almost
certainly needs work, if only because there are scenarios where
making the sole mechanism for determining whether an I-D should
be taken down a matter of IESG consensus discretion may be
inappropriate.  Consider, without getting into lawyer-land by
speculating on effects, the following scenarios:

(1) The IETF receives a DMCA takedown notice that alleges a
particular I-D contains serious copyright violations.  The
statement, if taken seriously, does not permit the IAD or
Secretariat to remove the I-D: the IESG must be consulted and
reach consensus.

(2) Noting that the author of a draft cannot have it removed
except by asking the IESG and hoping that their consensus is to
go along with the request, suppose it is discovered that an I-D
accidentally disclosed important trade secret material and the
company involved claims that it is more damaged with each day
the material is available.

(3) An I-Ds is posted that makes personal and suggestive
allegations about some other IETF participant that the latter
considers harassment or worse.  Do the new harassment
prevention/ mitigation mechanisms allow taking such a draft down
or does the ombudteam (or the author) have to politely ask the
IESG to make a decision on the subject and hope they go along?

(4) Does (3) change at all if "allegations" are replaced by
potentially defamatory or libelous statements.

I note that we have a variety of disclaimers and required author
assertions of responsibility for what is posted.  I have no
reason to believe they are in any way inadequate to protect the
IETF from problems associated with initial posting.  The
questions arise as to whether the takedown mechanisms or the
time they are likely to take are appropriate given the above
scenarios or others.

   john


--On Monday, April 20, 2015 14:08 -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:


https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/removal-of-an-internet
-draft.html
Exactly. We could always turn that into a BCP I suppose, 


Separate from the usual question of the IESG setting IETF
policy by fiat, without explicitly developing IETF rough
consensus, there's the small matter of finding that policy
about the handling of Internet Drafts.

A visitor to the ietf site, is not likely to wander through
pages until they find this policy.  Rather, I'd expect anyone
who is curious about the draft 'series' to look at:

   ietf.org  ->  "Internet Drafts"
<http://www.ietf.org/id-info/

There, the only the text they will see on removal is:

   "Internet-Drafts have no formal status, and are subject to
change or removal at any time;"

If the IESG statement is, in fact, IETF policy on Internet
Draft removal, it probably should be cited on that page.