Network Working Group S. Hartman
Request for Comments: 4633 MIT
Category: Experimental August 2006
Experiment in Long-Term Suspensions From
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Mailing Lists
Status of This Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
Discussion in the community has begun to question whether RFC 3683
and RFC 3934 provide the appropriate flexibility for managing
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) mailing lists. This document
is an RFC 3933 experiment designed to allow the community to
experiment with a broader set of tools for mailing list management
while trying to determine what the long-term guidelines should be.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................1
2. Requirements notation ...........................................3
3. Definition of IETF Mailing List .................................3
4. The Experiment ..................................................4
5. How the Experiment May Be Used (Informative) ....................4
6. Security Considerations .........................................5
7. Acknowledgements ................................................5
8. References ......................................................5
8.1. Normative References .......................................5
8.2. Informative References .....................................5
1. Introduction
As discussed in RFC 3683, the IETF needs to have rules of conduct to
limit disruptive or abusive behavior while permitting a 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.
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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 Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). However,
RFC 2418 applied only to working group mailing lists.
The IETF discussion list charter [RFC3005] provides guidelines for
ietf@ietf.org. 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 at least one year. 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.
The IESG has issued a statement on mailing list management [IESGLIST]
that allows working group mailing lists to be moderated. Under this
procedure, specific off-topic postings could be discarded. However,
this procedure does not allow the posting rights of an individual to
be suspended; it simply allows the list as a whole to be moderated.
The IESG issued a statement on disruptive postings [IESGDISRUPT] .
This statement applies procedures similar to RFC 3934 and to the
statement on moderated lists to non-working group lists.
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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 working group list easily for 30 days. However, the
only option available to the IESG that permits a longer suspension
for any list besides ietf@ietf.org 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 IESG with the ability to create additional mechanisms to
manage IETF mailing lists while the community decides what mailing
list guidelines are appropriate. In particular, this experiment
allows the IESG to create a level of sanction between RFC 3934 and
RFC 3683 for working group lists and to create sanctions other than
RFC 3683 for non-working group lists. The goal of this experiment is
to improve the functioning of IETF mailing lists while keeping the
process open and fair. This experiment is successful if it gives the
community useful input on how to design a mailing list management
process. It is not expected that this experiment will be adopted in
its current form as a permanent Best Current Practice (BCP).
2. Requirements notation
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
3. Definition of IETF Mailing List
This experiment applies to all IETF mailing lists, including those
not associated with a working group. The definition of a working
group list is clear, but the definition of an IETF mailing list
comprehensive enough to include all IETF mailing lists is not
obvious. For the purpose of this experiment, an IETF mailing list is
defined as follows.
An "IETF mailing list" is defined as the IETF list itself, any
mailing list operated to further the work of a current IETF Working
Group (WG), any mailing list created for WG use but retained for
ongoing discussion after that WG was shut down, any mailing list
created in support of an IETF-specified procedure (including mailing
lists whose purpose is the discussion of registration actions), and
any mailing list hosted on any site or system operated by the IASA or
otherwise on behalf of the IETF. Mailing lists listed at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/nwg_list.cgi are explicitly
included in this definition.
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4. 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. Under such procedures the IESG may 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 MUST inform the community in a public statement of any
procedures for mailing list management approved under this
experiment. Such a statement should include the description of the
procedure and the description of mailing lists to which it applies or
an indication that it applies to all IETF mailing lists. The IESG
MUST make a public announcement of a new procedure at least 14 days
prior to the procedure taking effect. Although the community is
encouraged to comment on any IESG action, community consensus is not
required to approve such a procedure. All currently active
procedures under this experiment MUST be made public in an
appropriate, easy-to-find location.
Sanctions made under this memo may be appealed using the procedures
outlined in [RFC2026].
5. How the Experiment May Be Used (Informative)
The IESG could approve a procedure allowing it to suspend an
individual from one or more mailing lists for a fixed period of time
greater than 30 days.
Also, the IESG could delegate this power. Two types of delegation
are envisioned. In the first, the IESG has a procedure that allows
it to suspend a named individual from a list and to grant the
managers of that list the delegated authority to continue to apply
longer suspensions if disruptive behavior continues. In the second,
the IESG approves a procedure that specifies a set of lists and
allows managers of those lists to take action unilaterally after an
initial suspension in a manner similar to RFC 3683.
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6. Security Considerations
This document describes a modification to the IETF process for
managing mailing list discussions. It has no security
considerations.
7. Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Brian Carpenter and John Klensin for valuable
input in drafting this experiment.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process --
Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3933] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, November 2004.
8.2. Informative References
[IESGDISRUPT] "IESG Statement on Disruptive Posting", URL
http://www.ietf.org/IESG/STATEMENTS/statement-
disruptive-posting.txt, February 2006.
[IESGLIST] "IESG guidance on the moderation of IETF Working Group
Mailing Lists", URL
http://www.ietf.org/IESG/STATEMENTS/moderated-
lists.txt, August 2000.
[RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
[RFC3005] Harris, S., "IETF Discussion List Charter", BCP 45,
RFC 3005, November 2000.
[RFC3683] Rose, M., "A Practice for Revoking Posting Rights to
IETF Mailing Lists", BCP 83, RFC 3683, March 2004.
[RFC3934] Wasserman, M., "Updates to RFC 2418 Regarding the
Management of IETF Mailing Lists", BCP 94, RFC 3934,
October 2004.
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Author's Address
Sam Hartman
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
EMail: hartmans-ietf@mit.edu
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Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
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