MODeration PrOceDures
charter-ietf-modpod-01

Background

The IETF Guidelines for Conduct (RFC7154) state that IETF participants “extend respect and courtesy to their colleagues at all times” and “have impersonal discussions.”

The IETF has a number of processes to address moderation of participants in non-face-to-face venues (e.g., RFC3934, RFC9245, BCP83, and “IESG Statement of Disruptive Posting”) in response to behavior which violates the IETF guidelines for conduct (RFC7154). Experience implementing moderation in the IETF has found:

• that BCP83 has led to substantial strife within the community;
• Inconsistency between working group and plenary lists policies;
• A lack of defined policies for forums beyond email (e.g., chat, wikis);
• Inconsistent application of existing policies due to community disagreement on the thresholds for reacting to disruptive behavior; and
• Application of RFC3934 or posting-rights action (BCP83) to be perceived as cumbersome, slow, making it ill-suited to situations that escalate quickly.

Scope of Work

The MODeration PrOceDures (MODPOD) work group will revise existing and define new moderation procedures suitable for all IETF communication channels. The approaches the WG defines will (in no particular order of importance):

• Aim to ensure that consistent and fair moderation procedures exist for all channels/forums in the IETF
• Determine who can take moderation actions on a per channel/forum basis, how they are selected and the terms of their service, and the authority afforded to them
• Determine who can initiate or propose a moderation action
• Balance the need between privacy and dignity of individuals involved with the need for transparency to evaluate moderator adherence to policies.
• Be flexible to varying circumstances, allowing for timely, appropriate responses in each situation.
• Be capable of responding to patterns of behavior across channels/forums and moderating them collectively
• Enable the use of more consistent moderation actions across channels/forums
• Have a clear, consistent, and efficient path for appeals
• Have a process to review previous moderator actions

The WG will elaborate on how the moderation role and associated procedures interact or overlap with other roles such as working group chairs and the IETF Ombudsteam.

As a starting point, the working group will consider draft-ecahc-moderation and draft-lear-bcp38-replacement, and associated discussions. An eventual proposal for the working group can be based on adopting aspects from these inputs or from a new approach.

The revising or redefining of related Ombudsteam policies or practices such as RFC7776, Sections 1 and 2 of RFC 9245, or the IETF Guidelines for Conduct (RFC7154) is out of scope.

Deliverables

At a minimum, the working group will update or obsolete BCP83, and may update or obsolete other related RFCs such as BCP45.