Network Working Group S. Hartman Internet-Draft MIT Expires: July 28, 2006 January 24, 2006 Experimental Procedure for LongTerm Suspensions from Mailing Lists draft-hartman-mailinglist-experiment-00.txt Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on July 28, 2006. 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 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. Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 1. Introduction As discussed in RFC 3683, the IETF needs to have rules of conduct to limit disruptive or abusive behavior while permitting 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. 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 IESG. However RFC 2418 only applies 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 an indefinite period of time. 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. While not strictly within the scope of RFC 3934, the IESG and mailing list managers have assumed that RFC 3934-like procedures can be Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 applied to non-working-group mailing lists. 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 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 community with additional mechanisms to manage its mailing lists while the community decides what mailing list guidelines are appropriate. IN particular this experiment creates a level of sanction between RFC 3934 and RFC 3683. The goal of this experiment is to improve the functioning of IETF mailing lists while keeping the process open and fair. Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 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]. Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 3. 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. The IESG may also 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 is encouraged to perform a community-wide last call when it is appropriate to do so both when evaluating a specific procedure to be applied and when considering the effects of applying that procedure to a specific instance of behavior. The last call is not required however. The reason that the last call is not required is that under RFC 2418, no last call is required; there seems to be no reason to have a procedure more strict than that proposed in RFC 2418. If the IESG conducts an RFC 3683 last call and finds that sanction is inappropriate, it is unlikely that an additional last call will be needed for applying a lesser sanction. Sanctions made under this memo may be appealed using the procedures outlined in [RFC2026]. Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 4. Security Considerations This document describes a modification to the IETF process for managing mailing list discussions. It has no security considerations. Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 5. References 5.1 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. 5.2 Informative References [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, February 2004. [RFC3934] Wasserman, M., "Updates to RFC 2418 Regarding the Management of IETF Mailing Lists", BCP 94, RFC 3934, October 2004. Author's Address Sam Hartman Email: hartmans-ietf@mit.edu Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft Experimental Mailing List Control January 2006 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Disclaimer of Validity This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Hartman Expires July 28, 2006 [Page 8]