Appeal to the IESG of an IESG decision (JFC Morfin; 2006-02-17) - 2006-02-17
Appeal - 2006-02-17
Subject: appeal to the IESG of an IESG decision
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:59:38 +0100
From: Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@online.fr>
To: iesg@ietf.org
Dear IESG Members,
you will find the PDF of this appeal at http://jefsey.com/iesg-lc-appeal.pdf.
jfc
APPEAL TO THE IESG AGAINST AN IESG DECISION
I gave a chance to a resolution of this conflict in peace. I delayed
this appeal to the maximum of the IESG decided calendar. I indicated
in vain on which reasonable basis for the IETF and the concerned
parties a solution could be found. I used an IESG appeal to force a
beginning of dialog with Harald Alvestrand. I do not see what I could
do more. So, let another appeal be, since everyone but me seems to enjoy.
On January 18th 2006 Scott Hollenbeck has notified by mail sent on
the IETF mailing list that the IESG has decided to consider the
request of Harald Alvestrand of a PR-action against me. I appeal
against this decision, if I am correct, made for the IESG as per RFC
3683 by the quitting IETF Application AD.
- an illegal RFC
I am not interested in this part in the conformance of the IESG
procedure with RFC 3683, nor in the particulars of the case. They are
addressed in other parts. I am interested in the general conformance
of RFC 3683 (as experimented through this case) with the Human
Rights. From my experience RFC 3863 PR-actions are in violation of
the most elementary rights of the persons.
"Article 10 - Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and
public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the
determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal
charge against him. "
- The IESG decides to prosecute and will be the jury. It is not impartial.
- Some IESG Members may have COI in the case. It is not independent.
- The prosecution benefits from a "shepherd", the defence not. There
is no equality. - Hearings are not public since IESG may receive mails not disclosed
to the considered IETF participant. - Hearings are not fair since the accused participant cannot
contradict the charges (which have not even been investigated).
"Article 11 - Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to
be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public
trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence."
- from experience no public mail presumed innocence, none from IESG
even discussing its possibility. - RFC 3683 is a lynching under the IESG responsibility which permits
ad hominems on a large scale - the defence has no other right than to be insulted and to be
explained how/why it will not be read.
"Article 12 - No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference
with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon
his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection
of the law against such interference or attacks."
- the RFC 3683 appears to be a license for arbitrary interference
with privacy and personal business and for defamation and attacks
upon the honour and reputation of the considered IETF participant. - the IETF offers no protection such as secret of the mails sent on
the case, banning of the public comments, co-action in justice to
protect the honour and reputation of its considered participants,
responsibility of the plaintiff. PR-action seems to be a one way duel.
"Article 19 - Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontier"
- RFC 3683 permits to censor any minority position as off-topic or
disruptive with no other proof needed than to declare it.
I wish to note that this case has developed because I am concerned by
the good of the IETF. But I may disagree with its "affinity group"
described by RFC 3774. My reasons are detailed by the IAB in RFC
3869. I therefore respect the Internet standard process and its
appeal procedures. I shown I have no intent to harm the IETF, to the
contrary. RFC 3869 is supposed to address real disrupters' cases. By
essence, disrupters would be disrupters. They would take advantage
from the flaws I experiment. I am in particular concerned by the
negative result the publicity in media of an RFC 3869 case like this
one. Also, by the devastation justice actions against defamers could
represent: for the individual defamers, for their corporation when
they use corporate mailnames, for the IETF which endorsed the
proceedings. Also, by the impact on IETF participation when
participants understand the IETF does not care about their reputation
and honour when the way its "leaders" want to "influence the way
people design, use, and manage the Internet" (RFC 3935) is at stake.
I proposed some remedies to these difficulties and I am ready to
discuss them from my own experience. But even with such remedies the
effect is limited to disrupters who accept the decisions of the IESG
in their disfavour. I hardly call them disrupters
"Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set
forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as
race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,
national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
- the whole concept of RFC 3683 is based upon the intent to protect
WG from designated disrupters. This calls for a decision to know from
the past if in the future a participant will be a disrupter and to
decide preventive suspension. This is definitely discrimination on the origin. - I note that in many occasions I met discrimination on language,
opinion and R&D status basis. In no case the debate by the IETF on
this issue has been up to now technical.
- a PR-action can be a DoS against the IESG and the concerned participant.
2.1. I have the feeling of being used as a fire ship against the
IESG. In respecting the Internet standard process my only possibility
is in mailing and appealing to the IESG. This way I increase their
workload and mine. I bore them negatively. I get bored myself. All
the more than I ignore the mails the IESG may receive.
2.2. the PR-action has triggered active and disrupting threads on the
IETF mailing list. This was expectable. It led to a Draft to be
discussed and a LC to be started. It is opposed. Let suppose my
mailing had been worthless, what it was not. The total of time wasted
by the PR-action since October, over the whole IETF is significantly
more important than the total of time my own mailing could have made
wasted. Yet, there is not risk for the PR-action requester to be held
accountable for this waste if he is turned wrong.
2.3. If I am correct the PR-action request is to ban me from WG-LTRU
and ietf-languages@alvestrand.no, so they can perform their job.
WG-LTRU should have concluded their work for a long (I was not
involved in their current work, what lead to long blank time). This
is why I have the distinctive feeling that the PR-action is actually
to protect the ietf-languages@alvestrand.no from being disbanded in
application of the RFC 3066 Bis. Why to urgently ban me from two
nearly defunct mailing lists? But then, how to disband a list one has
painstakingly "protected" from its competition. As if I was the only
one and the worst ....
I am supposed to have opposed the consensus driven process in being
"off-topic"/"disruptive". I submit that I actually drove the
consensus process (against me in most of the cases). This way, I
obtained the IESG agreement I wanted, when I wanted it. This can
easily be verified in considering the difference of Draft quality
between its Dec. 2004 (I made to fail) and its IESG approved Nov.
2005 version. The number of comments registered by the Chair in his
system can also demonstrate it. The time of approval, compared to the
Tunis agreement.
One may not share my point of view. One may not understand my
Franglish (surprising on a list of foreign language experts). One may
find my propositions too complex, stupid, etc. This does not mean I
am off-topic and disruptive in the way documented by RFC 3869. But, I
understand that one may be upset at having consensually decided in my
favour. And not to be fair-play.
2.4. If some may doubt that I consensually obtained the points I
wanted, here is a partial list:
- the IESG approved of an over constraining RFC 3066 Bis ABNF limited
to the intents of its authors - the IANA opened the Language Subtag/Etension Registry, closing the
ietf-languages@alvestrand.no - the WSIS confirmed the world's call for network multilingualisation
and work on language codes. - the Tunis agreement eventually made the Internet local to the USA
as per the Congress resolution - the IAB confirmed the need to seriously organise the non-WG mailing lists
- my intents on ethics, user representation, multilingualisation have
not been opposed by the IAB/IESG. - my RFC 3066 Bis is a security warning and an interoperability
proposition on the IETF site for ever.
The WG-LTRU is engaged in filtering issues and mudded in RFC 3066 Bis
limitations: My RFC 4251 proposition (refused to be considered by the
Chair, AD and IESG - now in my appeal) could help them to address it.
The DRS (distributed registries system) I work on will not be harmed
by the constrained RFC 3066 Bis. It will provide an interoperability patch.
I was eventually able to kiss good-bye to the now purposeless
ietf-language@alvestrand.no mailing list: But I had to wait for my
posting rights to be restored...
2.5. I have two remaining interests:
-
the appeal I introduced about RFC 3066 Bis. It would permit RFC
3066 Bis to be accepted as an Internet local solution by other systems. -
the respect of the IESG authority resulting from RFC 3066 Bis. This
concerns: (a) the creation, the publishing and the control of the
ietf-languages@iana.org by the IANA, (b) the regular procedure of
appointment by the IESG of an independent and consensually accepted
Languages Subtag (and Extension) Reviewer, competent in modern
multimodal language issues, international affairs, network
technology, applications development, and their marketing, political
and societal extension.
- the discrepancies of the case
3.1. The notification of the PR-action mentions that Harald
Alvestrand has requested it. It does not even bother to quote this
request. So I do not even have a quote of the act of accusation.
Actually none had it during the whole LC which ends today. This means
that the whole LC may have discussed many things but the LC matter.
This obviously voids the LC.
3.2. No serious investigation on the allegations of that request has
been carried (at least of the request I perused five months ago).
There were some point I could alone to document in my interest. Many
other I really need to be explained: I just do not understand them (I
received a reasonable number of mails which show that I am not alone).
3.3. the rationale of PR-action is not what I did, but actions
undertaken against me by others upon motives they decided or
decisions they took. This is a bizarre situation. This is the first
time that I find something in the Internet architecture, which fully scales.
3.4. I note there are two kinds of suspension used to support the
PR-action request:
3.4.1. suspensions by the WG-LTRU Chairs.
- what has Harald Alvestrand to do with the WG-LTRU management?
- the last quoted date is 8 Nov 2005 - a week before I
obtained what I wanted (cf. supra) and I drop interest in WG-LTRU
(except to assist them, in the case my appeals would result in
requiring some text changes). My target was a competition harmless
correctly made document adopted by consensus. I proposed to co-write.
This was decided by the Chairs, with no debate, it would be a
continuation of the twice LC failed Draft. Under the circumstances, I
could only build a consensual propositions against me. This lead to a
special situation, but it worked. I was actually leading the
consensus driven process. An appeal to the IESG would have killed
that efficient system. I only made clear that it would happen at the
end of the process. Experience shows that it permitted me introduce a
very limited appeal.
3.4.2. suspensions from Harald Alvestrand.
When it became clear they were part of a vision tending to oppose the
IESG RFC 3066 Bis authority and maintain a control on the IANA
Languages Registries, I appealed of the current one. The IAB turned
down the IESG confirmation. I appealed from the next one: it is under
consideration.
3.5. Legitimacy of the request for PR-action
ietf-languages@alvestrand.no is considered by the IESG as an IETF
Mailing list (while the IAB calls for a clear status of the non-WG
lists). Harald Alvestrand's request would not hold if there were not
a formal IESG decision to that end. I did not find that decision, nor
its date (prior to the date of the warning).
Appendix: Scott Hollenbeck mail
At 13:34 18/01/2006, Scott Hollenbeck wrote:
The IESG has received a request from Harald Alvestrand to approve an
RFC 3683 PR-action ("posting rights" action) for JFC (Jefsey) Morfin
as a result of a pattern of prior warning and posting rights
suspensions for off-topic postings to the LTRU working group and
ietf-languages mailing lists that have not produced a change in
behavior. This behavior has been characterized as a
"denial-of-service" attack to disrupt the consensus-driven process as
described in Section 1 of RFC 3683. A timeline of warnings and
posting rights suspensions related to this request is included below.
The IESG will consider this request. If approved, the PR-action
described in Section 2 of RFC 3683 includes provisions to allow list
administrators to suspend Mr. Morfin's posting rights to the LTRU
working group and ietf-languages mailing list for at least one
year. Maintainers of other IETF mailing lists may also remove
posting rights to their mailing lists at their discretion.
The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send any comments to the
iesg@ietf.org or ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 17 February 2006.
For the IESG,
Scott Hollenbeck
Applications Area Director
Private warnings sent for LTRU working group mailing list postings:
7 July 2005
16 July 2005
23 September 2005
26 October 2005
Public warnings and suspensions for LTRU working group and ietf-languages
mailing list postings:
17 March 2005 (ietf-languages warning)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-March/003236.html
5 April 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg00564.html
12 May 2005 (LTRU suspension)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg01737.html
26 May 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg01897.html
(Used as basis for 4 July suspension.)
15 June 2005 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-June/003474.html
4 July 2005 (LTRU suspension)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg02532.html
(Appealed to AD, appeal upheld, new warning given.)
5 July 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg02548.html
15 September 2005 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-September/003585.html
26 September 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03755.html
7 October 2005
PR-Action request sent to IESG
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg38183.html
15 October 2005 (LTRU warning)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03941.html
8 November 2005 (LTRU suspension)
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg04032.html
(Appealed to AD, appeal denied by AD.)
20 November 2005 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-November/003811.html
(Appealed to AD/IESG, appeal denied by IESG, appealed to the IAB.)
13 January 2006 (ietf-languages suspension)
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2006-January/003854.html
-------------------------------- Original Message --------
Subject: Addition to the Appeal concerning the PR-action LC
Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 04:05:25 +0100
From: Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@online.fr>
To: iesg@iesg.org
Dear IESG Members,
I used this appeal to list experimented difficulties raised by the
RFC 3683 and the way the could be addressed. I wish to add two more:
-
once a PR-action is engaged against someone, he starts being
subject to trolls and insidious remarks. The target seems to get him
respond in order to increase the feeling of an intense traffic. I
suggest that, in a way or another, he could report such trolls to the IESG. -
one of the signatorees of the PR-action request against me,
pretends that the name of an another IETF participant (he seems to
dislike) is an alias of mine. Such a double ad homina should not be
tolerated. But more disturbing is the idea that a same PR-action
could be used against several persons on this ground, and used as a
tool against minority members. A solution could be to ask the
concerned parties' passport. This would be a big change in the IETF
praxis. And certainly a destabilisation of the IETF.
I thank you for your attention.
jfc morfin