RIPE Discussion Mailing List Moderation and Archives
Dear colleagues, In light of recent events on this mailing list, I have put together some thoughts on moderation and a proposed way forward. I will put this topic on the agenda for the RIPE 85 Community Plenary. Context On 22 July, a highly offensive racist email was sent to the RIPE Discussion List. This mail clearly violates the RIPE Code of Conduct. After discussion with the RIPE NCC, we decided to enable moderation on the list. On 23 July, people who had responded to the offender, notably myself, the RIPE NCC’s Chief Community Officer, and another RIPE community member, were sent further offensive mails by this person and were subjected to ‘subscription bombing’ attacks (many thousands of mailing list subscription requests sent to our inboxes). List Moderation All mails sent to <ripe-list@ripe.net> have been held for moderation since this incident. They are reviewed by either Niall O’Reilly or myself (as the RIPE Chair Team) before they are allowed through to the list. The RIPE community has always been open to everyone and it has a demonstrated ability to self-govern. We therefore view our decision here as quite a severe one. Nevertheless, we have received a lot of support from community members for these actions. With that support in mind, we propose that we continue with moderation of the list until at least RIPE 85. The moderation queue will be reviewed at least once a day, and together Niall and I will decide how to proceed. If one of us is unavailable, we will coordinate with other community members to ensure that we always have more than one person available to moderate the list. I will also provide a transparency report to keep the community informed of activities and decisions ‘behind the scenes’ (i.e. whether mails have been held/rejected and how many). So far, no mails have been rejected without us first contacting the original sender. This helps to increase understanding of the process. However, it will ultimately be the moderators who decide if a mail is rejected or not. Offensive or Illegal Mails We will remove the mail from 22 July from the RIPE List archives. This message has no content beyond its aim to cause offense. Modifying archives is not something we do lightly. In this case, we believe it is important to avoid the implication that this kind of language is acceptable to us as a community, especially for anyone reading the archives in the future. Rather than simply removing the mail, I asked the RIPE NCC to move the content of the URL in question and replace it with an explanation that makes it clear that a message has been taken out and why. This would also apply to another mail sent in response, as it quoted the offensive mail. We also understand that the offensive email is illegal under Dutch law. Because the RIPE NCC maintains the public archives of our mailing lists, it is regarded as a hosting provider and with this comes an obligation to remove unlawful content from its public infrastructure. Future Archives Some community members have suggested that we set up an ‘unmoderated archive’, which is similar to how the RIPE NCC Member Discussion List is currently set up. I agree that this is a workable solution that supports transparency. It means that the complete archives, including any rejected mails, will be available under a different URL that is separate from the regular RIPE List archives. We propose not indexing these unmoderated archives so they do not appear in search engines. We will also add a warning to this page so that people are informed that they might find rude or offensive content in the unmoderated archives. We believe such an approach is important for transparency, while at the same time avoiding receiving offensive emails that undermine the important work of our community. Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair
Thanks, Mirjam, for your detailed clarifications below and all your efforts (and those of the RIPE Chair Team, the NCC staff and the community as a whole) in tackling this. What you have outlined seems to me as a good way forward: how about doing it the RIPE way and put it in a document? Cheers - and have a good weekend, all: -C. On 02.09.2022 09:02, Mirjam Kuehne wrote:
Dear colleagues,
In light of recent events on this mailing list, I have put together some thoughts on moderation and a proposed way forward. I will put this topic on the agenda for the RIPE 85 Community Plenary.
Context
[...]
Mirjam, thank you for your explanation and your suggestions. This seems like a reasonable way forward to me, especially having a discussion on this in the community plenary. I was wondering: If you have to remove an email from the archive for legal reasons, why would this be different for an unmoderated archive? Regards, Markus On 02.09.22 09:02, Mirjam Kuehne wrote:
Dear colleagues,
In light of recent events on this mailing list, I have put together some thoughts on moderation and a proposed way forward. I will put this topic on the agenda for the RIPE 85 Community Plenary.
Context
On 22 July, a highly offensive racist email was sent to the RIPE Discussion List. This mail clearly violates the RIPE Code of Conduct. After discussion with the RIPE NCC, we decided to enable moderation on the list.
On 23 July, people who had responded to the offender, notably myself, the RIPE NCC’s Chief Community Officer, and another RIPE community member, were sent further offensive mails by this person and were subjected to ‘subscription bombing’ attacks (many thousands of mailing list subscription requests sent to our inboxes).
List Moderation
All mails sent to <ripe-list@ripe.net> have been held for moderation since this incident. They are reviewed by either Niall O’Reilly or myself (as the RIPE Chair Team) before they are allowed through to the list.
The RIPE community has always been open to everyone and it has a demonstrated ability to self-govern. We therefore view our decision here as quite a severe one. Nevertheless, we have received a lot of support from community members for these actions. With that support in mind, we propose that we continue with moderation of the list until at least RIPE 85.
The moderation queue will be reviewed at least once a day, and together Niall and I will decide how to proceed. If one of us is unavailable, we will coordinate with other community members to ensure that we always have more than one person available to moderate the list.
I will also provide a transparency report to keep the community informed of activities and decisions ‘behind the scenes’ (i.e. whether mails have been held/rejected and how many).
So far, no mails have been rejected without us first contacting the original sender. This helps to increase understanding of the process. However, it will ultimately be the moderators who decide if a mail is rejected or not.
Offensive or Illegal Mails
We will remove the mail from 22 July from the RIPE List archives. This message has no content beyond its aim to cause offense. Modifying archives is not something we do lightly. In this case, we believe it is important to avoid the implication that this kind of language is acceptable to us as a community, especially for anyone reading the archives in the future.
Rather than simply removing the mail, I asked the RIPE NCC to move the content of the URL in question and replace it with an explanation that makes it clear that a message has been taken out and why. This would also apply to another mail sent in response, as it quoted the offensive mail.
We also understand that the offensive email is illegal under Dutch law. Because the RIPE NCC maintains the public archives of our mailing lists, it is regarded as a hosting provider and with this comes an obligation to remove unlawful content from its public infrastructure.
Future Archives
Some community members have suggested that we set up an ‘unmoderated archive’, which is similar to how the RIPE NCC Member Discussion List is currently set up. I agree that this is a workable solution that supports transparency. It means that the complete archives, including any rejected mails, will be available under a different URL that is separate from the regular RIPE List archives.
We propose not indexing these unmoderated archives so they do not appear in search engines. We will also add a warning to this page so that people are informed that they might find rude or offensive content in the unmoderated archives.
We believe such an approach is important for transparency, while at the same time avoiding receiving offensive emails that undermine the important work of our community.
Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair
Hi Markus, Thanks for your feedback. Regarding your question: illegal content will also have to be (re)moved from the unmoderated archives. However, there can be many other reasons for moderating/rejecting a mail. Illegal content will hopefully be a very rare exception. The unmoderated archives are there to provide transparency into that process and the decisions made by the moderator. Kind regards, Mirjam On 03/09/2022 12:30, Markus de Brün wrote:
Mirjam,
thank you for your explanation and your suggestions. This seems like a reasonable way forward to me, especially having a discussion on this in the community plenary. I was wondering: If you have to remove an email from the archive for legal reasons, why would this be different for an unmoderated archive?
Regards, Markus
On 02.09.22 09:02, Mirjam Kuehne wrote:
Dear colleagues,
In light of recent events on this mailing list, I have put together some thoughts on moderation and a proposed way forward. I will put this topic on the agenda for the RIPE 85 Community Plenary.
Context
On 22 July, a highly offensive racist email was sent to the RIPE Discussion List. This mail clearly violates the RIPE Code of Conduct. After discussion with the RIPE NCC, we decided to enable moderation on the list.
On 23 July, people who had responded to the offender, notably myself, the RIPE NCC’s Chief Community Officer, and another RIPE community member, were sent further offensive mails by this person and were subjected to ‘subscription bombing’ attacks (many thousands of mailing list subscription requests sent to our inboxes).
List Moderation
All mails sent to <ripe-list@ripe.net> have been held for moderation since this incident. They are reviewed by either Niall O’Reilly or myself (as the RIPE Chair Team) before they are allowed through to the list.
The RIPE community has always been open to everyone and it has a demonstrated ability to self-govern. We therefore view our decision here as quite a severe one. Nevertheless, we have received a lot of support from community members for these actions. With that support in mind, we propose that we continue with moderation of the list until at least RIPE 85.
The moderation queue will be reviewed at least once a day, and together Niall and I will decide how to proceed. If one of us is unavailable, we will coordinate with other community members to ensure that we always have more than one person available to moderate the list.
I will also provide a transparency report to keep the community informed of activities and decisions ‘behind the scenes’ (i.e. whether mails have been held/rejected and how many).
So far, no mails have been rejected without us first contacting the original sender. This helps to increase understanding of the process. However, it will ultimately be the moderators who decide if a mail is rejected or not.
Offensive or Illegal Mails
We will remove the mail from 22 July from the RIPE List archives. This message has no content beyond its aim to cause offense. Modifying archives is not something we do lightly. In this case, we believe it is important to avoid the implication that this kind of language is acceptable to us as a community, especially for anyone reading the archives in the future.
Rather than simply removing the mail, I asked the RIPE NCC to move the content of the URL in question and replace it with an explanation that makes it clear that a message has been taken out and why. This would also apply to another mail sent in response, as it quoted the offensive mail.
We also understand that the offensive email is illegal under Dutch law. Because the RIPE NCC maintains the public archives of our mailing lists, it is regarded as a hosting provider and with this comes an obligation to remove unlawful content from its public infrastructure.
Future Archives
Some community members have suggested that we set up an ‘unmoderated archive’, which is similar to how the RIPE NCC Member Discussion List is currently set up. I agree that this is a workable solution that supports transparency. It means that the complete archives, including any rejected mails, will be available under a different URL that is separate from the regular RIPE List archives.
We propose not indexing these unmoderated archives so they do not appear in search engines. We will also add a warning to this page so that people are informed that they might find rude or offensive content in the unmoderated archives.
We believe such an approach is important for transparency, while at the same time avoiding receiving offensive emails that undermine the important work of our community.
Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair
Mirjam Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed explanation of how this is being handled. Personally I’m happy with how the moderation has been handled, though it’s depressing that RIPE has had to resort to this. Unfortunately this was inevitable. Regards Michele -- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting, Colocation & Domains https://www.blacknight.com/ https://blacknight.blog/ Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Personal blog: https://michele.blog/ Some thoughts: https://ceo.hosting/ ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,R93 X265,Ireland Company No.: 370845 From: ripe-list <ripe-list-bounces@ripe.net> on behalf of Mirjam Kuehne <mir@zu-hause.nl> Date: Friday, 2 September 2022 at 08:07 To: RIPE List <ripe-list@ripe.net> Subject: [ripe-list] RIPE Discussion Mailing List Moderation and Archives [EXTERNAL EMAIL] Please use caution when opening attachments from unrecognised sources. Dear colleagues, In light of recent events on this mailing list, I have put together some thoughts on moderation and a proposed way forward. I will put this topic on the agenda for the RIPE 85 Community Plenary. Context On 22 July, a highly offensive racist email was sent to the RIPE Discussion List. This mail clearly violates the RIPE Code of Conduct. After discussion with the RIPE NCC, we decided to enable moderation on the list. On 23 July, people who had responded to the offender, notably myself, the RIPE NCC’s Chief Community Officer, and another RIPE community member, were sent further offensive mails by this person and were subjected to ‘subscription bombing’ attacks (many thousands of mailing list subscription requests sent to our inboxes). List Moderation All mails sent to <ripe-list@ripe.net> have been held for moderation since this incident. They are reviewed by either Niall O’Reilly or myself (as the RIPE Chair Team) before they are allowed through to the list. The RIPE community has always been open to everyone and it has a demonstrated ability to self-govern. We therefore view our decision here as quite a severe one. Nevertheless, we have received a lot of support from community members for these actions. With that support in mind, we propose that we continue with moderation of the list until at least RIPE 85. The moderation queue will be reviewed at least once a day, and together Niall and I will decide how to proceed. If one of us is unavailable, we will coordinate with other community members to ensure that we always have more than one person available to moderate the list. I will also provide a transparency report to keep the community informed of activities and decisions ‘behind the scenes’ (i.e. whether mails have been held/rejected and how many). So far, no mails have been rejected without us first contacting the original sender. This helps to increase understanding of the process. However, it will ultimately be the moderators who decide if a mail is rejected or not. Offensive or Illegal Mails We will remove the mail from 22 July from the RIPE List archives. This message has no content beyond its aim to cause offense. Modifying archives is not something we do lightly. In this case, we believe it is important to avoid the implication that this kind of language is acceptable to us as a community, especially for anyone reading the archives in the future. Rather than simply removing the mail, I asked the RIPE NCC to move the content of the URL in question and replace it with an explanation that makes it clear that a message has been taken out and why. This would also apply to another mail sent in response, as it quoted the offensive mail. We also understand that the offensive email is illegal under Dutch law. Because the RIPE NCC maintains the public archives of our mailing lists, it is regarded as a hosting provider and with this comes an obligation to remove unlawful content from its public infrastructure. Future Archives Some community members have suggested that we set up an ‘unmoderated archive’, which is similar to how the RIPE NCC Member Discussion List is currently set up. I agree that this is a workable solution that supports transparency. It means that the complete archives, including any rejected mails, will be available under a different URL that is separate from the regular RIPE List archives. We propose not indexing these unmoderated archives so they do not appear in search engines. We will also add a warning to this page so that people are informed that they might find rude or offensive content in the unmoderated archives. We believe such an approach is important for transparency, while at the same time avoiding receiving offensive emails that undermine the important work of our community. Kind regards, Mirjam Kühne RIPE Chair -- To unsubscribe from this mailing list, get a password reminder, or change your subscription options, please visit: https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-list
participants (5)
-
Carsten Schiefner -
Markus de Brün -
Michele Neylon - Blacknight -
Mirjam Kuehne -
Randy Bush