Re: IESG Statement On Oppressive or Exclusionary Language

["Salz, Rich" <rsalz=40akamai.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

•   But this thread itself is a testament to how free the in-group here feels to express their opinions, and I've had several people outside that group tell me how this toxic conversation is actively discouraging their participation in IETF.

 

I thought we had already agreed a year or so ago that “the way we talk to ourselves” was, because of excessive familiarity and sometimes decades of working together, needlessly off-putting. After bubbling around a bit, it came up during the plenary for example. On a personal note, I have been giving the newcomer’s presentation for a few years now, and I look forward to the time when I don’t have to almost apologize for the harsh way the IETF can communicate.

•   Call them "professionally wounded" or "snowflakes" if you want, but the road this leads down is toward a senescent, obsolescent, irrelevant IETF.  People have better things to do with their time than engage with an organization that doesn't care about them.

 

Agreed.  I don’t think Dan or Ohta-san are going to stop contributing if we stop using a few words. If I’m wrong, I’m sure they’ll let us know. But we have much anecdotal evidence that our conversations, and some of our documents, cause problems for people.

 

• In other words, the pure focus on one side of the risk equation is causing the consequence -- unintended or not -- of driving away new participants.  Which implies to me that we should let up on that and take into account the effects we have on other people -- unintended or not.

 

I’ll go further. I believe this is a direct attempt to stop any forward progress.  Not changing things is their goal after all.