Hi Bron,
At 05:05 PM 04-11-2021, Bron Gondwana wrote:
There is another issue with asking for discussions to slow down,
which is that mailing lists have people from many different
timezones and with other things going on in their lives. It's quite
unfair for those who aren't awake at the time for the conversation
to move on so fast that they don't get a chance to have any input.
Yes.
So it's quite reasonable to say "you're allowed to send up to three
messages per day and then back off and let somebody else
speak". This is more obvious in an in-person meeting, where it's
pretty clear if a couple of people are monopolising the room and not
giving anybody else a chance to speak.
It would be difficult to enforce a message limit rule on a working
group mailing list.
Likewise, if a couple of people are yelling at each other in an
in-person meeting, the body language of everybody else makes it
quite clear that they are getting out of line - but a similar
escalation of emotionality on a mailing list doesn't have that
real-time dampener effect of the audience feedback you get in a real
room - so a more explicit "let's take a pause, go away and think
about what's important here" does need to happen.
The yelling is risky (please see RFC 7776).
The problem, and I think you identify it well here, is when that
"let's take a pause" is used with an underlying "and hopefully
you'll just go away because I don't like the point you're trying to make".
Using a pause as a way to make people go away is not cool - but
using it to stop somebody saying the same thing over and over,
forcefully, and not waiting for others (who might not be awake or
paying attention right now) to have a chance to contribute to the
conversation first - that's reasonable. Conversations shouldn't be
dominated by those who have the time to write a lot of email at all
hours of the day.
The purpose of the pause is to give everyone enough time to read the
"Note Well". I would not use it to prevent someone from repeating
his/her arguments or to make people go away.
The last sentence (quoted above) is related to the breath of
consensus. A process dominated by a few persons or companies is not
a consensus-based process.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
