On 8/24/22 06:09, Eliot Lear wrote:
I miss the days when IETF was often capable of having constructive technical discussions, even when some participants' frustration was evident, without the need for moderators or Tone Police.
As it happens, I went back in history the last time we had this debate and found that indeed culturally we as a community have been poorly behaved all along.
This means nothing to me, because I don't know what specifically
you mean by "poorly behaved", and it strikes me as quite likely
that your idea of poor behavior is very different from mine.
(For example, I would probably consider deliberately
non-constructive feedback as "poor behavior" no matter how
politely it were phrased.)
But it's never to late to improve, I say. And some still have to start that journey, and so we have moderators.
I argue that it's a step in the wrong direction, unless you think
the journey should be one of suppressing diverse input. (I do
not agree with that.)
A step that increases intolerance (no matter how well intended) does not make IETF more able to incorporate diverse input to build a consensus. Instead, what it does is consolidate control in the hands of a few people.
I do accept some need for moderators, but I believe that the
moderators should act only when necessary, rather than trying to
lay down the law. Particularly when there's a huge potential for
that power to be misused to suppress input that some powerful
parties deem unfavorable to their interests.
As best as I can recall, some people were really good at responding constructively to less-than-perfect input, and this practice had the effect of making the community more inclusive rather than less. That's a skill we (as a community) would do well to cultivate.In that same review, I didn't find a single case where inappropriate comments (including some of my own) ever led to constructive results. I may have missed something, so feel free to find a counter-example.
This seems disingenuous on many levels. I don't know what you
mean by "inappropriate" but it's kind of a meaningless statement
because you are citing vague and subjective criteria for both the
propriety of comments and the constructiveness of results.
You're asking me to cite a counter-example when not only are your
criteria vague, you haven't cited any examples in support of your
argument. It also seems like you're begging the question.
The suppression of one person's speech for arbitrary or
unclear reasons also has the (intended or unintended)
effect of suppressing others' speech, because people look at
how others are sanctioned to get a sense of what they themselves
are permitted to do. People tend to pay more attention to how
things seem to work in practice, than to rules that are buried on
a web site.
Taking this most recent bit of "feedback" as an example, it would
be very easy for a participant to get the impression from that
feedback that it's considered "uncivil" to criticize IETF or its
leadership for past decisions. Or that it's considered "uncivil"
to show signs of frustration. Neither of those impressions serve
IETF's mission, but rather, undermine it.
But even more importantly, there are often better ways of
responding to less-than-perfect input than by publicly calling out
people who provide such input. And sure, perhaps "inappropriate"
(your word) comments rarely lead directly to constructive
results. In particular, pretty much everyone has a difficult
time responding constructively to insults. But I can think of
lots of people who started out being not terribly constructive
(IMO) who eventually became valued contributors, not because they
were "called out" but because people took the time to
constructively listen to them, engage with them, focus attention
on the salient technical points, and work to clarify those
points.
When people believe they're listened to and their input is
valued, they're more likely to participate constructively.
And "calling out" is far more likely to be harmful than
constructive.
Keith
(I do accept that moderation needs to be visible and transparent,
so that the community has a sense of whether it's being applied
fairly. But it can be used sparingly, and there may be better
ways of being transparent than to publicly shame people the minute
they cross some arbitrary line.)
