On 8/25/22 01:53, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
I was using "respectfully" in the sense of the intent of the person expressing disagreement, not in the sense of how that person is judged.On Wed, Aug 24, 2022 at 7:41 PM Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nor does theirs change mine. But in my experience, "rudeness" is highly subjective, and nowhere nearly universal.For example, what I've seen consistently throughout my life is that people think you're being rude when they think you don't "know your place". They assume that behavior should be governed by a dominance hierarchy, and the people who refuse to adhere to that hierarchy (say, by disagreeing with those seen as having higher status) are seen as rude.
Such a hierarchy is detrimental to consensus-making, and has absolutely no place in IETF. Yes, people with appointed positions have jobs to do and participants should not try to keep them from doing their jobs. But everyone should feel free to respectfully disagree even with those people as long as their disagreement is sincere.
Given this debate, isn't "respectfully" just as subjective as "rudeness"?
But when people are looking for reasons to find fault with others, I'm sure they will find it regardless of the others' intent.
And that anti-pattern is so common that I don't take others' perceptions of rudeness as axiomatically valid. I think they're sincere but not necessary correct. Particularly when they're newcomers to consensus-based decision-making.
I think this line of thinking ascribes a great deal of complexity to what is really a very simple premise: I object to being called "stupid", and if that's to be tolerated, I will gladly remove myself from the place where it's tolerated and take my skills and energy with me. My definition, or yours, or anyone's, of "rude" doesn't factor into that equation.
I don't think anyone should be calling anyone else "stupid", but
to me that's not what this debate is about. I assume it's
uncontroversial and widely agreed that IETF participants should
not call one another "stupid", so I haven't tried to focus on
that. The even more damaging behaviors that don't involve
overt name calling, concern me more.
We all lament that newcomers feel this way, yet a few people cry foul when an action is taken to try to curb that sort of conduct on the basis that this corrective action chills discourse. I would argue that the primary (and to the IETF, lethal) chilling effect has at that point already happened.
IMO, the supposedly-corrective action has a much larger chilling effect than the occasional incident of name-calling. I'm not defending name-calling, but I do object to draconian "corrective" behavior when I believe there's reason that that behavior causes an even greater harm. I hope that difference is clear.
This has nothing to do with hierarchy.
I was talking about (perceived) rudeness, which quite often does have to do with (perceived) hierarchy.
Whose work is being shut down? A person who got their posting rights
restricted for two weeks as warning for targetting insults at
individuals and groups?The harm done by such draconian sanctions is much greater than denying a single person the right to post for two weeks.
I suspect you're discounting (perhaps to zero) the harm done by allowing targeted insults to go unchecked.
(I can't help but wonder, why do so many people feel entitled to believe they've read my mind, tell others what they assume I'm thinking, and implicitly criticize me for that? Is that people's idea of constructive engagement? Is that actually better than calling me "stupid" or just more passive-aggressive? Are the moderators now tempted to step in and take corrective action? [please don't; I have a relatively thick skin and think that would also do more harm than good.])
I will admit that targeted insults can do harm, though I didn't
personally think that the recent messages quite crossed the
threshold of "targeted" because I didn't see them as naming
specific individuals. Reasonable people might disagree on this.
Again just because some behavior is arguably harmful to IETF
discussion, doesn't necessarily justify arbitrary corrective
action, and certainly doesn't justify more censorship that has
already made IETF much more toxic.
If you want to build consensus, you need to be willing to listen even when it's difficult to do so. If you don't want to build consensus, what are you doing in IETF? (it's a rhetorical question; I don't expect an answer)
I'm here to build consensus for topics to which I wish to contribute, even when that's hard work. Sometimes I lose arguments, or I'm in the rough during consensus calls. Sometimes that's really frustrating. But yes, that's part of the process.
I am, however, not here to tolerate being called "stupid" for any reason.
I think we can stop debating that, because I'm pretty sure we're
in agreement on at least that one point.
I think it's flatly wrong -- no, I think it's manifestly absurd -- to claim those two things necessarily go hand in hand, in the sense that if you're here to build consensus, you have to put up with both.
No you shouldn't really have to deal with personal insults,
though I hope that the occasional personal insult can be forgiven
in the interest of progress. This work is frustrating for
everyone at times. so I understand when people let their
frustration show.
But you almost certainly do have to deal with things that you
might perceive as rude. Depending, of course, on specifically
what you perceive as rude. I don't know you well enough to know
what you perceive as rude, but we all have egos and occasionally
they will inevitably get bruised. I think dealing with some
amount of rudeness goes with the territory. There's always going
to be someone who thinks my idea is stupid and is quite
transparent about that, even if they don't specifically use that
word. I don't mind people thinking my ideas are stupid
(sometimes they actually are) or even saying so (if they explain
why they believe that). But I do mind people sabotaging valuable
work without providing any justification for it or even any
discussion.
I'd probably agree with that hypothetical. But I'm not concerned about hypotheticals as much as I am about things that really happen.When people use accusations of rudeness to shut down technical discussion, it is precisely because they don't want to engage in the discussion on technical merits, and they don't want to explain their reasons for sabotaging the discussion. Their very purpose is to sabotage someone else's technical proposal without explaining why.
I suggest another perspective. If you (the hypothetical "you", to be clear) propose something technical, I engage you in debate, and you respond to me with insults or rudeness (wherever one's line for "rude" may be), then whether I choose to complain about your conduct or quietly disengage, I am not the one who sabotaged the technical discussion; you are.
Your argument that "tolerance is a virtue" was something you accepted was
not successfull based on for example the newcomer feedback.Newcomers are not the sole arbiters of what is constructive, particularly in an organization that they do not yet understand, and a practice of consensus-building that is likely alien to them. (unless, say, they're long time Quakers or members of some other group that routinely tries to foster consensus, in which case we should be asking them for advice.)
It's good to get feedback from newcomers, bad to let such feedback dictate policy. If anything such feedback shows how we could do a better job at educating newcomers.
I cringe at the idea that we need to teach newcomers that they need to have really thick skin and will occasionally need to put up with flat-out public abuse because nobody is coming to stop such behavior. Why would anyone stay here?
I cringe at the idea that IETF should be a "safe space" in which
vigorous, passionate discussion is not permitted because someone
might get their feelings hurt. It's impossible to have a useful
technical debate without candor, and if IETF is going to insist on
doing that, it should just disband right now for the good of
everyone.
I agree, we must do better. But expecting that newcomers won't have to learn new skills in order to do this kind of work strikes me as hopelessly naive. We need to promote a wider understanding of how to engage in candid, constructive technical debate; we need to educate old hands as well as newcomers. We need to make this a community effort that everyone feels ownership in, rather than one arbitrarily imposed from above.
Newcomers are the future of this or any organization. A common refrain at NomCom time is to ask how we plan to improve our leadership pipelines. It's not hard to see the connection.
This work is challenging, to be sure, but we certainly don't seem to be keen on making it any more attractive. If we're OK with scaring many of the new people away, we may as well pack everything up and go do something else, because it's only a matter of time before they stop coming and the rest of us retire.
We must do better than this.
Keith
