On 8/25/22 03:01, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
On Wed, Aug 24, 2022 at 11:32 PM Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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.
I don't know if it is, because I have to take into account what you believe to be harmful corrections, which is rather subjective and may change from one case to the next.
And I think it largely ignores the original damage, which to me is the greater cause for concern.
For me the collateral damage from the corrective action is much
worse, though I don't want to dismiss the original damage.
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.])
This discussion is focused almost solely on corrective administrative actions, almost to the exclusion of what triggered them in the first place. I'm suggesting that we shouldn't separate them.
I don't think we should separate them either, because the
seriousness of corrective actions should be related to the
seriousness of harm done by the original speaker. But the ideas
that censorship does harm, and arbitrary rules become tools for
abuse, and arbitrary actions do harm, shouldn't be at all
surprising. Tolerance deserves at least as much consideration as
control.
Good. I thought the point had gotten lost.
But it's not outside the realm of possibility for some newcomer to note the conduct that got this thread started, and then notice that 40+ messages later, we're still debating whether there should be any corrective action.
You say that like it's a Bad Thing. I'd rather there be
thorough examination of the pros and cons of some corrective
action, than to have such action blindly imposed out of a naive
belief that control is the only way to address the issue.
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.
If I have to tolerate the occasional personal insult in the interest of progress, I trust you can tolerate me asking people to keep it in check when it comes out. Is that unfair?
Sounds about right to me.
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 can't tell if you're being serious or hyperbolic. I don't perceive that anyone is proposing to quash vigorous debate or candor in the name of safe spaces.
That's certainly how it has looked to me in the past, and I've
seen people on this list vigorously disagree with the idea that
candor is a virtue in technical discussions.
Of course not. But they may need to be willing to be assertive whether or not that's ok in their native cultures, to deal with other contributors who are also assertive, to engage in discussions that are difficult because their opinions and assumptions are being challenged, to rethink old assumptions, to make difficult compromises with people who have different assumptions and somewhat different values, to deal with passionate people who have invested a lot in the work they've done. etc. And some people are going to think they're being rude for standing up for their ideas, and they might perceive others as rude for standing up for theirs.
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.
No argument from me that newcomers will have to learn new skills to do standards work. We all did. What I don't want them to come away with is the notion that in order to succeed here, you need to be gruff, aggressive, rude (for some definition thereof), insulting, or anything of the sort.
If the community can accomplish this without regulation from above, I'm 100% in favor of it. But I also think this community has [d]evolved recently such that, sometimes, it needs help.
In recent years my impression has been that such "help" was
detrimental. And I think the idea of community ownership has
unfortunately fallen in disfavor among IETF leadership in recent
years. But I think it's how you get volunteers to buy in - you
get them to make it their own idea and let them work out the
details. Isn't that the trick of successful leadership in
general?
Keith
