On 8/28/22 1:41 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
On 29-Aug-22 08:05, Ofer Inbar wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2022 at 10:22:10AM -0700,
Dan Harkins <dharkins@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You know, one thing that no one has mentioned in this entire
thread is
to just ignore the poster. If someone says "those people are stupid"
you
can just ignore him or her. If someone is repeating himself, or
herself,
Now that it's mentioned, I'll mention the counterargument that I
expect a lot of people were already familiar with and is the reason
they didn't bring this up: It doesn't work. The problem is not just
individuals saying "I, personally, don't want to see this" - it's
the shared understanding that this kind of behavior/writing turns
other people away. People we'll never hear from. People who won't
respond to the list to say they disagree with you, or Keith, because
this wasn't an environment they want to deal with at all.
I have to say that this is true, and it's been true for many years.
When I was in the IAB, I felt it necessary to attend to this list,
however annoying it became. I remember that when I stepped down from
the IAB, I immediately left the list. I took a year or two's holiday
before rejoining. I went through a similar cycle when I was in the
IESG.
I'm not so sure how true that is. There were plenty of people who
left the list quite flamboyantly by declaring they could not tolerate
the hatred and bullying and told everyone how virtuous they were and
ended their email with "bye". (Note: we're supposed to say, "no! come
back! please!"). We know who they are because they wanted us to know,
"look at me...I'm leaving...I'm going now...I'm not coming back...bye!"
Have some people just quietly left? Probably. But then the heavy-handed
moderation (and accusations of "completely unacceptable" behavior by
the guy who appoints the speech cops) has probably also caused people
to either self-censor or leave. We don't have firm data on either but
I'm sure they're both non-zero.
More recently, I've just become much more efficient at ignoring
threads or individuals, either by automatically filtering them or
rapid application of the Delete key. But not everybody seems able
to do this.
That is exactly what I was suggesting. Of course everyone is able to
do this, they just elect not to. And their refusal to do so then brings
out the moderators because some thread has gone sideways.
That's one big way this decreases diversity: It whittles the group
down, gradually, to mostly just the people who don't much mind insults
and aggressive language and expressions of personal disrespect.
To be clear, I *do* mind being told that I'm stupid (even when it's
true). I think most people do. If we stay here, it's a trade-off,
like looking for diamonds in a heap of dross.
Well I have been called stupid and no I didn't particularly like it. I
was also accused, on an IETF mailing list, of being an NSA plant and
subverting the security of the Internet (the accuser went and raised a
troll army on twitter to accuse me of all sorts of things which caused
a "journalist", and I use the scare quotes intentionally, to publish a
pretty slanderous article based solely on the rantings of twitter trolls,
it was ugly). I have also been accused of hate and bullying and,
unsurprisingly, the guy who accused me of hate and bullying told me I
should be "culled" from the IETF, which means selectively slaughtered
to thin the herd. Nice, right? And I'm the hateful bully.
I didn't like my response to the NSA slander so I have learned to just
ignore that stuff. Tell me I should be "culled", fine. Whatever. I don't
care. Just ignore it.
Dan.
--
"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius
