On 10/14/22 14:11, John C Klensin wrote:
--On Friday, October 14, 2022 12:41 -0400 Keith Moore
<moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
I probably wouldn't use the word "disrespect" here. But
nobody should feel compelled to support ideas or protocols
that they believe are harmful, or even to dissect exactly
what's wrong with such ideas or protocols in detail. Maybe
we just need a standardized, approved way to say "I
respectfully disagree that this is a good idea."
Keith,
Maybe. But that is where we could easily slip into the other
side of the problem. While the language is much better and
presumably conveys more respect, that sort of sentence does not
actually convey more actual information than "<foo> is an
<expletive>" even if it is much nicer.
Agree. But for better or worse, sometimes a participant A is simply
not willing to continue a discussion with participant B. If the
participant A keeps arguing without actually adding information, the
best result is that the discussion will loop. And it's fairly likely to
get ugly as either A or B starts responding less-than-constructively and
the other one then tends to respond in kind. So I think it's maybe
useful to have some convention that politely implies that one
participant doesn't think there's any point in continuing the
discussion, at least not until there's some new information that would
change one or the other's mind, or maybe the proposal has been
substantially revised.
And while whoever is on the receiving end of that message will probably
not like it, they might at least understand that there's an advantage of
not wasting energy on a pointless argument.
Such arguments are of course not limited to discussion of ideas that,
for example, seem to lack a basic understanding of the laws of physics,
mathematics, economics, etc.
Keith
