(breaking my own promise to myself....) --On Tuesday, June 11, 2024 23:22 +0100 Jay Daley <exec-director@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > John > >> On 11 Jun 2024, at 19:52, John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> And, btw, I think we need to be very careful about proposals for >> blanket bans as well. We have several examples in the history of >> the IETF of people who have regularly been unprofessional, >> obnoxious, and disruptive but who have still made important >> technical contributions, maybe ones that no one else could have >> made. > > Without meaning to criticise you for holding this view, I do want > to note that I've heard this same claim in different fora for 20+ > years and it's clear to me that this a particularly pernicious > form of survivorship bias. > > To explain - people who are unprofessional, disruptive, and > obnoxious create a toxic culture that actively drives people away. > In my experience there are always people in that excluded group who > would be more valuable than the person doing the excluding, but we > rarely get to know that because of the exclusion and instead see > the contribution of the person who survived the very toxic culture > they themselves helped to create. It's no wonder that history and > modern corporate culture is littered with examples of mediocre > talents who intentionally create a toxic culture to ensure their > own elevation. > > There's a famous quote I'm fond of - "The culture of any > organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing > to tolerate". In the case of the IETF, the "leader" is the > community through consensus and so long as the community tolerates > and defends the worst behaviour, then it is actively shaping a > culture that it simultaneously laments. Jay, I hope this does not come as too much of a surprise, but I largely agree with everything you say above. I supported RFC 3683 when it was written and, IIR, made a few very small contributions to it. I support the current PR-action against someone who, from my perspective, has been "unprofessional, disruptive, and obnoxious" over an extended period. I am suggesting two things that I do not believe are inconsistent with anything you have said above or, for that matter, with Brian's later comment [1]: (1) When significant actions are taken, or even when PR-actions are proposed by the IESG, they need to be not just fair but perceived of as fair. At least on this side of the pond, some corporations and other organizations have gotten themselves into serious trouble by creating the impression that rules against bad behavior are being selectively enforced in ways that put some groups at a disadvantage relative to others. That is, to me, clearly not going on here, but I think we need to be careful about precedents and future actions. That includes being as sure as possible that our descriptions of problems and bad behaviors do not overreach relative to the actual situation as it might be perceived by a neutral outsider. (2) It also implies --and here I think you have made the point much better than I did -- that, if our real goal is to improve the culture of the organization in the way that the comment you quoted implies, then it would, IMO, behoove us to focus (as BCP 83, not coincidentally, largely does) on disruptive behavior. We should also behave as BCP 83 suggests, which is to concentrate on protecting the organization rather than punishing the behavior and should keep the scope of our actions as narrow as possible consistent with that goal. Focusing on disruptive behavior should clearly include behavior, including behavior that is sufficiently unprofessional or obnoxious to drive other people away. But it should be systematic: if it is to have any useful effect on organizational culture, if we take a PR-action against one person for being regularly obnoxious and/or insulting of other participants (or worse) then we should take similar actions against others who are exhibiting similar degrees of obnoxious or insulting behavior even if their version of obnoxiousness does not precisely match. "Cozy with some of the leadership" should not get anyone a pass for such behavior either. Otherwise, we may be protecting the organization from the behavior of one particular bad actor, but we are doing nothing to improve the culture. best, john [1] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/last-call/Jav9FzR9NJSQGabk9thWdIkC3_w -- last-call mailing list -- last-call@xxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to last-call-leave@xxxxxxxx
