Larry,
You sent me an off-list note on this subject last night, at
around 9:30PM my time. When last I checked, this was a weekend
and some of us do not spent all of weekend evenings reading and
responding to email. When your note caught up with me, it was
even later at night. I started working on a careful response at
that time. I believed that it should be "careful" because I have
gradually learned that, when an email exchange already shows
evidence of miscommunication and especially when issues that are
not engineering-technical are involved, it is wise to take some
time to write and then to review what is being said before
sending the note. I've spent the last few hours trying to
remove a recent snowstorm in spite of a back that has gone
tricky on me, came back in, did one more review of that note,
and sent it. You should have it in hand by now. I then checked
the IETF list and found the note quoted in part below. I do not
consider failure to respond to you instantly, especially on a
weekend, to be a major breach of responsible or reasonable
behavior, even if I'm responding to notes that take less careful
consideration in the interim.
As I hope will be very clear when you read that off-list
response, you misunderstood both what I was saying and the point
I was trying to make. I do believe that there is a problem with
how you, as an attorney giving informed legal advice but also
trying to advocate for particular outcomes, are interacting with
this list. I do not believe it is an ethical problem and
certainly did not mean to imply that your clients were other
than "good" ones. I believe that the style is helping to
obscure the issues here, rather than
clarifying them and bringing us closer to mutual general
understanding and, I hope, consensus. You are certainly
entitled to disagree with that opinion, but I hope the off-list
note will at least bring us closer to a mutual understanding.
One thing I did not say in the off-list note, but perhaps should
have, is that I get even more irritated with people who pose as
researchers, giving balanced presentations of data and options,
but who are actually slanting or censoring information to
forcefully advocate a particular point of view. It is not an
"attorneys versus the rest of us" issue (much less "you versus
me") but one of styles that I believe bring communities closer
to collective understanding and informed consensus rather than
styles that are appropriate when the goal is to influence a
third party whose job it is to pass judgment.
If, after you reread my hastily-written on-list earlier notes,
you conclude that their content contributed to your
misunderstanding of my intent, I apologize for the haste of
writing and that misunderstanding.
If, after reading both this note and that one, you think you are
still due a public apology, please say so. While my off-list
note is one of those long analytical pieces that several
participants in the IETF hate to see, much less read, I don't
consider anything in it to be either private or secret, so feel
free to post it to this list if, for some reason, it makes you
feel even more aggrieved (and understand that I may do so if
this conversation needs to continue and I conclude that it would
inform the conversation -- that is not a threat in any way, I'm
just trying to avoid cluttering the IETF list discussions any
further).
regards,
john
--On Sunday, January 11, 2009 10:26 -0800 Lawrence Rosen
<lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> Why are such emails tolerated on IETF's discussion list?
>
> I have participated on IETF lists for several years now,
> trying hard to respect IETF's culture and norms for civil
> communication. I learned early on that everyone in IETF
> perceives his or her role as an individual serving in the best
> interests of the technologies we jointly need. While none of
> us can fully leave our hats at the door, we are expected to
> represent what is best for the Internet.
>
>...
> I believe I deserve an apology from John, although that may be
> too much for a lawyer to ask.
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