On 2/25/14 10:09 AM, ned+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Again, I take no position on whether or not the question was asked in an > offensive fashion or not. But the way I would prefer to conduct our business is > that substance trumps form. And to my mind the underlying question *was* > relevant. I thought that there was a non-negligible possibility that the intent was to be disruptive (mission accomplished). Given the size of the mailing list and the number of IETF participants it's not very likely that every single person will just let it go. To be honest I have no idea how to deal with intent here and tend to think the fairest thing is to not deal with it to the extent possible (can't always ignore it [for example, the descent of EFF members on the IETF during the TLS authz discussions], but I think you usually can). I thought Lloyd should have ignored it but he didn't, and it seems pretty clear to me that if someone does care about intent, context and history matter a very great deal. Melinda