Two observations. I will try to be brief.
--On Saturday, June 11, 2016 19:59 -0400 John Leslie
<john@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> There is no actual record of the Secretariat doing so. This
> may be a good thing; but leaving this uncertain doesn't help
> the rest of us to understand what behaviors will be so
> punished.
To paraphrase part of the discussion about anti-harassment
policies, our goal should be to educate, not to punish.
Permanent posting bans are a necessary possibility when the
community concludes that some behavior is so intrusive or
obnoxious that the bans are needed to protect the integrity of
the standards process, but anything short of that (including
private advice, warnings, and temporary suspensions) need to be
seen as "timeouts" or other mechanisms to help people understand
the bounds of good behavior, that the community will not
tolerate bad behavior and, preferably, to help the offenders
learn from that and improve their ways.
>> First, and perhaps most important, all discussion of role of
>> families in meeting site decisions, priorities, etc. is of
>> course completely OK.
>
> Keep in mind that for many, English isn't their first
> language.
>
> "Discussion" being "completely OK" doesn't adequately hint
> that particular expressions of a personal opinion are NOT OK.
> Again, alas, it can be read differently by different folks.
> :^(
>
> And opinions differ greatly as to what constitutes
> disrespect. :^(
Especially in any environment in which we have large cultural
differences and many people who learned English after early
childhood (some better than others) and we, though other
distinctions, are trying to increase the size of both groups
(and noting that the target in the example I'm about to use is
deliberately facetious and independent of any group we are
likely to encounter, not a comment about any group included or
potentially included in the community):
(i) SoAndSo has three heads, therefore may not have the
right perspective to comment on protocols designed for
one-headed people.
(ii) SoAndSo has three heads, so comments and technical
positions in the IETF from SoAndSo cannot be taken
seriously.
(iii) I don't believe that having three heads is natural
and believe that having three heads is a matter of
choice. I think those who exhibit such trends should
get over it.
(iv) I have no respect for anyone who has three heads.
(v) I have no respect for anyone closely associated with
people who have three heads, whether they have three
heads of not.
Now I'm not only a native first-language speaker of English, but
had parents who forced me, from a tender age, to understand
distinctions like those among the examples above. However, I
have no confidence at all that I could tease them out from text
in a language with which I had only reading and some writing
familiarity, especially if that language and mine were
associated with different cultural backgrounds. For all I know,
some languages and cultures may not even consider them distinct.
I think those who write comments to IETF lists, especially
comments in discussion threads that have already shown
themselves to be controversial and/or sensitive, need to
understand that English does make those distinctions and to be
careful about choices of wording and tone. I also think those
of us who read such postings need to be sensitive to whether or
not we are sure about whether some comment is intentionally
disrespectful or obnoxious or whether it might be a
mis-expression or mis-translation of some other thought. I
hope the analogy between that view of those who post and read
and the robustness principle is clear.
And, again, if we can concentrate on education rather than
punishment, it will help a lot, at least IMO.
john