"In IETF, it is MORE IMPORTANT to point out potential problems
associated with a proposal, than to withhold such input for fear
of seeming rude. It's even an obligation if the
consequences seem important. Even if you don't believe you have
the status necessary to question the judgment of that person.
Even if you might be wrong. Even if your voice shakes"
And even if it completely destroys your subsequent career prospects!
Lloyd Wood lloyd.wood@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://about.me/lloydwood
From: Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: ietf@xxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, 28 March 2019, 8:10
Subject: cultural sensitivity towards new comers
[Not in reply to any specific message, because I don't want this
to read like an accusation against anyone who has participated in
this thread. It's not.]
I believe that an insistence on politeness in IETF would likely
have tragic consequences.
For one thing, politeness differs from one culture to another.
What's polite in one culture is rude in another. It's all well
and good to be sensitive to other people's cultural assumptions
(as well as one's own), but sometimes those assumptions don't
serve IETF's purpose well. For example, we don't need a social
hierarchy in IETF that protects those who are older, or more
experienced in IETF, or holding leadership positions, or working
for big companies, from having their judgment questioned. (And
yet I've see people in IETF withhold criticism for many of these
reasons.)
So if we're trying to make IETF less hostile to newcomers, and/or
to people who have different presumptions of politeness and
rudeness, we should talk in terms of specific behaviors and speech
patterns rather than presume that "politeness" means the same
thing to everyone. It doesn't.
Also, I've seen so many examples where an expectation of
"politeness" was used to protect abusive people, and/or to
manipulate people into agreeing to things that were harmful
(including in IETF but not exclusively there), that I've become
very skeptical of demands for politeness.
At first hearing, such expectations sound reasonable. What
could be wrong with politeness? Most of the time, nothing..
It's when politeness is expected or demanded, when it becomes more
important than the integrity of our work, that it becomes a
problem. Manipulative people will construct their arguments in
such a way that it seems impolite to object, no matter how harmful
their demands might be. Yes, even in IETF.
In IETF, it is MORE IMPORTANT to point out potential problems
associated with a proposal, than to withhold such input for fear
of seeming rude. It's even an obligation if the
consequences seem important. Even if you don't believe you have
the status necessary to question the judgment of that person.
Even if you might be wrong. Even if your voice shakes.
Of course, you should try to do that respectfully. But it's better to be blunt than to not speak up at all. This is vital.
Of course, you should try to do that respectfully. But it's better to be blunt than to not speak up at all. This is vital.
Keith
p.s. A colleague expressed this in private mail and I hope he
doesn't mind me repeating this here. It's been reported that
Boeing designed the 737MAX stability augmentation firmware to only
read one angle-of-attack sensor for each flight, alternating
between left-and-right on successive flights. I hope this report
is in error, but for the purpose of this example I'll assume it's
accurate. Of all of the aeronautical engineers which must surely
have been involved in the design and review of the 737MAX
firmware, it's hard for me to believe that nobody noticed that
using the angle-of-attack sensors in this way was actually less
reliable than using a single sensor - because the alternating
behavior would mask failures and create more opportunities for
such failures to result in catastrophe. I sincerely hope that
the culture at Boeing, and every other aircraft manufacturer, is
to encourage calling attention to potential safety issues even
when, say, this involves calling a superior or more senior
person's judgment into question, and there's no penalty for doing
so even if one is wrong. But if the report turns out to be true,
I hope a lot of attention is paid to the safety culture at Boeing
and other aircraft manufacturers also.
