On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 at 23:04, Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sent from my iPhoneOn Mon, 15 Jul 2019 at 18:50, Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:On 7/15/19 12:32 PM, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews wrote:
> To reinforce what Melinda's saying: I dedicate less time to IETF work
> than I otherwise would, specifically because of the hostile and alien
> nature of debate here. I have colleagues who feel the same way, and
> other colleagues who refrain entirely from participating at the IETF
> because of it.
I believe you. But could you drill down a bit into (i.e. define more
precisely) "hostile" and/or "alien"? Because I suspect these words
mean different things to different people.
Almost certainly the precise meaning taken differs, but the essential meaning here is that some IETFers choose to be blunt, and this drives others away.Could you be more precise about what it means to be “blunt”? Because I’m not sure that I know what you mean. I can think of several possible alternatives:
Would "unnecessarily aggressive" be clearer? Perhaps simply "unwelcoming" is enough to cover it.
- let’s say (for the sake of example) that my informed technical opinion is that NATs pose a grave threat to the security and stability of the internet and to the internet’s ability to support diverse applications. [*] Is it too “blunt” of me to say so? Or am I obligated to pretend, for the sake of “politeness” that NATs are somehow more virtuous than that, because others believe that they are? In other words, do I have an obligation to be dishonest for the sake of protecting others’ egos or their employers’ products?[*] note: this is just an example; my current position on NATs is more layered and nuanced than that.
That's more or less my opinion on NATs too. In fact, I think it was you that impressed me with that opinion a couple of decades ago. NATs are a compromised workaround at best, I think, running roughshod over the ability to have every endpoint on the network addressable and able to host services. I don't think anyone should take offence at that, though some people (and, indeed, their employers) might disagree with it. Disagreement is a precursor to persuasion, after all. I don't think I've suggested anywhere that one should withhold opinions - in fact, I've tried to suggest quite the opposite, that everyone should be comfortable to do so.
Politeness surely isn't a bad thing that needs careful protection with scare-quotes. Surely if you're not polite, you're being impolite? I don't see how that is a useful strategy for either persuasion or encouraging debate.
But look at what you're doing here - isn't the premise of your paragraph here is that I am suggesting, in a debate over how to encourage people to express opinion, that they should not express their opinions? I can't decide whether I'd be happier if I were so hopelessly unclear that I gave that impression, or you were attacking a strawman of your own creation instead. Either way, you go on to demolish the point with "words" in "quotes", and lots of rhetorical questions which, to my shame, I have answered. Now, what is this exchange doing that a simple statement such as "I think there's no question that any self-censorship of one's opinions would be extremely harmful, and would cause serious damage to the IETF and the Internet as a whole" does not do as well, or better? I could agree with that in principle, of course, but I'd note then that the tone one uses can act as censorship very effectively too - both on ones own ideas and those of others. But look at me, blatantly making a strawman. For anyone watching, I should note for the record that I am not remotely offended, and furthermore, holding Keith in the highest respect, I do not intend any offence. Yet I could readily understand being faced with such a style of argument to be a daunting experience.
In general, I think it's more effective to minimize the emotion transmitted alongside the opinion, and try to ensure that the phrasing incites the intellect and not the emotion. It does make it more boring, but I think it helps overall. And I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who has tried it both ways, and found this way better - go read the IMAP-WG archives from 15 years ago or so. I had some fiery arguments with Mark back in the day. I enjoy a bit of sarcasm as much as - no, way more - than the next man. I've just found it's not an effective method of persuasion.
- or am I supposed to treat every technical proposal or decision as if it’s a good one, and refrain from pointing out flaws, or refrain from attempting to express just how harmful a proposal or decision appears to me to be? If I think that launching the spacecraft in below-freezing weather will significantly risk killing the crew, or that a proposed bridge design is likely to fail in a heavy wind, with potential loss of life, am I expected to say that in veiled terms like “I recommend against that”?
You should read up on Crew Resource Management, which discusses this kind of behaviour (often with the same examples, so I suspect you know of it) in intricate detail, but the summary is "no". Pointing out serious issues, assertively, and explaining why you feel these are serious, should be welcomed. Treating every technical proposal or decision as if it's made in good faith, though, is good - and if everyone does that, your warnings of doom should be more heeded, not less.
But most of what I'm concerned about isn't shielding the leadership likely to make decisions, but encouraging newcomers to engage - inevitably, as newcomers, the stakes are much much lower, and the need for feedback less urgent, so you can deliver the message needed in a calmer way.
- or am I supposed to avoid technical discussion of details of a proposal or decision that might embarrass the person making the proposal or decision?
You're supposed to discuss technical details and decisions in a way that avoids the embarrassment of the person making the proposal or decision.
And make no mistake, this *is* a choice, and I've only ever seen long-time, "senior", IETFers defend that choice publicly.It may be that very experienced and competent engineers are more likely to understand the value in it. IETF was blessed to attract a lot of extremely competent people in its early days.
I think it's more likely that most people who have spent a significant period of time on these mailing lists are the ones who have grown used to it and consider it normal, or at least can be comfortable with it.
It's a sort of survivor bias of IETF participants.
When I joined my first IETF list nearly 25 years ago, I was one of the younger ones. I think I still am. While I appreciate the way the IETF keeps me feeling young, I'm not entirely convinced this is an overall positive outcome for the IETF.
This means avoiding being blunt when we offer our opinions, as well as trying to tease out the useful opinion from the bluntness of others.I disagree with that generality. I don’t think it’s welcoming to people to not take them seriously. One way to not take someone seriously is to humor them when they make bad suggestions and act as if they were good ones. That’s not to say that I think they should have to endure scathing criticism of their ideas (and certainly not of themselves). But sometimes it is necessary to be clear.
Yes, you're right. The point I was trying to make was that an opinion delivered aggressively, or with sarcasm, or whatever remains an opinion. We are of course free to disagree with it, but as readers, we should try to understand the actual opinion and disagree with that. I didn't intend to suggest that all opinions are equally correct, but it is often useful to understand others' viewpoints and why they hold them. After all, it allows one to construct more persuasive arguments against them. It is that utility that I meant by "useful".
To put it another way, we should be conservative in what we send, and liberal in what we accept from others.. Just like that principle, it should not bar us from noting and rejecting bad input - but we shouldn't let that be the cause of a fatal error.I had started to cite that principle myself but found too many cases for which it produced bad results. At least we agree that we should be able to reject “bad input”.
Sorry, this was not as clear as I'd have liked.
I actually intended the "bad input" to mean stripping out the aggressiveness or whatever and rejecting that, so as to concentrate on the substance. But again that's unclear, since I don't mean to suggest we cannot reject poor arguments, invalid statements, and so on. We not only can, we should.
I'm glad to see that you note in your example that the people were put off speaking up by their perception of you.I’m not sure it was their perception of me personally that deterred them- it could have easily been either (IMO) a harmful form of “politeness” (don’t question someone of higher status) and/or a judgment that disagreeing with someone on IESG (ie someone in a position of power) would invite retaliation from that person. After all, in a corporate world these are often the norm (or so I’m told). I regard both ideas as harmful to the practice of engineering no matter what the environment. (And potentially abusive, if enforced in a work environment.)
Yes, I agree it was almost certainly you as "IESG Person". I agree with you that this is harmful to discussion. I think that this demonstrates an institutional malaise on the part of the IETF which will require a considerable amount of work from both the leadership and the community.
a) By describing the actions as stupid, this carried a (unwanted) implication that those carrying out the action were stupid. Only stupid people do stupid things, but even clever people can make serious errors.Disagree. I don’t consider myself stupid, but I’ve done a lot of stupid things and I don’t mind saying so. I also generally find it extremely harmful when people take it on themselves to police others’ language. By all means let’s avoid and discourage direct personal insults of all kinds, but at the same time let’s not be eager to find fault with others’ choice of words.Sometimes “stupid” really does seem like the best word to describe an automaton. I’d be okay with forbidding it if we found or coined a suitable replacement. But we might be searching a while to develop an adequate vocabulary for the spectrum of things we need to express that won’t offend anybody.
I largely agree with you, and have a plethora of excitingly stupid things I've done as well. I'm also observing other people's opinions. If some people thought there was such an implication, then some people thought it, and whether they were right or wrong to think that way, the effect was a reduction in constructive participation. We should strive to maximize constructive participation.
b) Rather than call out that choice of words but answer the essential points, the organisation chose instead to chastise the sender publicly and leave the points unanswered - unwittingly shutting down the discussion.Different people will have different opinions, and I don’t want to add fuel to that particular fire, but my analysis of that conversation was somewhat different.
Sorry. "Shutting down" was an unwarranted exaggeration. But I think it did indeed reduce constructive participation.
Dave.
